Startup Accelerator Spotlight: Iowa Startup Accelerator

Iowa Startup Accelerator is the first time-boxed accelerator in the state.

Name of Accelerator: Iowa Startup Accelerator

Location: Cedar Rapids, Iowa

David Tominsky, Managing Director

Website: newbo.co

Managing Director: David Tominsky

Program Manager: Molly Monk

This article is part of our Startup Accelerator Spotlight Series featuring accelerators from around the world. We hope these spotlights will assist the entrepreneur should they consider attending an accelerator program.

In two sentences or less, tell us about your accelerator and its objectives.

Iowa Startup Accelerator is the first time-boxed accelerator in the state. We match tech-based startups, especially those in ag, health, education, manufacturing and transportation technology, with world-class mentors, Midwestern work ethic, seed funding, and development expertise to take them from concept to successful launch in 90 days.

5 Steps from Concept to Startup

Why is your accelerator program unique? Please describe the benefits of participation in your program.

Our accelerator is bookended by programs that help our teams succeed. The pre-accelerator vets team for grit and execution and the post-accelerator continues to work with teams to help them reach $1M in revenue. Agile and focus shape the accelerator itself as a central themes. While in the accelerator, our teams take advantage of the culture of shared learning not only between members of the cohort, but also with our mentor-in-residence program. We’re also part of a larger nonprofit, the New Bohemian Innovation Collaborative, that energizes our community and draws a larger network for our teams.

Refine Your Accelerator Search with this Free Accelerator Search Tool.

What is the most difficult part of working with startups?

A lot of the most difficult parts of working with startups relate directly to founders that latch prematurely onto a solution without doing their due diligence to discover a real problem. It prevents founders from accepting feedback and adapting when necessary. Another difficult thing about working with startups is helping them produce high quality work on a limited to non-existent budget. Limited funding can really help startups to be disciplined and scrappy, but it doesn’t make it easy.

14 Types of Information Investors May Request as Part Of Their Due Diligence Checklist for Your Startup [Infographic]

What do you enjoy the most; what do you find most appealing about working with entrepreneurial startups?

Making a crucial introduction that changes the trajectory of an early stage company is incredibly rewarding. With the help of our extensive mentor and resource network, we help people accomplish things they otherwise would never have done. Startups are inspiring. Not only do we get to help them realize their dreams, but we also get to see them inspire our mentors and community.

Tell us about your success stories; Which are the most interesting companies to have participated in your program?

LendEDU helps refinance student loan debt without hurting credit rates.
HowFactory simplifies training materials and processes, turning old school know-how into digital show-how.
Swinetech prevents crushing/lay-on deaths for piglets and acts as a “FitBit” for sows.
GolfRz improves the golfing experience for users and increased revenue for clubs.

We have six teams going through our program right now with ideas ranging from e-sports to pencil skirts to smart bike technology. A great feature about this cohort – besides their ideas – is that half of the teams have female founders!

What are the three most important factors startup entrepreneurs should consider when contemplating attending an accelerator?

Before applying to an accelerator, founders need to do some serious self-reflection and be able to answer these questions:

Do you have the grit for this?
Accelerators are hard and things only get harder once you finish the program.
Are you solving a critical problem?
What will you do if your solution isn’t the answer?
What do you actually want to get out of this?
What does success look like for you and your company, and when do you need to achieve it?

What else would you like to share?

Accepting you don’t have all the answers but that you are smart enough to ask for help and willing to adapt are pre-requisites of a program like ISA. Accelerators are time-boxed programs but the work goes well-beyond the program start and end dates. Having grit, focus and agility are essential for success before, during and after your accelerator experience.

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Definitioner

Bounce Rate

Website

An organized property made up of a group of connected pages on the World Wide Web, (Internet) that are considered a single entity.⁶

Entrepreneur

A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks to do so. Entrepreneurs are the founders of startups and are the people angel investors support.⁷

Funding

This term is used synonymously with the words “financing” and “capital.” It refers to the amount of money that is needed for a business endeavor. For example, a new business owner may seek a certain amount of funding for their startup company. This “raised” capital can be used to launch their endeavor as well as to sustain their company until monetary profit can be generated.⁴

Startup

A startup is a new business venture / enterprise in its initial or early stages of development. These stages include the concept, seed, early, growth and mezzanine stages.⁶

Early Stage

The key characteristic is market development. The business is focused on sales and marketing and proving business viability.²
A state of a company that typically has completed its seed stage and has a founding or core senior management team, has proven its concept or completed its beta test, has minimal revenues, and no positive earnings or cash flows.³
This term generally refers to a young enterprise that is three years old or younger. During this phase, a company is still in its novel stages of development. They could be in the process of experimenting with new products or services that they intend to market in the near future and/or may have viable products that are already available to the public.⁴

Director

Person elected by shareholders to serve on the board of directors. The directors appoint the president, vice president and all other operating officers, and decide when dividends should be paid (among other matters).³

Due Diligence

A process undertaken by potential investors — individuals or institutions — to analyze and assess the desirability, value, and potential of an investment opportunity.³
This is the process whereby individuals or groups of people conduct independent investigations regarding a particular matter. In the business world, investors conduct timely due diligence when inquiring about prospective investment endeavors. This may entail a background search of the company’s founders, review of the entrepreneur’s credit scores, and routine follow-up with references and associates, etc. New business owners, on the other hand, are encouraged to also conduct due diligence when finding a potential investor. Through due diligence, both the investor and entrepreneur has the opportunity to diligently analyze and assess each other for the potential of an investment opportunity and partnership.⁴
Due diligence is the process of investigation and evaluation, performed by investors, into the details of a potential investment, such as an examination of operations and management and the verification of material facts.⁵

Debt

Any obligation by one person to pay another. May be a primary (direct) obligation as in a Note, or a secondary (contingent) obligation as in a guaranty.³
This is an amount of money that a borrower owes to an individual, investor, or lending institution. In the finance world, the word “debt” is often associated with interest payments. For example, when an individual has a credit card limit of $5,000, the lender, usually a bank, is willing to lend the credit card holder $5,000 of credit. If the lender uses $500 of that total amount, they are now considered to be in $500 debt until the total amount is paid. Partial payment of an owed amount always encompasses interest.⁴

Accelerator

In an Accelerator, a Seed investment is made in return for equity and usually between $15K - $50K. Startups are admitted in classes and work in groups. They are generally given a deadline to complete intensive training and iteration (typically 1 week to 6 months). Startups end an accelerator program with a Demo Day in which they pitch to investors.²

INFOGRAPHICS