15 Tricks For Making The Most Of An Accelerator Program

As someone who runs accelerator programs and is a frequent guest at several others, I see cohort after cohort fall into similar patterns – for better or worse.
Some people have a life changing experience, some have a good time, some people don’t feel like it’s for them.
Fair enough.
What’s interesting is that most participants can choose which category they fall into.
There are steps you can take to squeeze incredible value out of a program, and steps you can take to ensure that you feel disconnected.
It’s up to you.

Here are 15 ways you can maximise the benefits of your accelerator experience:

1. Choose how you take breaks based on your introvert/extrovert preferences
People are surprised to learn that I am an introvert, since I’m not afraid of public speaking.
This isn’t what it means to be an introvert/extrovert – it’s more about how you expend and recharge your battery.
Does conversation tend to feel draining or reinvigorating?
If you find it draining, then it might be best to take a nap or a walk during longer breaks – not to be anti-social, but to recharge your battery.
If you find it reinvigorating, then it might be best to congregate around a common area like a kitchen or park with the other extroverts.
By being honest about how you’re wired, you go into each session with a renewed energy.

2. Ask the facilitator about what sort of notes you should take
Note taking is a great way of compounding your learning, but it can also get in the way of the main point of a session.
Taking no notes lets you participate wholeheartedly, but your memory fades fast.
Taking lots and lots of notes captures the session, but you’re always a few steps behind the conversation.
Asking for slides in advance often backfires – you read ahead and miss what the speaker/room are talking about.
Instead, I’d suggest taking notes of key quotes, good questions and anything you want to follow up afterwards.
If you ask your facilitator what sort of notes are worth taking, they can save you from duplicating the tools that you can find online or on handouts.

3. Monitor your blood sugar and caffeine levels
I quit caffeine for 9 months while at university – I didn’t like the idea of “needing” something to feel alert.
That was until one Wednesday morning in an 8:30 lecture when I briefly fell asleep.
Immediately after jolting back up, I calculated how much money I was paying to attend the lecture ($74 in 2009 money, and I was earning $10.30 an hour at the supermarket).
Why am I paying $74 and not taking in any of this material???
That day was the end of my caffeine holdout; I paid the $3 for a beverage and paid attention to my $74 lecture.
This trap affects a lot of participants who crash in the afternoons – they miss some absolute gold because their brains are flat.
It can be a blood sugar booster instead of caffeine, whatever keeps you alert.
My suggestion is to be conscious of it, and pace your boosters over the course of the day – don’t go the triple espresso first thing in the morning.

4. Work out which facilitators have which superpowers
If someone is on hand to help with the program, then they’re almost guaranteed to be able to teach you something valuable, even if they seem quiet.
Some will be great sounding boards, some will challenge you, some can pick you up when you feel lost.
Some are great with Excel, some are great with media, some are great at sales.
Identifying these superpowers early in the program lets you target your questions to the best possible person in all circumstances, without feeling like you’re burning them out.
For this reason, it might be worth taking notes as the facilitators are introduced…

5. Be the person in the room who admits that they don’t understand something
When – not if – you don’t understand something, give it a minute then ask a question.
There might be a follow up explainer that makes the idea click for you, but if not, check what you’re missing with the facilitator.
I bet you’re not the only one who didn’t understand it.
The reward for your bravery is that the facilitator will walk you through an example of your choosing, which might be a case study for your business or your industry.
Nobody ever thinks less of you for asking a question, but we sometimes get frustrated at your ego if you are more concerned with appearances than with development.

6. Aim for three wins a day
Not every conversation will be equally important for your development; some are fine, some will knock your socks off.
That’s totally fine; if a particular conversation isn’t for you, feel free to let it pass while your brain keeps processing the other topics
Three “Aha!” moments in a day is a great outcome – you get the sense of making genuine progress, without feeling overwhelmed by change.
A win might be an idea for a new product/service variation, a new articulation of a value proposition, designing a test, learning from a test, an insightful question from a mentor, or a breakthrough amongst your team.
Once you’ve hit three wins, it might be worth shifting your focus in the evening towards implementation of the new idea.
If you haven’t hit your three, it might be worth talking to one of the facilitators or your peers about your burning questions. 

7. Come to your mentors with the results of a test
A great way to waste a follow-up coaching session is to spend it tweaking a plan of attack.
That’s because you show up to the meeting/call with no new insight, no data, no progress.
If, however, you show up with the results of an experiment, you get to dissect it with your coach.
If there’s good news, you can isolate the new gems and plan a second test.
If there’s bad news, you can also isolate the gems and plan a second test.
That’s right; showing up with a failed experiment is more practical than showing up with ideas, because at least we’re now dealing with evidence instead of assumptions.
This is also a great way of speeding up your progress and generating momentum – you’ll outpace all of the teams who are still afraid of performing tests before everything is perfect.

8. Commit to reading one book per month
Reading lists are great, but they can also be overwhelming.
Instead of obtaining six books and reading none of them, perhaps it’s better to buy one book and commit to reading it before your next session?
Whenever someone comes up to me and says “Hey I read that book you suggested…”, I instantly develop a lot of time for that person – even if they hated the book.
We suggest books for a reason, and it’s reassuring to know that you trust us.
It also helps us prescribe the next book, based on how helpful you found the last one, the style of writing you enjoy, and what topics are the next most urgent for your journey.
The Return On Investment (ROI) on a good book is unbelievable; a $30 down-payment can give you $5,000 worth of wisdom, income and saved time.

