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By PASCAL FINETTE

The Heretic is a free dispatch delivering insights into what it takes to lead into & in the unknown. For entrepreneurs, corporate irritants and change makers. Raw, unfiltered and opinionated.

be radical.

Mar 12th, 2013 Share: Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn

Guard your Reputation

Incubators and accelerators are the new business plan competition. In years past you would receive external validation by entering and winning (or at least placing) in a business plan competition. There was an informal ranking of those competitions — if it was organized by one of the big consulting companies you were part of the mighty ziggurat, if it was done by your local community college you were at the bottom of the pile.

Incubators and accelerators are just the same. If you get accepted into one of the top programs (say Y Combinator or TechStars), you receive instant credibility. The success of your predecessors shines bright on you. Yet if you go through a program which might be run with the best of intentions and provides real value to you personally but doesn’t have a reputation you can only hope that it won’t affect your credibility score in a negative way. More often than not it sadly does.

This is all to say that you should make your decisions consciously. Consider the whole playing field before you make your move. And choose wisely: Red pill or blue pill. The choice is yours and there will be no-one else to blame.


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