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Interview With Startup Boost, Matt Stodder and Blake Caldwell

What is Startup Boost, and how is it looking to help early stage startups in Los Angeles? We recently sat down with Matt Stodder, Co-Director of Startup Boost/Los Angeles, and Blake Caldwell, Global Director of Startup Boost, to learn more about the program, what it offers up to startups.

Explain what Startup Boost is?

Blake Caldwell: This is our second cohort at Startup Boost, which is a preaccelerator. It's a term to help people understand that we're here to help companies get ready to scale. The concept, is we want o get them to an accelerator, get them investment, or get them to revenue—any one of those paths would be great. We have the thesis, this hypothesis, that we can have a really large impact on startups, with a low touch point. We do that by galvanizing the community to help out. Most of our mentors are people who have been successful entrepreneurs and investors, who have been there, and understand how to get a company to the next sage. They're willing to give their time, a few hours a week, to help out startups. We charge zero, and take no equity, and really there are very small operational costs for us to support startups. Lots of other programs for startups are not great players, so what we want to be is to be that support cohort to help startups get to the next stage.

Explain how a pre-accelerator is different compared with an accelerator?

Matt Stodder: What we see, is we're occupying a place in the ecosystem where there are companies with ideas, but really haven't take those ideas to a place where they can execute or plan for them. other companies, which are already off and running are ready for aceclerators and seed funding. We occupy the space in ecosystem to service companies who are getting ready for seed or have just started to go out for seed funding. That's important, because companies have no other place to go if they're not ready for seed funding. We are there to take that promising company, and propel them to the next stage. In that way, we're working with investors, accelerators like Techstars, and others, to help feed those companies into them, and create a necessary role in the ecosystem.

How did Startup Boost start?

Blake Caldwell: Startup Boost actually came out of a company called Startup Next. We launched under new branding last fall. I have run the LA area since Startup Next, and we've had 8 cohorts over the last four years. Up Global was the parents company for Startup Next, Startup Weekend, and also StartupDigest and Startup Week. They were a nonprofit, and had a series of different properties. The model that came up after Startp Weekend, is how do we support startups coming out of those weekends? That was Startup Next. In LA, we ran a company that was focused on more traditional mentors, but found that it was just too early for 1-on-1 mentorships versus the value being provided, so we quickly moved over to the pre-accelerator model, which we started running full time. We perfected and proved the model out, and in the last year and a half of the program, Techstars bought out Up Global, and ran it under the Techstars brand. For reasons I can't go into, it just didn't work out under Techstars, so that's when we decided to spin out and handle this program on our own.

We're sure you see lots of very early founders trying to figure out to get to the next stage. What's the most important thing for them to think about?

Matt Stodder: The most important thing is to understand their customers, and who they are going after. They really have to have an understanding of why their product exists, why their project exists, who the market is for their product. There are lots of people who create ideas, without places for them to go. They fail to understand what the market is, what their differentiation is to their customers. To excel, you have to know what those differentiators are to reach that market.

Blake Caldwell: We believe heavily in customer in customer development. We believe in the technique of learning every aspects of you market by talking to people. You have to understand your customers and partners. In order to de-risk your company, you've got to have conversations with your customers, and not make assumptions. Assumptions kill companies when reality starts to check in. There is so much to do before building thins, and spending money on things like advertising, when you are just not ready. That kills companies and waste resources.

Matt Stodder: Do as much market validation as you can, without spending money on expensive prototypes, or marketing. Just start validating what your idea is with potential customers, then go from there. Without market evaluation, you're just wasting people's time and money.

Blake Caldwell: The value to what we're doing, is there are easily more than ten times the number of startups today then there were eight years ago. Accelerators and investors are pulling farther and farther away from the beginning of the startup journey, and there's a huge gap that has been created. We're really trying to key into that gap, and trying to fill it in.

Where's the most appropriate place for a startup to be to become part of Startup Boost?

Blake Caldwell: What we say, is they need a minimum viable product, and some kind of market validation, and ideally, some traction. If they are good at customer development, we'll look at that as well. Also, you have to have a team. We will occasionally take a single founder, if everything else comes into play, but it's really tough to get in as a single founders. It's such a short program, we want to get them to the next stage as quickly as possible. We want to see how we can help them, and if they are ready to take our help. That comes down to if we put our resources into it can we help, and are they coachable? We want teams willing to take advice from mentors.

Matt Stodder: The other thing, is we want to see some market traction. We want to see that they've taken their idea, and gotten some validation and traction, so we can base our guidance on what the market's reaction is so far.

So when's the next time you are running the program?

Blake Caldwell: We'll be running another program in September, and applications will open in July or early August.

Finally what advice would you give to those companies who didn't make it in this time, or who you felt just weren't ready?

Blake Caldwell: To the teams that don't make it, we do several things. We let them know about other programs supporting early stage companies. My key thing, is I try to get them to take the free course from Steve Blank on Udacity-which is free—about customer development, business models, and market sizing. Steve Blank teaches at Stanford business school, but he's open sourced the course. It's perfect for learning startup development, if you don't yet have that knowledge. In fact, anyone who gets into our program starts by watching that course, because it's a starting point for us.

Matt Stodder: We also have companies who have applied once and not gotten in, and finally applied the next time and gotten in. The difference usually is they've gotten some more market validation, more product idea,s and talked to more potential mentors and investors to get feedback. They have gotten to the place where they know their product and market a lot better, have reapplied, and are now ready to go.

Thanks!