"your first month will be spent mostly in meetings rather than intensely focused on building your actual product. That's almost certainly not the case with YC."
I had to reread the article to confirm that that sentence is actually in there. I honestly can't believe that a program which focuses on launching successful companies prioritizes "building your actual product" below meetings and finding mentorship.
I can't remember who said it, but I read somewhere that "the goal of every startup should be to stop being a startup" (the moral was that a startup is a fledgling business, and you should be trying to mature that business rather than staying in the beginning stages forever). If you're more interested in meeting people and talking about startups than you are in actually working on your startup, something is probably wrong. Not that this is a bad thing, but you should reevaluate whether being a startup founder is right for you.
That comment by the author, along with some others, makes TechStars seem more like going to grad school and less like intrepidly going balls-out to make a company work in the real world. I'm not saying that's the reality of the situation, but that's what his argument seems to posit. If that's indeed the case, I'll pick the latter (YC).
Is that seriously true? As a graduate of DreamIt Ventures, I can confirm that it's also not the case with DreamIt. We spent most of our time building, first month included.
I can definitely confirm that.