Hacker House – The Buzz is Building
Hello there and welcome to the first cycle (Fall 2011) of the Hive Hacker House project!
Our program aims to be Waterloo’s first totally free live-in technology incubator/accelerator for tech-savvy and entrepreneurially minded students who study at either UW or WLU during the school year. Hive is loosely modelled after the successful Y Combinator program started by Paul Graham and largely inspired by The Grotto, a collective workspace for talented writers, filmmakers and artists in San Francisco.
Why Waterloo and Why Now?
We’ve long held the belief that the Kitchener-Waterloo area has the potential to rival some of the worlds foremost technology driven centers in the US and the world. Yes it’s true that Waterloo already has some great technology companies. It’s also true that the Waterloo area universities churn out of the most gifted and technically well rounded software engineers and developers in the world. What appears to be wholly missing from this equation however is a truly passionate and hungry entrepreneurially driven culture. Why? The mindset for incoming students to the universities in the Tri-Cities region has long been to put in the 3 or 4 years in a rigorous undergraduate CS or Eng program, supplement it with several co-op terms, and then sign on to a virtually guaranteed well paying, long and cushy tenure at one of the bluechip technology companies (or IT division of a large company) in the region or elsewhere. It’s that assured safety net, the intense course workload, coupled with a weak ecosystem for venture/seed capital north of the border and a generally more grounded and less hype-driven go-go-go culture focused on producing tangible technology with real world application that dissuades students from risking to try and fail on their own. The net result: a market brimming with tonnes of latent potential trapped for far too long.
It’s not like others have not taken notice of the potential either. Google is one of the few companies wise to the calibre of talent in this region and has quietly made acquisition after acquisition after acquisition, in the process acquiring some of the brightest minds in the world and great technologies at a fraction of the cost of acquisitions in locations propped up by large pools of cash and buzz like Silicon Valley. Course while the Bay Area justifiably gets a lionshare of the spotlight in the internet, new media, mobile and software space, Waterloo seems to be one of those few markets where the aggregate quality of the talent pool has the ability to build the next generation of great technology giants. Frankly, if I was a wagering man and had to place odds on where the next Google, Apple or Facebook would emerge, Waterloo is about as good a bet as any region in the world. Add to that support from the second most active mobile application development market in the world an hours drive east of the city in Toronto, and it is clear that the Southern Ontario region is starting to produce large swaths of savvy and tuned in under-30 entrepreneurs who are foregoing the big company digs in favour of venturing out on their own. The only thing one can argue that Waterloo really lacks are the “hustlers” to augment the calibre of the hacker pool.
Of course, the Waterloo area has stepped up its game in recent years to catalyze the talent pool and get more young minds exploring self directed innovation and entrepreneurship. UW launched the Velocity residence in Fall 2010, a fantastic program, supplementing other local initiatives such as Communitech and the Accelerator Center. In the spirit of continuing to foster innovation within the region, we now throw the Hive Hacker House into the mix, offering a bit of a unique take on the traditional accelerator/incubator concept.
What makes Hacker House different?
Our premise is simple. While a large number of accelerator/incubator programs tend to support post-graduate entrepreneurs who bring forward their own ideas with equity, mentorship and some operational support, we think it makes most sense to try to drive innovation WHILE students are still in university, and drive innovation in a way that brings the brightest hackers together under one setting, irregardless of whether they bring their own ideas or not at onset. We think it’s not so much the idea that matters as much as it is the melding of bright minds in a relaxed, unstructured and unhurried environment that can then support great things collectively. Especially in a market like Waterloo, with phenomenal architects, what is lacking is big entrepreneurial vision and execution; often times hackers in ‘technically capable, but innovationally challenged’ markets who venture out on their own, dead set on implementing their own ideas in their own way, set the bar too low and are pigeonholed into a very ‘for us, by us’ type mentality which does not allow them to utilize the full breadth of their abilities for larger market opportunities. Course there is nothing wrong with targeting small verticals or markets one is intimately familiar and well versed in but to paraphrase or analogize a great scene from the movie Swingers, Waterloo is ‘so money, and it doesn’t even know it’.
That is where our support comes in. We are 3 successful, young, under-30 entrepreneurs who are passionate about all things web and internet and have a pulse for the ever changing web and mobile landscape in a way you typically don’t get from older and less hands-on advisors, educators and mentors. Our goal is to find the brightest minds in the university and muse, blueprint and tinker collectively on cutting edge ventures and hopefully foster lasting connections and develop deep insights that then allows ‘graduates’ from the Hive Hacker House to take the road less traveled after graduating, giving them the underpinnings to innovate on their own or encouraging them to explore challenging opportunities at smaller, more agile environments within the region. All the while doing it in a way that runs concurrent with an existing plan of study and offers rent in our cozy shack just minutes from the university during the school term/year at no cost.
Ultimately, this is our way of supporting local innovation, prospecting on the next big thing(s) and connecting with the pulse of the startup scene in Kitchener-Waterloo region and we are absolutely thrilled to be bringing it to you. If you live in the area, we would love if you can help spread the word and let like minded friends know about the program so we get a buzz building before the launch of our first cycle. In any case, you’ll definitely be hearing a lot more from us in the coming months and years as we look to do some great things together. All that’s missing now is you!
