Accelerator Application Pie, and How To Get a Slice
We applied to 10 accelerators in the past 120 days and got rejected from every single one of them. Here’s why.
This time last year, we were beginning our first internship program for our app, CollegeHive. College life is short, so CollegeHive makes it easier to participate in campus culture, before the time is up. Students join their university’s hive, where everyone is already following everyone else on campus. Then, we group students with others with their same majors, hometowns, dormitories, classes, and more. The company evolved from a simpler idea that worked pretty well for my friends and I when we were in college. I had spent 10 months prior to CollegeHive just learning how to code, and now, the moment was here. It was the first day of our internship program. We had reached out to about a hundred students, and we ended up with 10 interns to help us launch CollegeHive into the stratosphere.
We ended our first hour-long Google Hangout call with our interns, and within the next hour, we had 100 new users. We pretty much thought our lives were about to drastically change overnight.
And, they didn’t.
First semester and second semester last year were filled with ups and downs, but the ups always outweighed the downs. We kept getting just enough feedback to continue to feel like what we did mattered, and what we were working on was bringing value to the lives of the students who believed in us. We ended spring semester with 1K users, 11 updates to the App Store, and 11K user engagement points (times users have liked, commented, rebuzzed, direct messaged, etc).
Summer 2017 was here, and we began to feel like if we were going to seriously give this thing a shot, we were going to have to work on this full time.
Up to this point, I actually despised the idea of an accelerator. I hated the fact that millennials nowadays thought it was cool to borrow money, or go in debt, chasing a dream that may leave everyone involved less off. It seemed like the new “consumer” were investors, and the new “product”, was the business model itself. I always admired the idea that if you are truly creating a business of value, you shouldn’t need investors to get to those that value the business.
June 2017, I began to feel differently. I had been working on CollegeHive full time for months, but the time had come for me to get another day job. Suddenly, CollegeHive had to be placed on the back burner. Even though I’d still be coding everyday, just now, after work, I began to notice that my code was no where near the level of efficiency that it once was when I was working on this full time. My mind was tired. My energy wasn’t focused. I wasn’t inspired, and it showed in the code.
I thought to myself, “perhaps it’s necessary to apply to an accelerator. We’ve got good numbers and a good idea. I think we’ve got good chances of landing something”.
We didn’t.
During the next 120 days that followed this epiphany, we applied to 10 different accelerators and got rejected from every single one of them. The first rejection hurt the most, because we were so sure that we’d at least land an interview. The accelerator was in our neighborhood for fucks sake. Out of the 300 applications, ours was not even chosen for an interview. I was obsessed with finding out why, but there is no efficient way to access feedback from rejection messages. They’re generic, and gentle. They always involve the word “unfortunately”, but really, the truth is that they must have believed that it was more fortunate to accept another company, or else we would have been chosen. They usually say something to the extent of “this does not mean your business has no potential”, and while they may not actually believe that it has no potential, the truth is, that they must at least believe that other applicants have a higher potential than ours.
Well, now that application season is over, I’ve done my own cumulative research to find out why all of these accelerators feel like CollegeHive is inadequate. Here’s my theory.
A good idea isn’t enough. Traction isn’t enough. Experience isn’t enough, and neither is your network. It’s the combinations of these that really increase your chances of earning the trust of an accelerator program, and that’s what this is all about- trust.
If you had $100, and someone who you didn’t know came up to you and asked you for $50, and promised you that they’d bring you back a 200% ROI on it of a total of $100, how willing would you be to believe them? If they told you their business model, and how they were going to get it done, it would increase your trust in them. If they also then showed you the receipts of the amount of successful times that they’d done that business model, and how much they’ve made total, then perhaps you’d really consider it. If they then went on to tell you how they used to be an investment banker for Goldman Sachs, then you’d probably start digging in your wallet. If you took out your cell phone to call your best friend for advice on it, and then found out that your friend had just worked with the guy and loved every minute of it, you’d give this stranger not only the $50 that he asked for, but screw it, you’d give him your entire wallet.
Yeah, we have a good idea- a really good idea, and a little traction. We have just enough traction to make us feel like what we are doing matters, but it’s not enough to secure our spot quite yet. We’re missing a trusted network, and the receipts of experience. We’ve probably got a quadrant and a third of the Accelerator Application Pie. Anyone who’s got more than that, had a greater chance of getting funded. Once we became numb to the rejection, we were able to realize that the good thing is that these are not things that one could never aspire to acquire. Perhaps one day we will have all four quadrants, and we will have a greater chance of doing CollegeHive full time again.
Hopefully, others who are looking to apply to accelerators will read this and be better prepped for the results than we were. Good luck!
Felecia
— I’m a coder
@FeleciaGenet on Twitter & Instagram.
