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There are many questions a company must answer when it comes to accelerators. Is this the right accelerator for us? Is now the right time? How do we stand out in the application process? The answers to such questions are nuanced and varied — and they’re not always easy to come by.
Fortunately, we caught up with Andrew Cronk, CEO of TempoIQ, and Larry Kiss, CTO and co-founder of SpotHero, to learn what startups should consider when applying to accelerators.
Get to know managing director(s)
According to Cronk, one thing executives should try to do if attempting to get into an accelerator is develop a personal relationship with the managing director(s) of said program. Cronk said sometimes people have to be clever, as he was when initiating contact with Jason Seats, who is now managing director of Techstars Austin and was managing director of Techstars Cloud, which TempoIQ went through in 2011.
Cronk said he noticed Seats co-founded a company that he was a customer of, and he was able to track down an email address from an old chain.
Reach out early
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After getting Seats’ contact, Cronk wrote to him about TempoIQ, well before the company applied for the accelerator — which touches on another piece of advice from Cronk: make contact early.
“If you reach out to them like two months before [the deadline] or a month before that, he or she actually has a decent amount of time on his or her hands,” said Cronk (pictured right), adding that most applications come in the day before the deadline. “That’s what we did. It’s nothing special, but it totally worked.”
Focus on contacts and video
Part of the reason it worked, of course, was due to the application itself — or rather, the savvy prioritization skills that Cronk said are crucial when applying. Instead of focusing on each word of the written application, Cronk said companies should emphasize their industry contacts and should spend time on the video component.
“I’ve talked to a few directors of programs, and they have thousands of these things to read. So, the likelihood they even make it to question three on the application is very limited,” Cronk said. “This is all dependent on each program, but my hunch is that most people just watch the video first — it’s 60 to 90 seconds. If they clear that hurdle, if they understand what you’re doing, then they want to learn more.”
(Editor's note: We interviewed Troy Henikoff, Managing Director of Techstars Chicago, in March and he said the first thing he does is watch the video)
Update your mentors
Once you’ve been accepted into an accelerator, Cronk said companies should also consider
updating people with weekly progress reports.
“Once we were in an accelerator, our approach was to build an email list of every person we met — we asked, of course — and then email the list questions and progress reports every week.” Cronk said. “Some of the people unsubscribed and some became investors. A nice side effect is that weekly cadence of reporting out is a great way to stay disciplined about processing your learning during the tornado of people and information.”
Make sure mentors make sense
Speaking of mentors, Kiss said companies should make sure the accelerator they’re interested in brings along mentors that are relevant to them at that time.
“The mentors that participate in the program are incredibly important, since they will help coach you through the process of growing your company,” said Kiss, whose company went through Excelerate Labs before it became Techstars Chicago. “So, be sure to ask who some of them are. If your startup requires inside sales expertise, be sure there are a couple of mentors in the accelerator’s network that will be able to help you with building and scaling an inside sales team.”
[ibimage==47854==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-left]Cover your weaknesses
According to Kiss (pictured left), another thing to consider when determining when is the right time to join an accelerator is the company’s experience level.
“If this is the second or third company for the founders, then you may choose to join when you first have the idea, in order to get some quick seed money and hit the ground running,” Kiss said. “However some serial entrepreneurs may opt to enter an accelerator at a later stage in their growth, when they know they have a good product and market fit, but know they need some coaching in an industry that’s new to them.”
Ultimately, the biggest factor to consider is finding an accelerator that addresses your current weaknesses, Kiss said.
Test with your friends
A quick way to see if your application — the video and written components — are ready for a pitch to the directors is to pitch it to your friends.
“If your friends don’t understand it, it’s likely the accelerator won’t be able to either.”
Have faith
Lastly, if a company is accepted to an accelerator, its team must learn to sift through advice and find mentors that are pertinent to their company. And they must trust that said mentors know what they’re doing.
“Be extremely open to the process. By now, the accelerator most likely has a few cohorts under its belt,” Kiss said. “Have faith that what they’re asking you to do is worth the time.”
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