Ever wondered how a brilliant business idea is converted into a start-up? You need to get the right product to the right customers, then you have to cobble together an A-team to develop the product. There is also the headache of finding major investors. And what if it turns out these people just want to steal your ideas?
With so much behind-the-scenes work to do, this is where accelerator programmes come in. One such company based here is Accelerating Asia, which has crafted an accelerator programme it believes will help to fast-track growth in post-seed to pre-Series A start-ups, while investing up to $200,000 in each individual company.
The programme is open to start-ups from any country, but they should have some interest in doing business in Singapore or the region.
“The start-ups that join the programme should have a team that can execute what needs to be done in the short term on the business model,” says Craig Bristol Dixon, co-founder and general partner of Accelerating Asia. “And they would have raised some sort of angel investment previously, but not institutional investment,” he adds.
Apart from that, he looks for start-up founders who are willing to be taught. “Coachability is one of the major things we look for in a start-up. That means that they’re open to advice and help from experts. It doesn’t mean that they can’t make their own decisions or do things themselves, it just means that they [acknowledge] they don’t know everything and they know they need help,” explains Dixon.
At this stage, Dixon does not expect the start-ups to be generating revenue, but they should at least have customers. “I’m not a fan of profits in start-ups, it usually means that you’re not reinvesting your business. They should not be profitable. I would see that as a problem or that they are too conservative. But positive cash flow is good,” he continues.
But due to its strict requirements, Accelerating Asia has an acceptance rate of less than 2%, selecting only about 10 start-ups out of more than 450 applicants in every cohort. It runs for 100 days and is split into intensive weeks with masterclasses, investor meetings and pitch-coaching, guided throughout by seasoned veterans during Entrepreneur in Residence sessions. The final month then features an international trip and “demo day” with a selected group of potential investors and partners.
Each cohort may have different start-ups from different backgrounds and sectors, but Dixon notes they all face a common set of challenges, including how to secure protection of their intellectual property as well as seeking savvy ways to market themselves to investors and the wider community.
As for start-ups in specific industries, Dixon says: “We will match the start-ups with our some 70 mentors from their respective verticals. Obviously, these mentors have a lot of knowledge that we certainly don’t have. You can say the programme is fairly generalist but we bring in mentors and investors and other folks who specialise in certain fields.”
For the next cohort of start-ups, Accelerating Asia says the accelerator programme will be conducted online because of Covid-19. In September, Accelerating Asia — in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) — launched its virtual programme called Amplify.
“I would say that the vast majority of our programme translates online quite well. But what we have lost is a bit of the community where we would have regular pitch events where anyone could pop into the office and join in,” explains Dixon but he also notes that going fully online means that it could be possible for the programme to accept more start-ups in every cohort.
Nevertheless, the biggest risk of investing in early-stage start-ups is failure. Dixon says “it is kind of standard” for half of them to fail although he has yet to see a start-up in his programme fail. “So far, we have had zero failures even though it has been a challenging year,” adds Dixon.
