post launch FAQ
Wow, what a great launch yesterday. We received quite a few questions from some super-smart people so we thought we’d do our best to answer some of them here:
Why the name HackFwd?
Above all else we value hacking and hackers, in fact we think hacking is a mindset. All of the team have had their greatest successes by either hacking something out themselves or by working with great hackers. With the name HackFwd (i.e. hacking forward) we hope that it reflects what’s most important to us - offering our startups the opportunity to progress by doing what they love, whether coding or generally hacking it out.
Who is our competition and why are we different?
We don’t think of Y Combinator, Techstars or Seedcamp as competition. In fact we’re excited to work with all of these groups, particularly Seedcamp, also based in Europe. We think our offer will prove to be highly complementary - after all we both want to grow the European tech startup ecosystem which has lagged behind the US for too long now.
Some of our differentiators (from the perspective of our startups) include:
1. We offer a year long programme that includes a salary package for 1-3 person geek teams (offer details PDF)
2. We take on boring admin (payroll & accounting) and specialist tasks (hiring & corporate finance), allowing the startup to focus 100% on building out its product
3. We offer a pan-European network of experts to advise the startups. Experts include HackFwd staff, the referrers and the board of HackFwd Capital
4. We offer Quarterly events when the whole community gets together in Mallorca for shared learning and inspiration
5. We look for geeks with ideas pre-Beta (we hope that some will go on to enter Seedcamp once launched)
6. We offer equity for the startups to give to their advisors - we believe this will bond our community together
7. We have tried to simplify the whole process (for example by writing all contracts (PDF) in plain English)
8. Our terms and legal documents are completely transparent which means you know exactly what you will get prior to making any commitment
Why we take 27%?
We have spent a long time thinking through this issue - particularly since we invest a huge amount in our startups both directly and indirectly. Given the length of the list above, we think these terms are reasonable, particularly since our startups are pre-Beta. In addition, we expect many of our startups will not pursue a second round of financing and rather will continue their growth organically, after all scaling tech businesses is lower cost than ever before. We are offering advice, support and exposure via a pan-European network that money simply cannot buy. We will be marketing the companies through our platform and when necessary, we will ensure they are well positioned for a second round of financing. Quite simply, we think it’s fair.
Are we like a Klingon Warship?
In this cool article on TechCrunch, Mike Butcher wrote that we were “Like a Klingon starship de-cloaking in the middle of Europe, Lars Hinrichs is putting his efforts onto a new startup investment vehicle dubbed HackFwd.”
We love the simile and that it has provoked an amazing dialogue on Hacker News. We have to acknowledge that cloaking devices were first introduced and used by the Romulans (rather than the Klingons) in the original Star Trek episode “Balance of Terror”. That being said if any of our startups crack cloaking technology we’ll definitely volunteer as first Beta users.
And unlike the Klingons we come on a friendly mission but eager to disrupt the European technology landscape. We promise to break the Star Fleet Prime Directive - we aim to disrupt the ecosystem’s status quo!
Qapla’ batlh je
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This last question will be tough to beat but keep them coming!!!
