Startup Accelerator Spotlight: The Harbor Accelerator

The Harbor Accelerator contains a wealth of knowledge from experts and mentors within the industry to help educate early stage company founders on how to build a business.

Co-Founder, John Osborne

Name of Accelerator: The Harbor Accelerator

Location: Charleston, SC

Website: www.harborec.com

Co-Founder & Director: John Osborne

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.

The Harbor’s mission is to create collision among the entrepreneurial community. Our accelerator program is highly focused on educating early stage company founders on how to build a business.

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

A couple of elements make The Harbor Accelerator stand out. First, all the mentors involved in the program have started a business that has generated over $1M in revenue. We believe the guidance should come from those who have actually been where you are and got where you want to go. Second, participating companies are issued a $5K convertible note which acknowledges the program has value, but the note does not trigger into equity unless milestones are hit. If the program doesn’t help the company move forward, there is no trigger and no equity provided to The Harbor.

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What is the most difficult part of working with startups?

The most difficult part is that we can’t do more for each of them.

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

I love hearing the stories of why the founder(s) decided to embark on their journey. In addition, being around the energy and optimism of startup founders is incredibly fun.

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

Dynepic participated in The Harbor Accelerator and is one of the companies featured in Apple’s new Planet of the Apps Show.
Bidr won the Steve Case Rise of the Rest investment and continues to grow.

Collectively, Harbor Accelerator graduates have raised over $5M in the past 3 years.

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

Why is the accelerator doing it and does that motivation align with what you are looking for?
Who is involved and do they have the resources and connections to help with your specific initiative?
What do the graduates who have already been through it have to say about it?

What else would you like to share?

The Harbor Accelerator took applications through August 1, 2017 for cohort 8, which is running from August 14^th to November 15^th. Our selection process depends entirely on the individual or team’s commitment to success and basic business concept. We are sector agnostic and open to any great idea regardless of the industry sector.

Certain industries are natural fits to the Charleston region and our unique core competencies. Those industries include Digital, Advanced Security, Aerospace, Healthcare, and Food/Tourism. However, be clear, regardless of the business sector…there are three things we look for when evaluating a startup: innovation, scalability, and the team’s ability to execute.

Are you familiar with other accelerators you believe should be highlighted? If so, we would like to hear from you. Tell us about them, sharing your comments below.

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Pam Goforth

Pam Goforth is Research Manager for FundingSage, which provides valuable information, tools and resources to entrepreneurs seeking to start, grow and fund a business.

Definitioner

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

Sector

Segments of the economy in which business markets share similar operating characteristics, or similar products and services are known as sectors. The three major classifications of sectors are the primary sector, which includes raw materials such as minerals and mined materials, and natural products such as agriculture and forestry products, the secondary sector which includes manufacturing, processing and construction and the tertiary sector which is comprised of companies which provide services.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

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

Equity

Ownership in the capital of a Company. In corporations, it is called “stock”; in limited partnerships or LLCs, it is called “interests” or “units.”³
This designation is given to a stockholder’s ownership in a company. The amount of ownership is obtained when an individual or corporation purchases one or more shares of stock (equity shares). The more equity purchased, the greater the ownership.⁴

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

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