Running a Startup Program Running a Startup Program
What research says about running an incubator or accelerator program.
What this presentation covers
What this presentation covers
What this presentation covers
What an accelerator is
A fixed term, a cohort, a curriculum
Accelerators share a core: a fixed term, a cohort, education and mentoring.
- Applications an open call, then selection
- Cohort startups start together
- Curriculum classes and mentoring
- Demo day a public pitch
Do accelerators work
Some programs help a lot, others little
Among top early accelerators, some clearly sped up venture development, but not all.
- Faster development in some programs
- No clear gain in others
Selecting startups
Pick startups your program can help
Part of the difference came from which ventures were picked, so selection matters.
- A team that works on it full time
- A problem customers confirm
- A stage your curriculum fits
- Mentors available for the sector
- The same scorecard for every applicant
The curriculum
Teach founders, do not just host them
At Start-Up Chile, funding and coworking alone showed no effect on performance.
- Funding and coworking no effect found
- Plus training higher performance
Pacing the mentoring
Many advisers, frequent meetings, a set pace
Top accelerators helped through broad, intensive and paced consultation.
- Broad mentors, customers, alumni, peers
- Intensive many meetings in a short time
- Paced one calendar for the cohort
Three design choices
Three choices shape how founders learn
Directors decide how to space meetings, how much peers share and how tailored it is.
- Spaced or concentrated? when mentor and customer meetings fall
- Private or transparent? what peers see of each other
- Tailored or standard? one plan, or one per startup
Demo day and after
Plan the months after demo day
The program ends in a public pitch, so book investor and alumni follow-ups early.
Reading the results
An early closure is also a result
Accelerator startups closed earlier and more often, as founders learned their odds sooner.
What to measure
Track progress, not only money raised
Measure each startup at entry, at demo day and a year later.
- Customer evidence interviews, pilots, paying users
- Funding raised within 12 months
- Survival still operating after 2 years
- Decisions pivots and closures, made early
Sources
The research behind this presentation
- Cohen, S. L., Fehder, D. C., Hochberg, Y. V. & Murray, F. (2019) The design of startup accelerators Research Policy, 48(7), 1781-1797
- Hochberg, Y. V. (2016) Accelerating entrepreneurs and ecosystems: The seed accelerator model Innovation Policy and the Economy, 16, 25-51
- Hallen, B. L., Cohen, S. L. & Bingham, C. B. (2020) Do accelerators work? If so, how? Organization Science, 31(2), 378-414
- Gonzalez-Uribe, J. & Leatherbee, M. (2018) The effects of business accelerators on venture performance: Evidence from Start-Up Chile The Review of Financial Studies, 31(4), 1566-1603
- Cohen, S. L., Bingham, C. B. & Hallen, B. L. (2019) The role of accelerator designs in mitigating bounded rationality in new ventures Administrative Science Quarterly, 64(4), 810-854
- Yu, S. (2020) How do accelerators impact the performance of high-technology ventures? Management Science, 66(2), 530-552
Run it as a learning program
Select with care, teach, pace the advice and follow founders after demo day.