In recent years, a new breed of incubators called seed accelerators have had success helping new companies get started. They provide mentoring, connections, and capital. Depending on the accelerator, even the branding from having been accepted into the program adds value.
The best example I've seen is TechStars. TechStars has helped launch dozens of companies over several years by attracting extraordinary mentors, and running a well-thought-out program for getting startups off the ground. Historically, TechStars built programs in specific cities, and now has four: Boulder, Portland (OR), New York, and Boston. In 2012 it also ran its first vertical-specific program (TechStars Cloud). This was in Austin, but attracted startups from all over the world.
This trend is interesting to me in light of Drupal's rapid expansion. There is a very clearly a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs to build companies providing applications, distributions, tools, analytics, web services and more in, on and around Drupal. Seeding and feeding the ecosystem with a TechStars-like accelerator would make Drupal even stronger, in turn creating even more opportunities in a virtuous cycle.
So I'm going to spend some time seeing if I can put together a Seed Accelerator for Drupal. Thus - step 2 in my personal plan for Drupal world domination.
