Editor's note: More and more, entrepreneurs are finding financial and intellectual help for their startups through accelerator or incubator programs. Portfolio.com will be breaking down these programs to help startup founders pick the right program.

What: Dreamit Ventures

Where: 24 North Bryn Mawr Avenue, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

When: In 2011, the New York program runs from May 16 to August 19, while the Philadelphia program goes from September 12 to December 16. If Dreamit Ventures follows the same schedule for next year, applications for 2012 will open in late December for New York and in May for Philadelphia.

Who: Startups and entrepreneurs looking for early-stage funding, mentorship, and the opportunity to work with other new companies.

Why: To gain access to other entrepreneurs, to receive mentorship and money, and to get the opportunity to pitch venture capitalists.

How: Learn more about the program and check out key dates at www.dreamitventures.com.

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Danielle Weinblatt knew from experience that much time gets wasted interviewing the wrong people for jobs. So the 28-year-old former investment banker and Harvard Business School student decided to start a company, Take the Interview, that uses Web videos to help both the applicant and the employer.

Weinblatt had an idea, but like so many other fledgling entrepreneurs, she needed help. Enter Dreamit Ventures. The firm tapped Take the Interview and 14 other companies to be part of its first class in New York City, invested $25,000 in each one of them, and offered mentorship. In New York, the participants shared office space in a building on Broadway near Union Square—the area at the center of the city's booming startup scene.

The program started in Philadelphia in 2008, and Dreamit will continue there with a new class this Fall, said Steven Welch, one of the partners at Dreamit. Among the program's graduates: MindSnacks, a company that creates mobile language-learning games that has gone on to raise about $1.2 million in venture funding.

For Welch and his partners, the point to their enterprise started off altruistic and has grown more capitalistic as companies have graduated to some success. “These were tools we wished we’d had,” Welch said.

As for who can participate, Welch said he and his partners look for people with strong business and tech talent and big ideas. “We’re looking for people who are swinging for the fences,” he said.

The companies involved in the New York round came from as far away as Honduras. Besides Take the Interview, other companies included Hoot.Me, which allows students to collaborate on homework on Facebook, and KeepIdeas, which is focused on allowing users to store recipes on a cloud-based computing system.

The New York class held its demo day Wednesday, giving each one of the startups the chance to pitch their companies to potential investors at the McGraw-Hill building at Rockefeller Center.

Weinblatt said she was looking for about $1 million in funding. Before the session, counting the Dreamit seed money and funds from other investors, she'd raised about about $60,000 and had attracted customers like Harvard Business School.

“I have a huge team of people, and I need to pay these guys,” she said about what she would do with the investment.

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Kent Bernhard Jr. is News Editor of Portfolio.com