For accelerators, incubators and programme operators
Everyone says their cohort improved.
There are hundreds of accelerators in the UK and almost all of them report the same things: applications received, companies accepted, mentor hours delivered, funds raised by alumni. None of it separates a good programme from a busy one.
A measure taken at intake and again at exit does, and it is the same measure every other cohort in the country is taking.
The problem, drawn
Two programmes. Identical reports.
Applications, acceptances, mentor hours, funds raised. On every figure a sponsor is given, these two cohorts are the same programme.
They are not. One moved most of its companies and one moved a few. Nothing in the reporting shows it, so the sponsor renews on relationship rather than evidence, and the better programme gets no credit for being better.
Measure at intake and again at exit and the difference is the first thing you see.
An illustration of why identical reporting hides a real difference, not observed data.
The three moments it matters
Which applicants
Applications are read on the deck and the founder. A commercial capability position adds a second reading, taken the same way for every applicant, and it takes them eight minutes rather than another interview.
Where to spend the hours
Mentor time is the scarcest thing you have. Knowing which companies are blocked on proposition, and which on process, aims it. Two companies with the same score often need opposite things.
What actually changed
Movement per company between two dates, on a published instrument. Not a survey, not a testimonial, and not a raise figure that says more about the market than the programme.
Who you answer to
The people funding the programme are the ones who need this.
Corporate sponsors, a bank, a combined authority, a university partner, or your own investors. Every one of them eventually asks the same question, and attendance figures do not answer it.
An accelerator that can show movement per company, on an instrument it did not design and cannot tune, is making a different kind of claim from one that reports how many people turned up.
- Cohort composition described by commercial capability, not by sector and stage alone
- A named blocker per company, and what was done about it
- Movement between intake and exit, per company
- The same instrument used by other programmes, so your figures are not self-marked
- Comparable across your own cohorts, year on year
The tender argument
Accelerators compete for the same regional and national money, usually against organisations with a near identical proposition. Most bids describe process: the curriculum, the mentor network, the demo day.
A bid that says we measure every company at intake and exit on a published standard, and here is last cohort's movement is answering a question the others are not.
This is the same reason combined authorities are interested. If the commissioner is moving towards outcome measures, the delivery partner that already has one is in a different position from the one promising to design something.
What we are not doing
- Not replacing your selection process. It is one more input, taken consistently, alongside everything you already do
- Not scoring your programme. The instrument measures companies. Any read on the programme comes from the movement of its companies, and we do not publish league tables of providers
- Not competing with your mentors. The diagnosis names the category of support needed. Who delivers it is your decision and usually your own network
- Not claiming your programme caused the movement. We report what preceded what. Anything stronger would not survive a sponsor's scrutiny, or ours
First engagement
One cohort, ninety days, a fixed fee of GBP 9,000 credited in full if you continue. Intake measurement, exit measurement, and a report you can put in front of whoever funds the programme.
Companies are never charged and keep their own results permanently, whether or not they finish the programme.