If you didn’t catch the recent TechCrunch post on Y Combinator’s decision to sync its application deadlines with other seed accelerator programs, beyond the decision, there was one other key bit of information at the tail end of the post:

This session’s application includes one other notable change: startups are being encouraged to submit their applications as early as possible. Before now, half of all applications have been submitted in the last two days before the deadline as founders work to polish their applications. This time, the YC team will be reviewing applications earlier and interacting with founders before the deadline, so it’s in your best interest to apply as early as possible.

Sound like the “Begin a Dialogue” advice from my seed fund application advice post?  Yep…  Get cranking on those applications!

Fast Company is releasing a 5-part series on great cities for start ups. So far, New York City, Boulder, and the latest, Seattle, have been published. That only leaves 2 spots and Philly should be one of them. Innovation Philadelphia asked Fast Company how Philly could get noticed because, well, it deserves to be. To get our great city included, send your thoughts and ideas on Why You Should Start a Company in… Philadelphia to ideas(at)fastcompany(dot)com.

If you haven’t read Thomas Friedman’s NY Times Op-Ed on making 2010 the year of innovation, you should. Friedman raises a number of interesting points around how President Obama has allowed the grassroots movement that carried him into Washington to disperse and that Obama should focus on inspiring long term economic development through entrepreneurship and innovation. All are great points and ones that I agree with.

However, I think Friedman missed an opportunity with his Op-Ed and one that is unfortunate, given how widely read the column will become. We don’t need a mandate from Washington to make 2010 a year where America emphasizes innovation. This goes back to the comments on the grassroots elements that Friedman opens his column with - each of us, individually, has the ability to make an impact and inspire action, and contribute to change that we effect together. When America is at its best, it is a nation of individuals striving collectively towards a larger vision.

Let’s make 2010 the year that each of us focuses on how we can be innovative ourselves and encourage others to do the same.

How many ideas did we ponder ourselves or listen to from others last year? The ideas that if we change x or did y, there would be some improvement, something changed for the better. How many of these ideas did we take action on? How many of these fall by the wayside, even though it was something that we could have done something about in just a few moments?

Let’s make a concerted effort in 2010 to encourage ourselves and others to do more to be innovative - to explore and take some kind of action on these ideas.

One of the most interesting and encouraging things about working with startups is the motivation and drive that each entrepreneur has, and the belief that they can change the world in some way, no matter how small. They are also highly optimistic, believe that they can make this change, in spite of odds that are set against them.

What can we take from this? First, that it is important to remember that the initial idea doesn’t need to be perfectly formed. Innovation and entrepreneurship is all about starting somewhere and figuring out what works. Second, we need to keep in mind that there isn’t just one way of looking at the world and solving problems. And finally that there is very little downside.

And the important thing to remember is that entrepreneurship is not just about business. Innovation and entrepreneurial spirit can be applied to anything and the impact can be huge.

This is fortunate, because we as a nation and as a world have huge problems facing us. Climate change and poverty for starters.

These may seem to be massive problems, but we can’t just sit here and stare at the big, looming issues. We need to start tackling them somewhere. And this is where we can all make an impact, without a mandate from Washington. Each of us sees the world differently and has different ideas about how things should be done. Don’t just sit there and complain about it - use that spark, that motivation, to figure out something small that you can do about it.

Look at the power that kind of reaction had for the people of Haiti. And what was required? Just sending one text message. And, given how easy it is to spread an idea virally via the web today, then lots of those people encouraged others to do the same. The result to date has been somewhere around $20 million dollars.

We don’t need a mandate or CNN coverage to inspire us to act or tell us what we should do, though.

So, for 2010, figure out what you can do to help make this a year of innovation. Start by being innovative in some way yourself and encouraging others to do the same. I’m making this one of my goals for the year. Start by making it one of yours.

“Just as a parachuter accelerates at 32 feet/second/second until reaching terminal velocity, there is a point in our existence as humans that stress acceleration will take us to terminal velocity in the quality of our lives.”

Interesting stuff and very true - where do we go from here?

Inkling Markets, a Y Combinator company, released a collaboration product that they built for their own internal needs.  Lots of great stuff starts this way - Ruby on Rails was famously extracted from 37 Signals’ Basecamp product. Good to see more companies taking products that work for them and making them available.

DreamIt 2009 was a fantastic experience - tons of great speakers, awesome companies to work alongside, and smart mentors to learn from.  Plus, it’s right in the middle of Philly’s very vibrant startup scene.  You should apply!

