The age of prestigious incubators and accelerators is coming to an end IMO.
As we wrap up the 2010s, I feel that a lot of the entrepreneurial wave in this decade was catalyzed by the founding of mobile app stores, the network effects of expanding social medias and cloud services making software deployments easier than ever.
Incubators seemed well poised to help this flood of new entrepreneurs navigate the changing landscapes and get exposure to investors, but by now people have become more savvy and this is mostly a solved problem.
Investors are also well aware by now that incubators do not magically produce unicorns or even great companies, and are looking for better returns elsewhere. Demo Days are mostly a lazy way to sit and listen to a bunch of pitches without really giving a fuck. I know at one demo day a couple of investors spent most of their time talking in the hallway while founders pitched on. Investors know all your tricks to make your company seem more appetizing: fake appointments in your calendars, strategically chosen metrics, name dropping, paper trails, etc...
if you just look at a sampling of these startups, i think you're wrong - entrepreneurship has always been about applying technologies in disruptive ways and the companies are following the trends - IoT, alternative reality and disrupting traditionally non-tech spaces like assisted living.
you may be right about the rest but then again entrepreneurship is becoming a more mature market and investors actually have more people on their team to "guide" them about what a "hot" startup looks like(hence them seeming bored at pitches that aren't going to predictively skyrocket imo)
As we wrap up the 2010s, I feel that a lot of the entrepreneurial wave in this decade was catalyzed by the founding of mobile app stores, the network effects of expanding social medias and cloud services making software deployments easier than ever.
Incubators seemed well poised to help this flood of new entrepreneurs navigate the changing landscapes and get exposure to investors, but by now people have become more savvy and this is mostly a solved problem.
Investors are also well aware by now that incubators do not magically produce unicorns or even great companies, and are looking for better returns elsewhere. Demo Days are mostly a lazy way to sit and listen to a bunch of pitches without really giving a fuck. I know at one demo day a couple of investors spent most of their time talking in the hallway while founders pitched on. Investors know all your tricks to make your company seem more appetizing: fake appointments in your calendars, strategically chosen metrics, name dropping, paper trails, etc...