How CodeUpStart Hacked 500 Startups
Having been through Y-Combinator for Rocketrip, when I started CodeUpStart I knew I wanted the company to have the support of a top incubator to accelerate its growth.
This is how we hacked our way in.
My goal in sharing this is to shed some light on the incubator application process (there’ll be more videos on this on CodeUpStart shortly :) ) and hopefully the following sequence of events I’m describing can help give more insight to any of you reading this and thinking of applying to incubators as well.
The Plan
Going through YC before, I knew that you NEVER apply to any incubator program cold. So the plan was hatched to get in touch with anyone within the 500 Startups network. I pinged every 500Startups Alumni in my network looking for introductions to the 500S investment partners for a meeting.
Within a few days, a buddy of mine Nir Markus who co-founded OKPanda, a 500S portfolio company, offered to send an introduction email to Dave McClure. Problem was, the moment the intro was sent I received an auto-response:
EDIT (12/6): I really can’t fault him for this. He gets hundreds of emails daily and frankly a response is better than none. Also, now a few months into the program, I have had the opportunity to meet Dave in-person and he is one of the most helpful and genuine investment partners I’ve ever had a chance to chat with.
5% chance of response. Ok, great but that means there’s still a chance of hearing back from him right? Also 5% is 4% more than the chance of getting accepted into the program (the acceptance rate is a dismal 1 percent). That meant that things were looking good! Such is the irrational optimism of a founder. :)
A day went by with no response.
The next day, as I was just about to write a follow up note, I saw that Elizabeth Yin, the Investment Partner who runs the 500S Mountain View program responded.
The Hack
The email interaction went on to touch on revenue channels, more details on growth and so on. We were ultimately introduced to Chris Nolet, one of the entrepreneurs in residence at 500S who brought us in for an initial meeting.
The First Meeting
This first meeting was in Mountain View in the heart of Silicon Valley at 500 Startup’s headquarters. I had gone into it thinking it was a preliminary introduction for a potential application to the B16 batch based in San Francisco that would start next January.
However, 10 minutes into the meeting, it became clear this was the first interview to join the Mountain View Fall batch in 2015 ,even though the application deadline had lapsed for more than a week.
When the chat with Chris was over, I was surprised to be asked to stay behind for an hour or so to get more questions addressed by a partner. The day wrapped up with about 30 minutes or so of Q&A with Elizabeth and by the time I left the building, it was already late into the evening.
The Second Meeting
Driving back into San Francisco from Mountain View, I got an email to confirm a meeting with Elizabeth in the SF office the next day closer to where CodeUpStart was based. While the first meeting had gone relatively well, it had covered mostly growth metrics and product strategy and I knew this second one was going to dive a little deeper and I had to be able to fend off any concerns about the business.
At the 500 Startups office in downtown SF, Elizabeth and I chatted about CodeUpStart’s mission and it turned out to be an invigorating meeting. I left it feeling like I had put in my best for the interview.
At around midnight that day, an email showed up in my inbox with the following starting line…
“Hi — Chris and I have discussed, and we’d like to offer you a spot in the accelerator….”
Fast Forward
Close to two months have passed since the first day of the batch 15 program. I get asked a lot why I opted to put CodeUpStart through 500 Startups instead of going through Y-Combinator again and I’d love to write a separate post on that. Ultimately, in a nutshell I chose 500Startups because of its strong global growth and distribution network, which I felt was strategically more of a fit for CodeUpStart (we’re starting to see and plan to have a major presence outside of the U.S.)
Demo day is fast approaching (Wish CodeUpStart luck for mid February!) Thanks to 500S and my buddy Nir, I’m looking forward to learning from and growth hacking with some of the impressive entrepreneurs and investors in our journey ahead!