There are lots of great advice posts on the application process to seed accelerator programs like Y Combinator, TechStars, and DreamIt Ventures. (And many others.) I was recently advising someone interested in applying to one such program on what we did right at Three Screen Games that helped us get into the Philadelphia-based DreamIt Ventures program. I figured the thoughts might be useful to others, so here they are…

Begin a Dialogue

Unlike most other application processes that you’re probably familiar with (college, grad school, etc.), there’s something that’s uniquely different about applying to a seed accelerator program. The application is not a black box. You don’t send in your application and just sit back, waiting to get a response. If you do, you probably won’t get in, or your chances of a positive outcome are reduced.

Instead, you want to send in your application early and start a conversation. Whether it’s through the questions that Y Combinator posts back to you through their application system or engaging in a conversation with the program partners via email, you want to get this dialogue flowing. There are several reasons. First, the reactions you get back on the initial idea are probably what you’d hear back if you just mailed in the application. Don’t pass up an opportunity to find out what they think and be able to refine your concept further. Second, the entrepreneurial process is very much about putting a concept out there, testing it in the market, iterating to make adjustments, and repeating. By starting the dialogue early, you have an opportunity to demonstrate that you can not only put a good idea out there, but that you can also take feedback, choose the input that is critical, and iterate again. You’ll be doing this throughout the life of the business - you might as well get started…

Show Progress

You’ve put your idea out there, gotten some feedback, replied intelligently - the conversation is underway. Now what?

The question that everyone asks is “Do I need a working prototype?” I think there’s been a lot of discussion out there that shows that the vast majority of companies who apply to seed accelerator programs have a prototype and may have done a little market testing.

But, the key is not the code. The critical element is showing that you can make progress.

We did not have a coded prototype when we applied to DreamIt. (I hacked the first version of FanGamb together in a week or so before the DreamIt program started in May, so we started the program with code that we could use to market test the concept, but we did not have a coded prototype when we applied.)

You don’t need code to show that you can make progress with an idea. In fact, there are a lot of other things you probably want to do before laying down code. So, if you’re a business-guy and you can’t code the prototype, go and get yourself a wireframing tool (Balsamiq rocks!) and figure out what the thing will actually look like. Figure out how to do a “paper prototype” and test your target market. (We ran a test of the early game rules for FanGamb with a spreadsheet and email during the March Madness tournament. No code needed to get a lot of useful insight and learn that people actually enjoyed playing the game.) Identify the key assumptions in your business and derisk them. Figure out what you will need for a MVP and how you’ll build it. Talk to customers. Figure out how to be agile, iterate, and pivot.

Mike Levinson, a DreamIt Ventures partner, wrote a blog post that captures this well in the last paragraph. In short, three non-technical entrepreneurs approached him before DreamIt’s applications opened. He told all three to go and make progress on their ideas and get back to him. Only one put a set of mockups together and formed a technology team. Guess who was accepted and who was not?

So, in short, find a way to show that you can execute. There are many ways to demonstrate this.  After all, execution more than anything else is the key to success in startups. And unless you can show that, all you demonstrate is that you can respond to an application form and send emails.

How Can We Help You?

Aside from making sure that you have a business idea that they can get behind and that you seem like a team that can execute, the program partners have another key concern. They want the business to be one that they can help you with. Fair enough - otherwise, what’s the point? Excluding the extreme cases of bio-tech startups applying to seed programs that typically only deal with web technology, the partners will want to make sure that it’s a market space that they can advise you on and that they have mentors that align with.

There’s only so much that you can do to ensure this kind of alignment (you can’t force it), but there are some ways that you can emphasize it. Most of the programs operating today have lists of their mentors and speakers from prior years on their site. Dig through these - find mentors that align with what you’re interested in. Be sure to point this out (remember, you’re engaging in a dialogue!). Is there a company that went through the company in previous years that’s similar in some way to what you want to do? Reach out to them and find out how the program was able to advise them and who their mentor was. Any kind of initiative that you can show in this regard, to demonstrate that the program aligns with your business and can give you the kind of advising you’ll need will go a long way. (And if you don’t find any alignment, it’s good you did the research, because you should probably keep looking…)

Build It Before You Need It

Ok, so you’ve started to look into the various accelerator programs. They sound fantastic, but you aren’t ready to apply or you don’t have the ideal team yet. Or this year isn’t your year and you don’t get accepted. What can you do now?

Become a known quantity, rather than just another random name on the web. Personal branding is just the start. Find ways to learn more about the program. Be an advocate for the program - help promote the program on your college campus. Read the partners’ blogs, essays, and tweets.

Explore the local entrepreneurship community that the program is a part of. Are there meetups that you can attend if you’re local? Even if you’re not local, you can learn about who has been a major presence in the community. Who knows, you might just come across someone in the community who aligns with the business you’re trying to start and can make further intros for you.

