There’s four people you definitely need to know in this town: William Tsu, Sam Teller, Jeff Solomon, and Howard Marks.
They are the leaders behind important pillars of ourstartup community - Muckerlab, Launchpad, Amplify, and StartEngine, respectively.
Last Thursday, June 20th they all sat on a special panel called “Meet the Accelerators” at SiliconBeachFest which was moderated by Natalie Jarvey of the LA Business Journal.
In a minute, we’ll hear what they have to say about their experience last year as accelerator chairs.
Why it matters
One perk of the relatively recent LA Tech uprising is a packed social calendar. Between CrossCamp.us, RealOfficeCenters, Coloft, TechZulu, and FounderPanel, there's loads of options for socializing.
Without searching too hard, motivated networkers can easily attend one event every weeknight to meet their peers in the “Silicon Beach” scene. (I just saw Michael cringe.)
And there’s the problem.
After the initial excitement of exchanging introductions and names has passed, you quickly begin thinking: “Is this person credible? Serious?”
I’ve been to probably hundreds of local events in the past year, and had over 500 conversations about startups, life in general, and tech.
Many of the people I meet are doing their first startup. I admire the fact that they’re trying to change their lives and make an impact on the world.
Its difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes someone a compelling advocate of their startup, but as the saying goes: “I’ll know it when I see it.”
There’s one element I’ve been able to uncover: as first time founders, you need to be ruthless about establishing your credibility early in the conversation for a productive mid or end-game.
Thankfully, there’s a ‘hack’ to credibility as a first-time founder. Mentioning that StartEngine, Amplify, Launchpad, or MuckerLab vetted you and decided to invest helps you cross that credibility chasm as a founder.
Your conversation partner at the meetup will perk up as soon as you drop that “accelerator funded” tidbit, whether they’re a fellow founders, investor, or customer.
Knowing that, now let’s bring the spotlight back to the panel.
The discussion was engaging because all of the participants know each other well. Thankfully, not enough well enough to prompt an ‘echo chamber’ discussion. There were definitely disagreements and we’re all better for it.
I’ll briefly discuss what appears to be each accelerator’s strengths, then we’ll dive into three specific points that came up on the panel, and we’ll end with some ‘snapshots’ of each chair’s personality.
If you want info on accelerator’s deal terms and other FAQ’s, I encourage you to google it, I won’t be detailing that here.
What are the differences between LA accelerators?
I’ll speak about Amplify, Muckerlab, and Launchpad, but I’m most familiar with StartEngine.
Amplify, located in Venice, has connections to media and prefers to take companies with traction. Their office space is shared with NextSpace venice. I've never visited but I know NextSpace Culver City and Santa Cruz are both top notch.
Muckerlab, in Santa Monica, is similar to Amplify but shelters their classes for 6 months, which is longer than average in LA. You can hear the experience of a Muckerlab company on "The Great Business Experiment" Podcast Episode #7.
Launchpad invests $50k with an option for $50k later and has great terms for entrepreneurs, but generally is looking for more seasoned entrepreneurs and very advanced concepts to join the program. Read below to see what type of founder they look for.
StartEngine, where I run the program, generally does deals at a very early stage and has graduated the most companies of any LA-based accelerator – 50 – since its inception in 2011.
Sure, many of StartEngine’s entrepreneurs are fresh out of college and this is their first company. On the other hand, many are seasoned founders. I’ll name one clever example: Jad Meouchy of OSurv founded a company called REOWatch in 2008 whose tagline couldn’t have been more timely: “Financial analysis software for the foreclosure industry.” Yes, seriously.
Of course, some great founders also spent several years in industry before deciding to do a startup – Hank Leber of GonnaBe in advertising and Chris Thompson of TruBrain in marketing at Unilever come to mind.
Panel Discussion - contraversial, funny, and informative
I want to point out three discussion threads that really stood out during the panel session.
First: Should entrepreneurs have kids?
Prompted by Natalie’s question: “What sort of founder are you looking to invest in?,” Howard Marks of StartEngine responded: “Young, resourceful, and very committed. We have seen that younger founders especially those who don’t have kids yet are more comfortable with risks, and that’s what we want.”
