Accelerator spaces should be awkward
An excerpt from the PIE Cookbook
Note: For the past year, PIE has been working to document everything we’ve learned over the last eight years of experimenting with coworking spaces and early stage startup accelerators. It’s an open source project we call the PIE Cookbook. This is an excerpt from that documentation.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years of running PIE, it’s that the physical space that the accelerator inhabits plays a vital role in the dynamic of the way the participants in the accelerator behave. The work environment impacts the culture, the collaboration, and the overall feel of the program you are working to deliver.
Because your objective is not to coddle startups. If you want to coddle them, then start an incubator. Protect them with warmth and comfort. Shield them from the outside world. Create a utopian existence for them. That’s what an incubator does.
You’re creating an accelerator and an accelerator has very different motives.
Coworking space is comfortable. Accelerator space is awkward.
Your job as an accelerator is to get startups moving further faster than they would on their own. Your job is to expose founders to the harsh realities of their new existence. Your job is to expose them to challenges and conflict. Your job is to get them to grow up — and, ideally, out. Your job is to create a microcosm of the real world. A biome of startup life. The same way it exists outside of your doors.
But with a few safety nets strewn here and there.
And then you need to poke the startups so that, from time to time, they tumble into those safety nets.
If you provide a space that is too comfortable and too accommodating then the startups will stay there. Forever. Trust us. And that isn’t what you want. You want churn. You want growth. You want backfill. And activity.
Don’t overdo it or over design it
The space must be viable and functional. Aside from that, it should never be comfortable. It should never be easy. The space should be just difficult enough. Without being frustrating.
We encourage you to think of the collaborative workspace in terms of being “utilitarian.” It should be awkward at best. Leaning toward uncomfortable.
It’s not that you don’t have the ability to make the space more comfortable. It’s simply that it shouldn’t be comfortable. That is not the purpose of the space. The space, like building a startup, should be difficult. And awkward. It should always cause friction. And discomfort.
Your only requirements are a solid wifi connection, access to power, a surface for a laptop, and a chair. That’s it. Beyond that, you provide less than is needed.
You should have too many people in the space. It should be noisy. You should have too few conference rooms. And too many conversations. People should be eavesdropping whether they want to or not. You should have passible coffee and, if it fits your culture, beer. But most of all, everyone should be in one another’s way.
Yes, your Founders are amazing people to be around. And there is no end to their creativity and drive. But you need to get them out of the space. And you need to encourage them to move out. And they need to want to do that. That needs to be a motivating factor.
We are inviting you into our space because we want you to leave.
This is an excerpt from the PIE Cookbook, an open source guide to running a startup accelerator, that is rapidly approaching the release of version 1.0. For more information, visit the PIE Cookbook project on Github and join us in the PIE Cookbook Slack instance. To stay up-to-date on the latest from PIE, feel free to follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or sign up for our semi-regular email newsletters.