Finally, continue to refine your idea(s), find the ideal team, and start executing. With so much information available through the web today, you can make many of the same connections and contacts, as well as find tons of material from mentors, on your own. Entrepreneurship is full of many twists and turns - find out how to make it work for you.

NYC Seed launches its own formal startup accelerator program for 10 teams this summer.  Adding it to my running list of accelerator programs.

Philly Startup Leaders founder Blake Jennelle started a great commentary on the startup community and eco-system in Philadelphia on his blog earlier today.  Inspired by the Fast Company articles on other startup hubs (Boulder and New York City), Blake provides his thoughts on why Philly is a great city to start a company and wonders if Philly will be featured in one of the remaining articles in the Fast Company series.

I think that the Philly startup community has made some fantastic progress in building a vibrant, tight-knit community for entrepreneurs.  Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my comment, it doesn’t seem that many people know about Philly’s recent growth as a startup hub, outside of the community.

Here is the comment that I left - we will have to search for ways to make sure other entrepreneurs hear about the vibrant startup community here in Philadelphia.

Outside of the Philly startup community, there does seem to be very little understanding of how energetic and tightly integrated the community is here. Last year, around this time, when my team was looking at the various startup accelerator programs, for where we should set down with our venture, we had no idea how vibrant a startup community existed until we really became part of it through DreamIt Ventures - and we were Philly natives…

This is unfortunate for more than one reason, but in particular with regard to the younger entrepreneurs who start playing with ideas in college and then look for what they should do with their entrepreneurial ambitions. Showing these aspiring entrepreneurs that it’s possible to take an idea and grow it from the ground up into a sustainable venture in a city is important, because otherwise, they’re going to run off to other startup hubs or worse, the Fortune 500 and dream about startups from their cubicles. This is also important for the entrepreneurs who look at applying to startup accelerator programs like Y Combinator, TechStars, and DreamIt Ventures. Philly is one of just a handful of cities with a top-4 startup accelerator program (YC, TechStars in 3 cities, DreamIt, LaunchBox Digital) - the fact that we have resources like that need to be a central rallying point for attracting outside entrepreneurs.

Much of the foundation for this is here. Sure, it could be always be better, stronger, more active. But, the groundwork has been laid in organizations like PSL, Indy Hall, Ignite Philly, etc. Now we need to promote the hell out of it!

The more that we can do to show off the tremendous community that is forming here, the more college entrepreneurs will choose to stay in Philly to grow their businesses, the more startups will apply to be part of programs like DreamIt, the more activity there will be for seed-stage investors to fly in and look at.

I don’t think we need to wait around for a decade for today’s entrepreneurs to succeed and turn around and start mentoring/investing. Sure, it will be better then, but it’s easy enough for them to come and fly here (though the reputation of our airport may scare a few away…!). We just need to make sure that there continues to be something interesting for them to look at when they arrive and for them to know that it is here.

Again, the foundation is built. Let’s use it, promote the hell out of it so that people know that it is here, and mentor the next batch when they arrive.

(Thanks, Blake, for making the Fast Company series a rallying point for the community. Regardless of whether Philly is selected, it gives us a checkpoint on where we can be looking as we work to make Philly the best startup hub it can be.)

I setup Backupify the other day.  (They’re giving away free accounts until the end of January.)  It’s an interesting service - they provide an automated backup interface for your personal data in the cloud to a repository on Amazon’s S3 cloud.

It’s certainly an interesting offering and a useful one at that.  Too many people just figured out how to backup their desktops and laptops; now with more and more data moving to the cloud, these backup strategies are going to need to be revised and expanded.

After all, we’ve all seen those posts on the Google support forums about vanishing Gmail accounts and no response from Google.  As more and more data is moved to the cloud, this situation is going to be magnified across providers.  It’s nice to see someone like Backupify helping to make it easy for people to do something to protect their data, though no provider is entirely redundant as one company that relies on Amazon found out.  Will we soon have cloud providers that are “too big to fail”?

Of course, the other side to this is, as Joel Spolsky correctly points out, it’s great to talk and talk about backup, but being able to restore the data is key.  This is the part of Backupify that hasn’t been automated yet and in some cases (like Twitter) may be difficult at best to accomplish, as pointed out in the FAQ:

How do I restore my data if I lose it?

It depends on the account. For something like Flickr, we can restore your account to a state very similar to what it was before you lost it. This isn’t yet automated, so our programmers will have to do it manually for you. For something like Twitter, we can’t time stamp a tweet so we can never really restore you account. The best we can do is re-tweet everything for you at one time, but your followers would probably hate that. If you have specific questions about specific services, email us and we can answer them for you.

Hopefully, restore, along with some partnerships with vendors to facilitate such functionality, will be the next cool feature they add…