Meet ‘Unreasonable At Sea’, The Startup Accelerator That Plans To Circle The Globe By Ship


The world of startup accelerators and incubators seems to be buzzier than ever, so it is hard to think about how a program could really stand apart from the pack. But the people behind the Boulder, Colorado-based Unreasonable Institute have managed to come up with a way to really make a splash in the crowded space (sorry I couldn’t help myself with that one.)

Meet Unreasonable At Sea, a new program in which 11 startups will board a ship for a three-month-long trip around the world. During the trip, which starts January 9th in San Diego and ends in Barcelona, the entrepreneurs will stop off at 14 international destinations to learn first-hand how to expand their projects to make an impact on a global scale.

It’s a departure for the Unreasonable people as well. At Sea is a completely separate program from the Unreasonable Institute — the Institute is non-profit and does not take equity in its startups, while At Sea is for-profit and will take a small piece of equity from its participants. Applications for startups have closed (try next time!) but the program is still looking to add a few select mentor spots.

In all, it’s a pretty interesting undertaking — and it’s a great literal play on the “entrepreneurs as pirates” analogy that TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington has championed. So we met with Unreasonable founder Daniel Epstein recently while he was here in San Francisco to hear all about it. Watch the video embedded above to hear about how the At Sea idea took shape, what kinds of companies are setting sail, how the ship plans to deal with risks like pirates and sketchy WiFi, and much more.