Goal-setting: The backbone of the Startmate Accelerator

While the true magic of a startup accelerator can only be experienced first-hand, at its core the accelerator experience is the combination of a few specific ingredients — dedicated time, support and focus. While it’s hard to replicate the cohort-driven peer support, the time-bound urgency of a 12 week program, and the full force of a community of mentors and experienced founders ready to help you succeed, there is one thing available for those playing along at home — setting powerful goals and focusing in on those milestones to propel your business forward.

In Week 0, our Summer21 cohort spent time workshopping (and refining with their mentor squad) where they want to be in 3, 6 and 12 months — these are the milestones they will focus on and track their progress against for the remainder of the program. But not all goals are created equal, and nailing the formation of these targets can be as critical as the actual goals themselves. So how do you go about this process to set goals that are both hugely ambitious, but with a clear path to achievement? You bring in the experts!

In Week 1, we were joined by CEO of CS in Schools and rampersand Venture Partner Hugh Williams for a goal-setting crash course to help our founders cascade their vision and mission into SMART strategic goals that matter. Hugh shared stories from his time leading engineering and product teams at companies like eBay and Google (including the time when upon arriving at eBay, he and the team had to work to distil the existing 43 goals to just one clear one!), highlighting the way goals should translate into a tangible action plan that aligns and motivates stakeholders, ultimately leading to organisational success.

But for Hugh, the goals themselves are only good if they help you distil the signal from the noise and know where to direct your attention from week to week. As he said to the cohort, “you can pick the goals to drive the strategy — now the most important thing is to focus”. Without these anchors to help guide decision making, you can feel like you’re having fun and making progress on hundreds of little things, where in reality you’re drifting all over the place and actually going around in circles.

You can pick the goals to drive the strategy — now the most important thing is to focus.

So what do good goals look like in practice? Here are the targets some of our awesome Summer21 cohort companies are focusing in on between Week 0 (mid-January) and Demo Day (mid-April):

Cake Equity

Cake helps startups issue equity and options to investors and employees, and manage their cap table.

Our Core Metric + Goals

1. 100 customer feedback interviews
2. 20% MOM activated customer growth
3. 150 raise or ESOP contracts signed through Cake in 30 days by end of program

EntryLevel

Preventing mass unemployment by 2030. EntryLevel re-skills people using mentor-driven virtual experiences to help them explore new career opportunities.

Our Core Metric + Goals

1. Launch and Test EntryLevel Model with 600 Beta Testers
2. Launch Monetisation Model → MRR
3. Hit 50k pre-signups for full platform release.

Milkdrop

Milkdrop is rethinking the way breast pumps work for mums. Our first product is a soft silicone cushion that fits the head of breast pumps making them more comfortable.

Our Core Metric + Goals

1. Customers: Pre-sell all inventory of 2000 units
2. Supply Chain: Prep systems to sell 4000 units in Q2
3. Visibility: Reach 8,000 subscribers via website

We’ll be checking back over the next 10 weeks to give more of an insight into what our Summer21 companies are working on and learning, sharing more of their progress along the way. Stay tuned for Demo Day in April to see how they tracked against their goals!

To learn more about goal-setting, check out 3 Rules to Set Goals for Early Stage Startups.

To learn what focus has to do with a well-cooked piece of steak, click here.

For further reading, we recommend ‘Measure What Matters’ by John Doerr. Check out Batko’s book notes here.