Tips to Get the Most From HAX Accelerator (PART 1)
So you got into HAX. That’s awesome, and we are about to embark on a pretty amazing journey. We have helped bring over 100 teams through HAX now and have a pretty good idea of what it takes for a team to achieve the best result.
The program lasts 111 days, and while that seems like a reasonably decent amount of time, it can disappear incredibly quickly. That means the best preparation and better discipline is required to get where you need to go. At HAX you will find the best people in the world working long hours and pulling off miracles to get your hardware project off the ground. This includes engineering, electronics, marketing strategies, etc. The team is dedicated to helping you achieve the best version of your product by the end of the program, but in order to do so, we need your cooperation. I am going to give you some insight into what you need to do to get the most from HAX (…and I am going to break this into a couple of posts, as it’s a lot of info!).
Some teams come to HAX with a good idea. Sometimes when the team at HAX looks at the tech around the idea, we question the application. This is often done early on in the program. Sometimes that questioning helps the team realize an opportunity for their tech they may not immediately see.
The team at HAX has such a huge breadth of experience and touch points on nearly every aspect of the tech industry that asking this question means we bring to bear a knowledgeable insight into an opportunity that is pretty much impossible to find elsewhere. Having an open mind on your tech will give us the opportunity to help you realize your best opportunity. A good example of this in action is a product called Darma. This team came to HAX wanting to build a sleep-tracking device. We helped them to develop a smart cushion that could be used to monitor posture, breathing, and heart rate. This tech can be standalone or built into anything that people sit on. Now the company has tech that enables smart furniture.
When we speak to teams we bring years of knowledge from backgrounds in our own startups and working in consultancies like IDEO to the table. We bring information on the latest trends and market analysis to bear, and we bring a pool of thought on how to best promote and develop your product and business. All this information is hugely useful. It is important to distill this information into the fuel that accelerates your startup.
Sometimes there can be opposing opinions, but generally a consolidated conclusion on the information we give is reached. Difference of opinion is not a bad thing as it shows that there is enough to talk about to cause an argument. Its up to you to figure out what’s best for your startup. Do it quickly and act on the information. No one at HAX will give you any information that will make you fail! We all want you to succeed.
It is incredibly important to be as transparent as possible on all the issues you are having. It is very easy for everyone to play to their strengths and to show their good side at all times. It is also easy to say you need help with things that you are working on — but what about the things you are avoiding or not working on because you do not have the knowledge or the strength in your team to deal with them?
We all try to show how awesome we are and often dance around the issues we are not awesome at. We all feel we should know. The truth is you cannot know everything. Admitting that you need help on these issues is not a problem. These are the invisible issues that often rear their ugly heads way too late. Your startup will live or die based on the things you do not like doing or cannot do and your willingness to do those things or willingness to learn how to do those things.
Personally I would rather deal with someone for a little while every single day of the program and iterate small solutions every day than try to solve a massive possibly insurmountable problem when it’s too late. We can prevent death by a thousand cuts by healing those cuts every day. It’s very hard to help the situation if your head has been cut off.
Often times it is easy to forget that you are not the only team on the program. It is important to maintain a healthy respect for other teams and the HAX team when developing your product and business — this will get you the most from the program.
111 days seems like a decent amount of time, as mentioned above, but what if you divide that number by the amount of teams on the program? That means that in reality any one member of staff has approximately seven days to work on your project — subtract weekends and it’s five days. Some teams will need more help, and some will need less, but this time is incredibly precious. Timely delivery of information and again total transparency will help extract the absolute maximum from this time. All the HAX team members are on your side trying to help you achieve the best result. If you are transparent and timely with information, you’ll have the best chance and people will do the best for you. If you are elusive and evasive on information it means we have to chase you. This eats further into the time we can give to your project and can create tension when it comes to crunch time, which in an accelerator is all the time!
And always remember… coffee and a chat are always on the cards. We are only ever an email away.
Originally published at sosv.com on January 18, 2017.
