in case you didn’t know, my role at microsoft has me working with startups all across the united states talking about all the opportunities to be had with bizspark. i am really excited for the future of the program and continuing to work with early stage tech startups. but bizspark is not the only totally cool “spark” program that microsoft offers.
in case you are not in tune with the academic world, there is another “spark” that is designed for high school and college students to download professional microsoft developer, designer, and gaming software at no charge. dreamspark is pretty clear-cut in what the requirements are. you need to be a student. done. there are also great faqs included for high school administrators and instructors as well as university administrators and instructors to get their students on board.
one of the other exciting “spark” programs microsoft introduced was websitespark. in case you didn’t know, websitespark is designed to ignite the success of professional web developers and designers. this was released after bizspark to really address a need that web developers and designers had that did not fit the bizspark model. simple enough.
what is sometimes not so simple is figuring out whether or not you fit into websitespark or bizspark and what the key differences are. i have been getting quite a few emails from folks being denied in bizspark because they just did not realize they were a better fit for websitespark. so let me put it in really simple terms.
join websitespark if you are a web development or design individual or shop with 10 or fewer employees. what this means is that you are primarily a professional services firm or individual and not a early stage isv (independent software vendor).
join bizspark is you are a privately held early stage tech startup less than 3 years old developing software making less than $1million us annually. whew. got that all out in one sentence.
one of the misconceptions that some of the startups have is that they have to be building all microsoft technology. not true. a great example of a bizspark startup using some of our technology is loopt. loopt has a very successful iphone, blackberry, and android app and is a very successful bizspark company. so while the front-end app is not completely on the microsoft platform, the majority of loopt’s back-end runs in windows server, .net and sql server.
i am going to save the network partner and hosting partner story for both bizspark and websitespark for another post. i think this is enough to digest for now.
so if you are deciding which spark you are. think about what you do. if you are a web pro building sites for people, then websitespark is the way to go. if you are an early stage tech startup building a software product of your own, then bizspark is probably the way to go. if you are a student, then it is dreamspark.
here are the faq pages for you to find more information:
dreamspark faqs – students, administrators and instructors
Hello Brian,
I am a BizSpark member and I need Venture Capiltist funding to get equipment and other software Microsoft doesn’t offer through BizSpark, additionaly I will need some lab equipment to build USB based devices. I need the capital to fund the initial startup. I have zero to invest and I did have a dev computer but it just went up in smoke. I don’t need much to start off with, the applications I am going to develop are for the Scentific amd Engineering communities, as well as some on the side social network sites delivering custom application portals for businesses, like Silverlight product catalogs, enigneering build out part estimators, and psycological profiling for integration with face book and other social networks. If you could help me find someone who would help fund me it would be great. One other thing, I will be targeting: Win7 Phone, Azure, and Apple IPad.
Best Regards,
Alexander L. Wykel
awykel@ieee.org
(713) 305-4047