Supercharge Your Startup:
As a founder, where can you get valuable peer feedback, thoughtful mentorship, and immediate resources with people who identify with the startup journey? Founders are already trying to do things at scale that other people cannot replicate, but to deliver that change in a complex region like Greater Southeast Asia, they need a more collective and collaborative approach to their new ideas, together. Many founders in our ecosystem have learned to be a better founder after joining our accelerator program where they have been exposed to a community of founders, mentors, and resources.
Founders are known to try new things that other people can’t or won’t replicate, so the challenge for founders is being able to do that inside of an existing market, and doing it consistently over time. Markets like to function in one way, which is what entrepreneurs challenge when they develop new ideas. When founders come together, it’s easier to challenge the status quo when they’re surrounded by others who are doing the same thing. Otherwise, while continually pushing at an existing model, founders might find the journey exhausting and alienating. Community is essential -- that’s one thing accelerators can offer better than any other institution.
Having a community of founders helping each other out, despite them being strangers to one another, is critical in driving innovation forward. We’ve seen in our own community how simply asking for advice yields tons of responses from other founders who have been there, done that. “If we have any kind of question, we can just grab a Facebook message and a lot of people will help us,” Alan Chan and Lewis Pong (AW#16 Omnichat - 給你 Easychat) say. “This is really amazing.”
Included in that community is mentorship. Having mentors in life, whether you’re a founder or not, can be one of the biggest drivers for motivation and success. When it comes to entrepreneurs, many attribute their success to having great mentors who helped them along their entrepreneurial journey. It’s no wonder that many startups have advisors on their team. Also, having someone to bounce ideas off of to avoid costly mistakes can be crucial to making or breaking a startup. For Sheng (AW#18 Luxtag), “mentors have a more ‘anything is possible’ mentality (i.e., they innovate and try new things). Mentors in general help to unlock situations when the founders are stuck, when they can’t agree on what to do next, or have inexperience in a situation.”
Within a community comes resources that founders can take advantage of. Bootstrapping your startup and being lean require you to think about how to manage your budget and your expenses. Most accelerator programs will offer resources to help with this problem, and allow the founders to focus on building their startup rather than nitpicking which programs they can use and what facilities they should be at.
While it’s true that not all startups are suited to join an accelerator program, there are many benefits for startups to go through an accelerator in order to grow their business and be in an environment that facilitates this kind of growth. If you’re looking for a community, mentors, or resources to expand to a new market, an accelerator program might be perfect for you.
If you’d like to learn more about the community at AppWorks, the mentors in our network, or the resources we have to offer, check out our website and if you’re working on AI or Blockchain solutions, you’re welcome to apply to our 20th batch in 2020! >>> http://bit.ly/2rh3rKx
By: Natalie Feng Lin, Analyst
Image credit: Body Shop Business
