hatchery

Definition

A startup incubator or accelerator where fledgling companies are artificially nurtured in batches, given standardized advice, and released into the wild to either soar or become someone's acqui-hire. Like its fish farm counterpart, success depends on carefully controlled conditions, periodic feeding (of capital), and accepting that most won't make it to maturity. The industrial approach to entrepreneurship for founders who enjoy being treated like salmon.

Example Usage

Y Combinator runs the most famous hatchery in tech, churning out startups in three-month cycles like a venture-backed assembly line.

Source: Startup industry terminology

Related Terms

Intermediate

Burn Rate

The speed at which a startup spends its investors' money, measured in dollars per month and panic attacks per quarter. It's called burn rate because watching your cash evaporate feels exactly like watching something on fire.

👥 Human Resources🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

adverse selection

The phenomenon where the worst investment opportunities are most aggressively marketed to investors, while the best deals are oversubscribed and hard to access. If they're begging you to invest, run.

🚀 Startup / VC

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bridge round

Emergency funding meant to tide a startup over until the 'real' funding round happens, often at desperate terms. Named after a bridge because you're hoping it doesn't collapse before you reach the other side.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

retention cohort

A group of users who started in the same time period, tracked to see how many stick around. The cruel truth about how fast people abandon your product.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

Cap Table

A spreadsheet that tracks who owns what percentage of a company, growing increasingly depressing with each funding round as the founders' share shrinks like a wool sweater in a dryer. It's the scoreboard of startup capitalism.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

vulture capital

Investors who prey on distressed startups, offering unfavorable terms when founders are desperate. They prefer the smell of burning runway in the morning.

🚀 Startup / VC

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