In response, an impassioned spectator to stand up and get fired up. She displayed the classic and dreaded discussion panel Q&A manuever- asking a statement.
“We need to end this stereotype that entrepreneurs shouldn’t have kids!” She related a story about how the founder of ZipCar, a woman, asked her 13-year old daughter whether it was okay to start a company and her daughter’s reply was simply “Will it help the world? If it does, then do it.”
All the accelerator heads went back on their heels a bit in reaction to this statement, but generally the consensus was that, yes, having a family will probably make entrepreneurs more risk averse and unable to work as hard as their childless peers.
Sam Teller, in his 20’s, wisely and effectively put a bow on the conversation thread with his first joke of the day: “Well guys, [referring to Howard, Jeff, Will] I’m the only one up here who doesn’t have kids, so that must mean I work harder than all of you.” Yes, everyone laughed.
Second: How does an entrepreneur get the most out of an accelerator program?
This one was fielded expertly by Jeff Solomon of Amplify.
“Look guys, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Entrepreneurs that are always asking for things and know how to recruit people to help them out get the most out of our program. Is that how it should be? Maybe not, but the alternative is for me and the mentors to come to you and ask what you need. We’re all busy, and that’s not gonna happen. Our best founders, and incidentally, the ones who end up building great companies, are always squeaking and always getting greased. That’s just how this game is played.”*
I can’t agree more. As someone who runs an accelerator program day-to-day, the people who get the most help are those who ask for it the most. Mentors will help, but you need to come to them. Same with introductions from the accelerator, and help from operations. We’re here to support you, but we’re not mind readers.
Third Question: Can interns add value to accelerators programs?
Sam Teller mentioned that Launchpad interns are usually put to work helping Launchpad companies. Will Tsu of Muckerlab confessed that he wasn’t quite sure what to do with interns, as startups are so busy they don’t have the time or motivation to manage interns and put them to work.
Jeff Solomon noted: “Our best interns have been college students who are between Freshman and Sophomore year, because they’re smart enough to know something, but not too smart for their own good.”
On this point I agree with Sam – the best way to put interns to work is usually directly for startups, as a “pinch hitter.”
Let’s say you have an intern who is good at filming and editing videos (and I do). The best way for them to add value to your accelerator is by adding value to your companies, which makes everyone happy. In that case, I’d tell them to help one of our teams produce a video to promote their product.
This is exactly how I’ve deployed the 4-5 interns with different skillsets who work for StartEngine. How to manage all this man (and woman) power? I've developed a good framework, but that’s a topic for another day
Wrapping it up
Now you’re wondering: what are the accelerator chairs actually like? I’ll leave it to you to make up your decision. For your consideration, I’ll just post some brief snippets from each chair below.
William Tsu: “Our job at Muckerlab is to maximize the positive change that occurs between the time we accept you and when you graduate”
Sam Teller: “I know we have one more minute left… before we wrap it up, I’d like to ask a question to the panel: What exactly does a mentor do? – Thank you for that question. Wow, that really was a great question… whoever asked that is so smart... [answers his own question to audience laughter]”
Jeff Solomon: “I’d say my motivation for running an accelerator isn’t the money – I don’t know if it’s very good business model. The real reason is because I want to be a founder again one day, and after this experience I’ll be in a much better position.”
Howard Marks (in response to comment that entrepreneurs seem to leave work early): “I don’t understand why entrepreneurs are not working as hard anymore. [other panelist interjects to mention the reason people leave early might be an attempt to beat LA traffic] Yes, you’re absolutely right about LA traffic, it's horrible. That’s why you should just work until 10PM because there’s no traffic at that time of day.”
~~
THIS POST ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON STARTENGINE.COM
*This quote is from memory and my notes, as I didn’t record the panel. My apologies if I miscontrued anything that was said
Full disclosure: I am an employee of StartEngine. To me, StartEngine green and black are the best colors in town. But friendly rivalries aside, as a Santa Monica native I just want LA to be a great place to start and work for tech companies.
