You’ve heard teams talk about their ups and downs on their Springboard roller-coaster journey. But hang on, what’s it like on the other side of the table?! For today’s post we turn to Springboard mentor Russell Buckley, who story-tells the Springboard experience from a mentor’s perspective.
Article originally published in Mobile Marketing Magazine, December 2011. You can download the iPad edition free for the real thing here.
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Springboard to Success, by Russell Buckley
The roadmap to entrepreneurial success has been disrupted in the last few years with the rise and fall of the Accelerator. Pioneered by TechStars in the US, the concept has been borrowed and adapted both locally and internationally, with the leading UK version being the Springboard program.
An Accelerator is a mentor-drive, seed stage investment programme. Entrepreneurial teams lucky enough to win a place on one are given some funding, along with a short but very intense residential course, led by a team of successful business people. The mentors – who can be entrepreneurs, corporate whizzes, venture capitalists or academics – play a critical part in the programme by imparting their learning and wisdom to each of the teams.
The result of all this is that the teams get catapulted to the next stage in their entrepreneurial journeys at a far faster trajectory than they would do on their own, hence the generic Accelerator description. The model has been running long enough now for this to be proven beyond doubt, with over 50 per cent of participants going on to raise more funding. This is an astonishing figure in comparison with market averages.
Making the cut
This year, I was flattered to be asked by the Springboard programme to be a mentor, along with the great and the good of the UK tech scene. So what exactly does this involve?
Places on the Springboard programme, as with most Accelerators, are hotly contested. This means that, as a mentor, you’re guaranteed to only work with the crème de la crème.
The first stage is to meet all of the teams for about 10-15 minutes each – mentor’s answer to speed dating. The purpose of these brief introductions is for both mentors and mentees to find out about each other, and create a shortlist for more detailed exploration.
Apart from the technology link, the teams have little in common, and this year’s crop ranged far and wide across the startup spectrum. They included MiniMonos, a fun social network for kids based on a world inhabited by monkeys; TotalGigs, a way for event attenders to relive the collective concert experience; and Apiary, a one-stop destination for API developers to create and share their work.
I found all the teams interesting in different ways, which is a reflection of the thorough selection process the teams have to go through to make the cut. But as the process went on, I naturally gravitated toward three or four teams who I thought I’d like to get to know a little better, and could add value to, given my experience working in the mobile marketing sector.
After the initial shortlisting is completed, a series of one-hour sessions are held, so that mentors can reduce their shortlist to one company. In some cases, mentors might not select anyone, or in the case of a few hardy (or foolhardy!) souls, they might choose to mentor two entrepreneurial teams for the rest of the 3-month programme.
Mentoring
Once a mentor has found a company to focus on – and the company has accepted them – the real work begins. How to be a mentor isn’t prescribed by Springboard in any way, so it’s up to the two parties to figure out what works for them.
In my case, the two entrepreneurs behind HubFlow and I agreed to work together. HubFlow uses mobile to enhance learning for enterprises, particularly focusing on video. Its target audience is mainly large companies, that have dispersed sales forces.
Our mentor methodology settled on a weekly call, supplemented with email updates. This worked pretty well, though sometimes calls were missed when pressing deadlines arrived on either side.
Unlike some start-ups, HubFlow started getting clients immediately, which is both a blessing and a curse, as it means some of the pre-planning building blocks for the company were skipped over, resulting in a sort of Ready, Fire, Aim approach. This kind of scenario can be frustrating at times for both the mentor and the mentees, but in my experience, it’s much better than the alternative scenario of the customers never arriving in the first place!
Judgement Day
Judgment day arrives at Springboard in the form of Investor Day at the end of the programme. Each team gets to pitch the fruits of their labours to a packed auditorium of angel investors and VCs, all keen to invest in the best of the graudating teams. It’s a fascinating experience as a mentor to see how much all the teams have developed in three months, to compare notes and network with other mentors.
In the US, TechStars already has a consortium of investors who offer all successful entrants to the programme a guaranteed convertible loan of $100,000, such is their confidence in the Accelerator. And based on the quality of the graduates at Investor Day, it’s very easy to see that this confidence is well placed. It’s surely only a matter of time before a similar deal is on offer for the UK version.
What’s next?
Springboard is already planning its 2012 programme, so any budding entrepreneurs who are reading this now should seriously consider applying [note: applications have now closed, but will re-open later in 2012]. Speaking to a selection of the graduates at this year’s Investor Day, there is no doubt that the programme is highly demanding, very intensive and fraught with pressure at times. But all of the teams agreed that they would do it again, that they would recommend it to their peers, and that it would stand them in excellent stead for the future, which is ultimately what it’s all about.
Would I agree to be a mentor again? Absolutely – I’ve already signed up for the 2012 programme, and did so without any hesitation. It’s a fascinating process to be involved in, and from a selfish point of view, it helps hone your own management skills by exposing you to all kinds of issues you may not normally come across. At the same time, it allows you to help a new generation of entrepreneurs to build something great, without making some of the mistakes we all made as we climbed the ladder to success. Roll on 2012!
Russell Buckley is CMO at mobile coupon company Eagle Eye Solutions and a mentor on the UK Springboard program.
@RussellBuckley
