What should mobile startups look for in accelerators?

This is a guest post by Mikko Järvenpää of Speed Up Your Startup

As I moved from the accelerator side back to the startup side, I wanted to combine my learnings with some research and distill that into a book to ensure that other founders could benefit as well. So was born Speed Up Your Startup, a book on how startup founders can accelerate their own business.

Many of the learnings were applicable to mobile startups as well. One of the most important takeaways from the survey research I did was that the industry fit between the accelerator and the startup is the key driver of value for the startups. This may sound obvious: surely if an accelerator is specialized in an industry, that is appealing to startups addressing that industry. However, the current differentiation in accelerators is still underdeveloped. Other than a few trailblazers like Springboard Mobile, many accelerators still have a broad focus and look for investments across industries and verticals.

But startups should pay close to attention to the founders and the core team of the accelerator. Do they have experience in the mobile space? Have they started companies in the space or invested in it? Alternatively, if no mobile focus, what other focus would be relevant? If you have a consumer product, look for accelerators with people experiences in B2C products. If you develop games, look for gaming or entertainment experience.

This requirement for fit was echoed in the interviews with founders, and indeed in my personal experience. Focused accelerators are able to leverage their networks better, their contacts are relevant to many of their portfolio companies, and the startups can share information and learnings easier than they could if they were from unrelated industries.

What startups would like to see more are industry contacts – potential partners and customers – that the accelerators could help them connect with. 49% of respondents who had not participated in an accelerator reported that customer contacts would be very desirable. However, only 22% of the participants reported that the industry contacts provided by the accelerator had been “very good”. 46% reported these to have been “neutral” or “poor”. The open-ended answers support this, with many founders pointing out that an accelerator would add the most value by providing partner or customer contacts.

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To learn more about the book, the learnings and the research, take a look at Speed Up Your Startup: What Entrepreneurs Should Learn From Accelerators To Succeed With Their Businesses, and download the free preview.