I attended last nights community meeting simply out of curiosity.  I have no say in the matter beyond what I've already expressed before.  However, one of the main take a ways I had last night, which I didn't expect, is that a lot of people were mad JumpStart rejected their idea.  

This baffles me, as the only constant in a start-up is rejection.  In fact, rejection is the best thing that can happen.  Through rejection you hone your idea and yourself.  Additionally, if you make it, actual users and customers will reject your idea.  Even better, they might tell you why they are rejecting it.  Those rejections are not just invaluable, they necessary and, for fact going to happen. 

So if you are mad and willing to sit on the sidelines because your idea got rejected you need to seriously ask yourself if you have the stomach for this.    

If you're spending a lot of time talking about JumpStart and how they are spending their fund, you're focusing on the wrong thing.  

For those out of the loop, there's a town-hall style meeting tonight where apparently the Cleveland community is going to "lash out" about how JumpStart, a local Cleveland start-up incubator, is spending their fund.  However, everyone is completely missing the real point, Cleveland only has one incubator with a legitimate fund.

This is a big problem for Cleveland.  With a nationwide start-up talent crunch and, a looming drought in applications to all incubators, Cleveland is becoming less and less competitive nationally.  We simply cannot compete against YCombinator, Capital Factory, Tech-Stars, Founders Institute and, Sand Hill Rd.  

If we can't compete for new, exciting and innovative start-ups then we wont be able to compete for top start-up talent.  This will continue to rapidly degrade so long Cleveland is a one-trick pony.  Cleveland needs a plethora of legitimate funds.  Then, if one fund is "flaking", the "market" will take care of itself.  A lot of funds means a lot of start-ups and, we become more attractive on the talent market.  No different then in the Valley, New York City, et-cetera.

So please stop talking about JumpStart and start figuring out how we can get more incubators, accelerators and investment firms funding start-ups in Cleveland.