Procrastinators rejoice: Google joins PIE so PIE extends its application deadline and drops the founder math

As you may have heard, PIE (the Portland Incubator Experiment) has revised its format and is now accepting applications for new startups to come join the space. [Full disclosure: PIE is my day job.] You may have also heard that part of the new PIE is the fact that startups get mentors from Wieden+Kennedy, awesome tech and startup mentors, and mentors from some well known brands like Target, Coca-Cola, and Nike.

Well, things changed a bit late last week. You see, we were lucky to get one more brand. Google signed on to sponsor and provide mentors for PIE. And that changed the dynamic enough that we decided to extend the application until August 8.

As MG Siegler at TechCrunch shared:

Google joins Coca-Cola, Target, Nike, and Wieden+Kennedy (the largest privately-held advertising and communications company in the world) in helping out PIE. Like many of those companies, they’ll provide 5 mentors (from Google, YouTube, Google Ventures, Android, etc) to the incubator that will help the startups associated with the program.

We also appreciated folks over at Geekwire and the Portland Business Journal covering the news.

But this new arrangement got us to thinking. And thinking some more. And… Oh fine. And we did some soul searching. There. Are you happy? I finally used a Google pun. Are you satisfied? Can we move on?

That was a pretty good one though right? Kind of snuck up on you…?

Anyway… so after a little noodling, we decided that the addition of Google to the mix drastically changed the dynamic of PIE—and might make the three months of mentorship appealing to a whole new crowd. So we extended the deadline until August 8 at 11:59 PM. Or as Mike Rogoway at The Oregonian put it:

Google’s participation could attract a different category of startup than the consumer brands PIE had been featuring, so the incubator plans to push the application deadline for its first “class” of startups back one week to August 8.

And as if that wasn’t enough, we also decided that hamstringing companies with fewer than three co-founders was contradictory to the reason we were running an accelerator in the first place. So to fix that, we decided to throw out the math.

Now, every company selected to participate in PIE gets $18,000. Period. Single founder? $18k. Two co-founders? $18k. Twelve co-founders? That’s no way to run a company, but if you happen to make it in, you’ll get $18k too.

So there you go. Let’s recap.

1. Get your applications in. By August 8.
2. And if you’re selected, you’ll get $18,000, office space, and mentorship from Google, Target, Coca-Cola, Nike, Wieden+Kennedy, and a bevy of awesome tech and startup mentors.
3. Get your damn applications in.

So what are you waiting for? Please apply today.

For more details, visit PIE, like PIE on Facebook, or follow @PIEpdx on Twitter.

Published by Rick Turoczy

More than mildly obsessed with the Portland startup community. Founder and editor at Silicon Florist. Cofounder and general manager at PIE. Follow me on Twitter: @turoczy View all posts by Rick Turoczy