Inside a Reality Show-Style Incubator for Startup Founders - Business Insider
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There was 'no sex' at this reality-show-style incubator for founders — but the drama was juicy
By Truman Dickerson
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Founder teams anxiously wait for the leaderboard to update at 9 a.m. at a reality-style incubator in rural Pennsylvania.
At 9 p.m. on a recent Friday night, Max Harding had just returned from a barefoot run in the woods. The eccentric 20-year-old Californian was back in a large barn in rural Pennsylvania — still barefoot — alternatively working on his startup and asking me about the point of life.
Though not an especially adept programmer, Harding possesses a more adroit, perhaps unteachable skill that has never been more valuable in the current landscape of founder culture.
"Max captures the attention of the camera, keeps us center stage," said his cofounder, Skyler Ji, who added that Harding's role includes "spreading our philosophy" while he runs the operation behind the scenes. "Max brings some of the grander things," Ji told me. The pair's startup, Hivemind Research, aims to build "digital brains" in the form of social media.
Harding and Ji were among 66 mostly young, mostly imaginative startup founders taking part in a two-week "incubator" workshop called Launchpad.
The novel event was hosted by Stan, the company behind a moderately successful platform for independent creators to advertise and sell their services. At the last meetup Stan organized, startup founders jet-skied the East River at golden hour.
At the incubator event, the entirety of which was filmed for use in a reality show that Stan plans to release sometime soon (though it is uploading Instagram clips daily), magnetic personalities were among the most valuable commodities.
Max Harding (left) with his startup team at the launchpad event.
Stan cofounder Vitalii Dodonov told me that the 30 participating teams were chosen from a pool of 700 applicants, primarily for their existing social media followings and their ability to grow them.