What I want as an investor participating in an accelerator program
No one invests because of a demo day.
I certainly don’t. I need to work for it.
This is how an accelerator program can help me to invest.
Before the program starts
Send me a list of each company with enough information for me to commit to work. No more than half a page per company. I will be trying to understand the following for each company:
Is this part of my current investment thesis? Is this one of those companies I am looking for?
Is this an idea I have never thought of and need to learn about?
Is this a company I can help to ‘step-change’? What do they need?
Tell me how I can interact with the company. It needs to be more than the occasional ‘mentor drinks’ — I need to get into it.
During the program
This is where the real assessment happens.
What do customers think of their solution?
Can they build it?
I want to feel the velocity. Has the team found a cadence? Is it making leaps already?
Will the company be ready to take some capital to fuel more leaps?
Do we enjoy working with each other?
Is there an early opportunity to invest?
End of the program
Then we get to demo day — or however the end of the program is marked. Here’s what I want then:
Nothing.
We are done by then. The work has happened.
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🖖🏻 #hack+hustle+flearn
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