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by Abishek_Muthian 2151 days ago
This type of infrastructure credits can really accelerate a bootstrapped startup, unfortunately almost every major provider of such freebies have now moved on to 'Contact your nearest Accelerator/VC' type model.

Google was the first to move that way, now Microsoft has cancelled its Bootstrap program and even Facebook has done away with its Startup Accelerator program in favour of 'Contact your nearest Accelerator/VC we approve of' model.

I was personally benefitted by Facebook's aforementioned Accelerator program. I applied for my previous startup's privacy focused chat-app-network dating platform for their bootstrap phase, but they directly approved it for their Accelerator phase through which I received $80,000 worth benefits incl. $15,000 AWS credits on which I ran my product; these kind of help makes life or death difference for a disabled soloprenuer from a village in India running bootstrapped startup(Facebook doesn't know this).

Now anyone in my position is at the mercy of some Accelerator or VC.

1 comments

Dude. WHAT are you doing.

I understand that your situation mandates a bit of pragmatism in order to survive.

If that is the case, why are you painting a target on your back?

Do you seriously think nobody at Facebook reads this?

You just admitted, with your REAL NAME, that you basically lied to Facebook about information that actively poses a liability to them and took their money.

I am seriously baffled as to why you think this comment was a good idea.

I am not trying to antagonize you, but highlighting the fact that you are vulnerable while publicizing information that exacerbates the situation does not align here.

I told Facebook doesn't know "I'm disabled" that's all, To imply I got selected meritoriously.

Obviously everything about my Startup was part of my application details, since my application was hosted on Facebook platform(messenger app) it knew the statistics as well and I believe that's the reason it got selected.

Then again, its Facebook we are talking about here, it might even know what I had for breakfast the day I applied.

But I believe you made that comment out of concern of my well-being, I appreciate that and I apologise if my sentence formation caused unnecessary confusion.

P.S. I use my real name here to own accountability of the things I write here and to ensure I don't compromise my integrity in the lure of anonymity/pseudo-anonymity(No offence to anyone who don't use their real name, I understand).

Understood. Definitely an overreaction on my part. Just a little weary from how exclusive these applications can be and what the consequences can look like.

No need to apologize.

Wish you well.

I think you might be overreacting to this, he said Facebook didn't know his situation, that doesn't mean he lied about it. It's not really necessarily relevant where he's from or what disabilities he has.