IT accelerators

Every startup wants to evolve from an idea into a fully established company with a worldwide reputation. But it is not easy to do it on your own, so you have to look for those who are ready to sponsor business ideas, help improve the product and take it to the next level.

IT startup accelerators are organizations that support new ideas and help them achieve intensive development under the supervision of experienced mentors. For a short time, experienced businesspeople are engaged in training teams of newcomers, sharing their knowledge, finances, and management experience.

Accelerators provide working space and the opportunity to work not only with niche experts, but also with corporations. Participation in a accelerators becomes a good reference in the future, emphasizing a positive reputation and helping to find partners. In the process of training we manage to create a perfect presentation and practice the art of pitching.

The mentor program is a great way to get a mentor in the program, to help the participants understand the value proposition, the scalability of the program, the economics of the program, and the potential for investments. In spite of the strongest stress that the team experiences during the acceleration program, the startup is given the opportunity to accelerate all the processes and solve the overachievement.

Benefits of a business accelerators for IT

Business accelerators are required for startups and companies interested in the growth and development of new ideas. Personal trainers work individually with each newcomer to help them set goals, acquire knowledge, and incorporate it into their business. This option is good when the startup idea is relevant and viable, but the project itself needs adjustments in addition to financing.

Business incubators and business accelerators should not be confused. The former look for startups at an early stage of development, when there is not yet a detailed marketing plan and proof of the product’s viability. Business incubators provide exclusively intangible support, introducing startups to business angels and venture investors. Accelerators, on the other hand, are designed for startups that have confirmed their maturity.

In fact, accelerators is both a “university” for a startup and a playground where an experiment in accelerating business processes is set up. As in any experiment, you have to approach it honestly, with the understanding that you can both win and lose.

In a short time frame, a packed program is compressed to accelerate the team and all the processes within it and around the product. In the accelerators, participants benefit from building and scaling startups.

• Training and support for people with business experience. As a rule, mentors are specialists who have their own business or those who have already helped to launch a large number of projects in various business areas.
• Scouting – growing of IT-products, which later solve corporate problems. Depending on the success of the development there is an opportunity to sign a contract with a large company under a simplified scheme.
• Creating a useful base of contacts for networking and solving recruiting problems.
• Attracting investment.
• Cultivation of clients (IT companies) by large corporations, which will use specific advertising platforms as the basis of their development.
• Expanding the ecosystems of major software or OS vendors.
• Testing of new products.
• Development of business thinking.

What is working with accelerators?

If a startup enters accelerators, that in itself is already a good recommendation, evidence of the “zest” and maturity of the project. The team should offer a new technology, not try to organize a standard production.

For example, making candy is not considered a startup until it is clear that it is made from sawdust, delivered to the client by drones, and sold exclusively by subscription. In order to move from the category of a startup to a business project, various hypotheses, assumptions, and thoughts will need to be tested.

Working under the guidance of experts invited by the accelerators significantly increases the chances of success, teaches corporate culture, and transfers competencies for integrating innovative solutions.

The most important components of the work are:

• Mentorship. The team interacts with experts drawn from different business niches specifically to advise newcomers.
• Investing. In accelerators, investors are directly involved in the selection of applications. In some cases, the accelerators takes on the function of a fund, encouraging third-party development needed to build a prototype or reimbursing the team’s expenses for the period of work.
• Training: master classes, lectures, workshops, internships are necessary for the team to gain knowledge and contacts, which will be used for business development in the future. The average duration of training is three months.
• Accelerators sites provide the necessary infrastructure: office space, office equipment, Internet.  The format of a co-working room is applied to a part of projects.
• Final events. Only those teams, which have a feasible business plan, can present their projects to potential investors, partners, and the media.
• Networking. During training, team members are in constant contact with experts, like-minded people, and investors, gaining useful business connections. As a result, a community of common interests is created.

Each accelerators offers different rules for participation, although there is one thing in common – the IT idea must be at least minimally viable.  This means that the startup has evidence that the product can solve a user problem, find a target audience and scale in the market.

Other selection criteria include:

• attractiveness to partners or investors;
• presence of implemented, successful projects;
• description of the benefits derived from the implementation of the technology;
• Approximate annual revenues;
• Team competencies, composition;
• presence/absence of investors/sales;
• viability of the project, technology performance.

Accelerators are conventionally divided into three types:

• classical venture, which identifies workable business models and then invests in them;
• corporate, which seeks solutions for highly specialized problems at the request of the client company;
• developing ecosystems of industry and regional specifics, sharpening them with a powerful educational program.

The main task of the accelerators is the growth and scaling of startups through correct goal setting. The team, confirming the viability and interest from the clients in the idea, is required to have an active desire to work and develop.

An application to the accelerators is submitted in several steps:

• an application is submitted detailing the idea, market, and team;
• promising teams are evaluated on the basis of their attractiveness to investors, the amount of potential annual revenue, and the innovativeness of their proposal;
• start-ups are interviewed and provide a package of documents confirming their income, legal status, etc;
• based on the results of the interviews, the investment committee decides whom to prioritize and who to fund.

For IT projects, either universal accelerators are suitable, or specialized ones that work only in the field of information technology. In any case, the optimal choice of accelerators takes into account the following factors:

• the accelerators and the startup’s goals coincide, and investments go to the best graduates;
• belonging to the right technological niche (EdTech, FinTech, BioTech, etc.). The more specialized a company is, the higher the level of its experts, mentors and customers is.
• location, since a number of accelerators require relocation to work on their territory;
• the accelerators requirements in terms of project maturity and team composition;
• the full-time or distant training format;
• willingness to do a pilot project for free or for a small fixed fee.

Before submitting an application, you should read the statistics of successful projects and study the list of teachers. The indicator of accelerators effectiveness is the value of companies that have entered the world market and become stars in the IT sphere thanks to it.

At the time of selecting a startup, it is important to have a working business idea, a desire to enter the global market, and become famous. The more ambitious the plans and the clearer the prospects, the more likely it is to increase profits and find investors with the help of business accelerators.