her group’s rankings. Otherwise, she says, accelerators could say, for example, that 80 percent of their companies are still in business, but in reality, most of those companies are worthless.
“We want to give you a boost when the companies that you do allow to survive are more highly valued,” she says of the ranking process. “That’s an indication that you’re keeping the good companies alive and killing bad companies.”
As for the idea of unsuccessful startups “pitching” their post-mortems instead of a business plan, Hochberg says that’s not likely to happen. “People are not there to discover the educational journey the founder went through,” she says. “Investors are looking for things to invest in.”
However, some accelerators are beginning to make the startup learning process more transparent to both entrepreneurs and investors. The Tech Wildcatters accelerator in Dallas last year revamped its program into what it calls the “Gauntlet,” which is designed to help companies fail fast, says Gabriella Draney Zielke, the Dallas accelerator’s co-founder. Tech Wildcatters got rid of the 12-week time constraint and the traditional “graduation ceremony” of a pitch day. Instead, the entrepreneurs get free space and mentoring but only receive investment upon hitting certain milestones.
The idea is to place more emphasis on which companies are doing well—and which are not. “When you see companies that are kind of spinning their wheels for a long time trying hard not to fail, it’s tough to see,” Zielke says.
Kerri Smith, managing director of Rice’s Owlspark student accelerator, says it’s important for student entrepreneurs to go through the exercise of a demo day regardless of the company’s ultimate success. “It’s part of that learning curve,” she says.
Still, “we could probably talk about [the mistakes] more, especially at this level where the stakes are so low” at a university accelerator, she says. “Not everybody here is going to succeed at this particular venture, but what you can learn here can be applied to the next venture.”