9. Describe your progress separately from your feelings
People are going to ask you general questions like “How are you going” or “How are things?”, and there are several ways you can answer them.
The temptation is to just talk about performance – traction, sales, growth, etc.
We also want to know about your mindset and your mental wellbeing.
It’s possible to grow the business and feel overwhelmed, lost, uncertain about your direction, afraid of embarrassment, or like you’re under more pressure than ever before.
It’s also possible to go back to square one, experience failure and miss your test targets while feeling reinvigorated by what you’re building.
Improvement in one doesn’t always correlate to improvement in the other.
My suggestion is to answer these questions with two distinct statements; one about the idea, and one about how you’re faring.
This lets us address the real issues instead of the surface issues, and will help articulate what sort of support you’d appreciate.

10. Be honest about which tasks scare you
Sometimes entrepreneurs get slowed down by technical problems, like building a website, leasing a building in a particular neighbourhood, recruiting for a new employee, etc.
Sometimes they get slowed down by decision paralysis and fear, like publishing a website that will be judged, committing to a lease with financial risk, or recruiting an employee who will be dependent on them.
This is normal.
What is unhelpful is when we mask a paralysis and fear issue by labelling it as a technical problem.

“Oh I can’t set up those next sales meetings, my business cards haven’t arrived”

“Oh we can’t run our next test, the app is still being developed”

“Oh I can’t say no to this customer, they have a strict budget”

In the majority of cases, a miracle wouldn’t actually help.
If the business cards miraculously arrived overnight, the sales meetings are still scary.
If the app is miraculously flawless, customer feedback is still confronting.
If the customer’s budget doubles, money conversations still make you uncomfortable.
On the other hand, if you ask for help and label the issue accurately, it’s really easy for someone to make you feel more comfortable about the process.
You can work around most technical issues at your stage, but it’s hard to fight against a negative mindset that keeps generating fake news stories to keep you paralysed.

11. Ask for two rounds of pitch feedback before getting group feedback
Public speaking is notoriously daunting, so most people avoid it wherever possible.
This means that they practice less, missing the chance to iron out the wrinkles in their presentation before standing in front of a group.
With pitch practice, you’re actually developing two things at once – the order and content of the talk, and being comfortable with a lot of people looking at you.
Here’s my suggestion: don’t practice them both at the same time.
Gather 1-1 feedback on the content, without the pressure of 20 pairs of eyes.
Once you know the content is decent, you can focus on the public speaking elements like volume, pace, and what to do with your hands.
Make the most of the people around you long before you need to present in public, and by doing two rounds you can incorporate and test the changes suggested the first time.

12. Have a range of requests for the accelerator’s network
Some programs are centred around investment, but investment at an early stage is often a lousy goal.
Taking on debt when you’re still determining your model is risky, and selling equity in a rapidly changing business is bound to leave most parties feeling short-changed.
More importantly, the audience has nowhere near enough information to be able to say “yes” any time soon, so the request is often wasted.
For this reason, at a pitch event it’s worth having a financial ask and some non-financial asks.
These might include requests for mentoring, follow up coffee meetings, partnerships, introductions to partner organisations or introductions to larger customers.
A warm introduction could help you access somebody who would have previously ignored your attempts to connect, and some wise advice might end up earning you hundreds of thousands of extra dollars. 

13. Follow up with the guest speakers within 24 hours
Guests often make offers to help out at the end of their session, and I see a lot of entrepreneurs write down “follow up with (guest)” on their notes.
Whether we like it or not, enthusiasm fades over time, so while the offer is legitimate, it needs to be taken up quickly.
My suggestion is to send an email within 24 hours, even if only to schedule something in the next two weeks.
This keeps you fresh in their minds, and shows that you’re a serious operator.

14. Send out status updates to the people you’ve worked with
It’s tough for one conversation to create a raving fan for your business, and you’re in the market for some raving fans.
What works is telling someone what you’re going to do, then actually doing it.
If you start repeating this pattern, you gain real credibility and generate some excitement around your business, no matter how small it starts.
Status updates, be they fortnightly or monthly, keep your advisors in the loop and keep your business at the front of their minds.
That gives you the best chance of a follow up conversation, recommendation or introduction, and it’s immensely gratifying for them too.  

15. Once you’ve run some more experiments, go back to the earlier tools
The first version of any template you use will be terrible.
That’s ok, this is why they’re made of paper or whiteboard marker.
To get the real benefits, you’ll need a second, third, eleventh crack at the tool, especially as you run more tests.
The early drafts are full of rough ideas, but the tools become more powerful as you use evidence instead of guesses.
From a facilitator’s perspective, we have nothing to gain by suggesting these canvases – we get no commissions from printing them out.
The reason we like them is because they become more useful over time, in the same way that a gym routine becomes more effective with repetition.
This means you’re better off repeating the earlier work, rather that searching for the next set of templates.
Fewer than 10% of participants actually do this without being prompted, and they almost always end up making the most progress in the cohort.

What I like about these tricks is that they are timeless; they work even if you completely change your business, they worked 20 years ago and they’ll probably be just as effective in 20 years’ time.
I hope you enjoy your accelerator experience, you’re in for a treat!