David Cohen of TechStars on Colorado Startups: Don’t prop them up:

Taylor and I talked briefly about how some incubator models take a very service heavy approach. Some offer up sustained “marketing services”, or other “business services” and work with companies for many years. We both talked about how we’re not huge fans of that model. At TechStars, we like to teach them how to fish (in 3 months), then let them go fishing. We don’t want to catch all the fish for them. If they catch fish, they live. If they don’t they die. And that’s natural selection, and that’s good.

We talked about the need to force companies to sink or swim early on in their lives, and to focus on building their teams and fixing their weaknesses from day one. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always disliked it somewhat when people call TechStars “an incubator.” Don’t get me wrong, some true (old school) incubators are fantastic for the right kinds of companies, I’m sure. But right or wrong, for me, the term incubator evokes an image of companies who can’t (or won’t) survive in the wild.

In complete honesty I’ve voiced my opinions before on both sides of the debate, in past posts on the trends in venture capital and entrepreneurship and the “investment and services model” of companies such as Venture 51 and Herman Blackbook’s new New Platforms Fund.

There is no “right answer”.
The fact is that every investor in early-stage ventures provides some aspect of help for some period of time; the question is how, to what extent and for how long do you help an entrepreneur?

How and when do you make someone “fish” on their own?

Consider the wide range of models to create and support new ventures: university-based research commercialization and technology transfer, government-led entrepreneurship agendas and technology corridors, government-funded venture funds, angel investors, angel networks, the variety of pre-seed, seed, Series A and B stage investors, mentorship-based seed funds, corporate venture capital, strategic business development, co-working groups and establishments, co-working incubators, open-source venture commons, Startup Weekend, business plan competitions et. al.

Competitive pressure forces us use our professional backgrounds, networks, skillsets and career goals to create different models to invest in and support new ventures. As a person who believes in personal responsibility, testing ideas by building instead of planning, under-optimizing, learning through failure and developing the ability to seamlessly interact with others to create value, I believe it’s most valuable to learn how well you, your team and your ideas work as soon as possible: quickly, efficiently and cheaply.

There will always be a wide range of approaches to funding and supporting early-stage ventures.
The fact is that the extent of help we provide will always be different because we are people helping people. We are creating businesses across a wide range of technologies and industries with a variety of backgrounds, value structures and personal goals.

It’s a big pond with lots of fish and lots of people fishing. We’ll always fish different ways. That’s what makes life and business fun.