Six Things I Learned from the Google Launchpad Accelerator
It’s been an eye-opening two weeks for me as we conclude Google’s Launchpad Accelerator program, where they flew in 31 later-stage startups from emerging markets in Latin America and Asia to be mentored and nurtured by over a hundred mentors from around the world.
This was Google’s third installment of the program, and this time, there was greater involvement from a pioneering batch of Filipinos.
Zipmatch, a local startup which wants to disrupt real estate, was the only Filipino firm who joined and qualified for the program. Sulit founder RJ David and Sagesoft Founder Anson Uy joined me as first-time local Filipino mentors.
The program has a very interesting format. The heart of the program would be the 1-hour sessions between startups and mentors. Each day the 31 startups would be paired with 5–6 different mentors who would talk to them for an hour.
Interspersed with the sessions would be talks about technology and the different elements of growing a startup. Google would invite Silicon Valley luminaries and other Googlers to give the talks. Talks would range from UX, media training, hiring, Tensorflow, design sprints, and so on.
The last days of the program involves having the startups set OKR’s — Objectives and Key Results. Launchpad program would then track these carefully over the coming months, supported by the local Google offices, as well as the mentors in the region.
It’s a thoroughly ambitious program, designed to fully assist the participating startups in navigating towards success.
Being a Launchpad mentor was a unique, unforgettable experience where I surely wound up learning more than I taught.
I learned not only from talking to the different participating startups, but I also learned so much from the other mentors.
In the mentors, Google succeeded in putting together an awesome collection of talented entrepreneurs in one (big) room. All of these guys have done amazing things in their home countries, and hearing their different perspectives was such an eye-opener.
Here are six of my biggest takeaways from the program:
1. The Primacy of the Effective Mentor
During the first day, the Launchpad program managers told us a bit of history on how they came up with the program design. This is Google, so you KNOW they learned from experiments / experience and iterated accordingly.
What they told us was consistent in the iterations was just how useful and effective MENTORS were for startups. There just wasn’t anything better than to get knowledge and insight from people who have done it before.
Concretely, I think one of the more powerful insights a mentor can give you is identifying potential landmines. I experienced this myself with the startups I worked with — I can clearly see an upcoming problem a startup will run into if it maintains a certain trajectory. How? Because I went through similar problems myself and I can see all the warning signals.
A mentor might not always be right, but the insight given for the founders can prove invaluable.
So what did Google do? They injected steroids into this idea and flew in a hundred mentors, whom they screened and vetted for this particular occasion.
The result is a veritable treasure trove of insight and experience for the participating startups.
Who are YOU learning from?
2. Succeed Anywhere
A dozen years ago, Thomas Friedman wrote this wonderful book, The World is Flat — detailing how technology and globalization has allowed people to succeed from anywhere they were.
It wasn’t exactly true when it was written in 2005. The notion that you NEEDED to be in Silicon Valley to do something big was still very much a truism.
Thru its assembled participants and mentors, Google Launchpad brought in more than 150 startup founders from emerging markets, a vast majority of which has no Silicon Valley presence.
I don’t think anyone can disagree with Friedman’s assertion now.
While there may still be some advantages setting up in Silicon Valley, it certainly isn’t a requirement anymore.
3. Machine Learning and AI
After one mentor session, each mentor logs into an app to document the session. It’s a way for the next mentors to see what’s been broached and talked about, so the next sessions can go even deeper and be more relevant.
Looking at the accumulated notes, one consistent theme I’ve noticed — especially from mentors from Google or from more advanced markets — is the advice to implement AI and machine learning.
It was a clear demarcation line between the emerging startups and the ones who’ve scaled in more advanced markets.
These are clearly areas where startups from emerging markets can develop further — and gain considerable competitive advantage from.
4. You are not alone
A fascinating observation is that different founders faced A TON of the same problems I’ve faced before or even facing now: scaling challenges, difficulties in maintaining culture, how to hire faster yet more effectively, founder dynamics, raising funds, losing focus, and so on.
Whether the founders were from Argentina, Thailand, Brazil, India, Indonesia, or Manila: there was some commonality in the problems we all faced.
I found this weirdly…comforting.
Sometimes we entrepreneurs adapt a me-against-the-world viewpoint, wherein we feel we’re in the trenches alone at war, that nobody understand what what we’re going through.
That’s just not true. A lot of people CAN relate to what we’re going through, and you know what’s the BEST thing? A huge number of them are willing to help.
5. Sprinting and OKR’s
These are two management tools which Google uses a lot of. They invested a lot of time teaching these tools to the startups, and a lot of the follow-up methodology over the next few months will heavily involve their use.
It’s clear that Google has found a lot of success in using these tools and has obviously invested the time and resources to make sure these are a part of their DNA.
OKR’s: we have already started using this in STORM to good effect. You can find out more about OKR’s here, here, and a longer video here.
Sprinting: Google recommends this book by Jake Knapp. (This is a quick, super-practical book I finished in 2 nights. Highly recommended!) It’s sort of like agile and lean methodology applied to problem solving and solution formulation. I found it amazing to have a very practical framework I can now use to tackle large problems with. Can’t wait to bring this back home to implement.
Be sure to check these two awesome tools out.
6. Every founder has QUITE the origin story
During one of the earlier networking nights, I was talking to an Argentinian founder/mentor and he asked me: “So what’s YOUR story?”
I could gone off and talked about my increasing army of children or how I courted my wife, but from the look in his eye, I knew immediately what he was talking about: he was asking about my startup story.
The question was innocuous enough, but I smiled a bit at the connotation: he assumed I had a story worth telling.
(and I did!)
After I wrapped up my origin story, I asked him the same question. And yes, he also had quite a story to tell.
This soon became a go-to session question for me when I talked to startups and mentors. And you know what? They ALL had unique, interesting stories to tell.
No one had a simple “I had an idea, I raised money, and I became successful.” story arc.
ALL the stories involved some excitement, some leaping, some risking. A lot talked about failures, being doubted, feeling doubtful, backs against the wall, pushing through.
The entrepreneurial leap likely isn’t going to be some simple story for you. To decide to embark on a startup essentially is saying yes to being a protagonist in a tale of adventure and daring-do.
Overall, it was really an honor and a tremendous learning opportunity for me to participate in the program. I’m really looking forward to contribute even more through Launchpad. Thank you Google for this new, exciting chapter in my adventure book.
