At Montreal StartupFest 2019, I led a roundtable discussion on Building Startup Accelerator Communities, accompanied by industry colleague Tariq Haddadin of Techstars. Thanks to the StartupFest team for putting on a solid event!

Discussion Notes: Montreal StartupFest 2019 – Building Startup Accelerator Communities Roundtable Discussion

Led by Jeffrey Donenfeld of Boomtown Accelerators and Tariq Haddadin of Techstars

Opening

Accelerator model and Accelerators Networks

Round table

Local vs global networks
Startup partners (AWS, Google for Entrepreneur, etc.)
How your accelerator can be a part of the network and a catalyst for corporates
You are building a social network for your accelerator but more importantly for your companies and founders and alumni
GAN
Building a network for your accelerator (pipeline, investors, etc.)
How to use corporate relationships with accelerators to apply their network to your accelerator companies + alumni
Benefits of creating a global network of partners
Community events

Managing founder<>Mentor relationships and setting expectations – do staff manage mentors or do you setup separate person for managing these relationships?

Asking questions rather than doing work. (Bob, Innova Corp)
Educating mentors on how to mentor effectively (Tariq) and setting up initial Mentor Madness meeting
Weekly update emails from Mentors on what they can do
(David F)Building mentors network through tiers. Give first and divide of giving vs selling (Jeffrey)
Hybrid local/remote mode (Alex Reid ) zoom meetings and quarterly reviews, planned meetings – tech to engage folks
Mentor company vs mentor entrepreneur – mentor the person for longterm (robert)

Connecting accelerators around the world

Look for synergies of founders for prioritizing connections (tariq)
GAN (Jeffrey)
Build local network first
Used to enhance dealflow synergies (jeffrey)

Using network to build investor relationships

Rise of pre-venture community
Seattle angel conference, rockies venture club

Corporate Accelerators

Corporate resources that an accelerator can’t necessarily provide (tariq) pushing give first
Learning how to deal with corporations (jeffrey)
(Vivek (loreal)) – do boomtown/techstars compete on comcast – find unique strengths for each program