S21 Accelerator — Mid-Program Founder Feedback
By: Sascha Kerbert
Tags: Accelerator, Startup, Feedback

Demo Day is exactly one month away.

At this point in the program, we ask our Founders to tell us the Good, Bad and Ugly about their experience so far. The core reason? We are obsessed with creating the best program possible and ask for regular, candid feedback so we can make that happen.

I’ve summarised some of our key learnings below, but you can find the full (anonymised) verbatim feedback and internal analysis HERE.

Note these are very much internal working docs :).

What did we learn?

Our topline goal for the Accelerator is Founder NPS. We set ourselves a minimum benchmark of 75 NPS, with a stretch goal of 90. So how are we doing?

Goal: Base 75 Stretch 90 NPS Result: 76 (company level); and 72 (individual founder level)

For S21, we’re currently just about on target, but there are lots of areas in which we need to improve. Some of the key themes are:

Tailored 1:1s and small group sessions deliver the most value for our Founders

The Startmate team is good at customer service

But we need to improve on fostering connection virtually between Founders

And one of our key experiments targeting this area failed

You can see the full summary of results for each category/question we asked below. Each question is scored on a scale of 1–5.

The Key Themes

Bonding and connection — needs to improve

People want connection. As obvious as this seems, it is still something we haven’t quite figured out how to deliver in a virtual setting. In my eyes, one of the key indicators about the strength of our cohorts is this: do the Founders have deep relationships with each other?

For our current cohort, the short answer is no, and the experiment we did run (organising small Tribes of S21 founders and previous alumni to provide a support structure for current founders) failed.

The learning here is that we need to double-down on Founder <> Founder experiences and engagement in the Accelerator. Peer-to-Peer learning and support has the potential to be the most powerful element of our programs. We need to massively upgrade the infrastructure that allows Founders to forge their own connections, while creating a set of regular and curated experiences that plant the seeds for those relationships to develop.

This is very much a challenge in engineering serendipity, and we’re only part of the way there!

Partners and Squads — working well

Each Company coming through Startmate is paired with a Startmate Partner (an experienced mentor to act as a sounding board and guide each week during the program), and a Squad of 3 Mentors who have the right mix of skills and experience to challenge the founders and help them overcome the hurdles they will inevitably face.

These tailored interactions with Mentors that spend time week on week with the founders is one of the primary value drivers of the Accelerator, with the structures translating well into the virtual world.

Accountability Mechanisms — areas for improvement

Standing up in front of a group of your Peers each week, telling them about your goals and reporting on whether you are hitting them will make you run harder at those goals than you would in a vacuum.

The only regular session in the Accelerator is a Weekly All Hands on a Monday with all of the Founders. The key objective: hold yourself accountable while being inspired by the progress of your Peers.

The feedback suggests this remains a useful mechanism, but there is a need for a different format that doesn’t feel as monotonous.

What are we going to do differently for the remainder of S21?

The feedback has touched on many aspects of the Accelerator Program. Given that there are 4 weeks left of S21, we’re going to focus on delivering quick wins on the biggest pain points highlighted by the feedback.

Some experiments we will run include 👇:

Changing the All Hands format

Accountability and information-sharing remains the key

But we’ll change the format to include a new focus on Peer-to-Peer problem-solving and relationship-building

Vertical-based Founder <> Founder sessions

Currently, our content sessions are predominantly focused on bringing expert mentors in, but the Founders have lots to learn from each other

We’ll be setting up some forums for Founders solving similar problems to come together and share their learnings

In-person sessions

Facilitate some location-based opportunities for Mentors and Founders to come together (where possible)

Watercooler style forums

When you’re in the same physical space, serendipitous encounters happen organically

But in a virtual environment, serendipity needs a bit more conscious engineering

We’ll experiment with some structures that attempt to create a more fertile environment for luck to strike for our founders

Thoughts on the future?

Looking forward to W21 and beyond, some questions and themes we’ll be thinking about: