Offbeatr, the Kickstarter for Porn, Ushers in the Age of Vertical Accelerators
Whoever believed sex was passe, needs to rethink. And if you're an ardent follower of the startup ecosystem, you wouldn't have been averse to the launch of Offbeatr- a crowdfunding website for 'porn'. Yes, you read it right. Having previously founded Extralunchmoney (Not Safe for Work), it seems that the team at Offbeatr knows what they're doing. Ben Tao, Eric Lai and Barry C have taken this bold move and recently launched Offbeatr.
The site allows you to explore and pitch adult projects. It is primarily for two kinds of people:
- Project Creators: Raise money for their creative adult projects including books, movies, events, games, and products.
- Supporters: Discover and support unique and interesting adult content and earn rewards in the process.
Having looked for funding but to no avail, Offbeatr is currently working with the LA startup club. Still very nascent, it's difficult to say if the idea will tick but full marks to the founders for taking the leap where most others shunned away from. What Offbeatr also brings forth is a very interesting trend in terms of vertical accelerators.
It's not a new concept but vertical accelerators will be the way going forward. Accelerators have classified themselves as focusing in internet and mobile or digital media which frankly speaking, is very wide indeed. Accelerators are technology agnostic but more and more accelerators focusing on specific verticals are coming up. This verticals could be highly specific, for instance, accelerators for:
- Gaming
- Social Media
- Advertising
- Security
The founders of this accelerators are usually successful entrepreneurs and have expertise in a certain key area and hence would be able to provide guidance in that particular area. They'd definitely provide a general outline but the accelerator will be way more successful if the accelerator plays on the founder's strengths. Still pretty far away, the concept is starting to pick up and many such highly focused incubators are coming up. Very recently, a startup from India has been picked up for one such accelerator in the retail segment.
A rather far fetched idea for India currently, the trend will surely percolate. The startup system is still very young and the investors are yet to have a complete sense of what kind of startups work in India. Pretty generalised till now, incubators and accelerators like iAccelerator, The Morpheus, The Startup Centre and few others have been doing phenomenal work but going forward, one can expect more specialised accelerators to come in existence (and thrive).
