Tech entrepreneurship isn’t all that different from artistry. Founders create and build a product that will hopefully be enjoyed by millions of users, just like artists create work for consumers. But just like artists from all walks of life, there’s a very high rate of failure among startups, which is why accelerators exist.
But it turns out that other industries are paying attention to the way that tech accelerators help sort through the clutter to advance the very best startups, as a new accelerator in NYC is taking on the exact same model in the land of Indie film.
Dogfish Accelerator is looking for six to eight producer teams who will each get $18,000 in seed funding, as well as three months of exposure to various mentors from the business and movie world.
“Every movie is actually a company,” said Michelle Soffen, managing director at Dogfish. “If we as film makers start thinking about our films as brands, or as companies, and as more than just products, we can start to get a lot more out of them.”
James Belfer, co-founder and CEO, used his experience as an associate at TechStars Boulder to launch Dogfish based on a simple idea. Tech startups aren’t run by CTOs alone; they require CEOs and marketing teams and customer support teams. Yet in the film industry, so much of the business is generated by the creatives. So instead of letting individual creatives scrape together films and move onto the next project, Dogfish wants film creatives to think of their products like a business.
That way, they can not only set up a small Indie studio to create more films, but they can get the most return on the films they’ve already created, long after they premiere in theaters.
As Soffen reminds us, “a film is an asset that’s in perpetuity forever.”
Dogfish is accepting applications now here.
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