?? We love convening program leaders!
CEO of Campground: Program Data in One Place [ex-Bain, founder of FutureMap, interim CEO All Raise]
Last week we convened a forum of Accelerator Program Leaders to discuss…what happens AFTER the accelerator program is over? Our event hosts?(me from?Campground Systems, Anand Deshpande at Mercury, and Keyaira Lock Adewunmi at the The Garage at Northwestern University in SF) wanted to create a forum of practitioners and peers to discuss this question. These takeaways should be relevant to any type of program or even VC platform trying to figure out how to keep program alumni engaged.? My takeaways:? ?? Community is a mandate for accelerator programs. (That’s probably why everyone who attended was so fun). Community events were the most common strategy to keep alumni activated and supported. Our panelists had a lot to share -- Sylvia Flores at Manos Accelerator highlighted how they host a conference in Mexico for their entire Latin American community.? Claire Rosenfeld mentioned that Alchemist Accelerator alumni will show up to hikes and talks without any special incentive – they just have a ton of loyalty and love for the program. Neal Sales-Griffin shared from the Techstars side that hosting high-quality retreats in Tahoe never fails to bring founders back. ?? Content varies by audience but it’s often more important to provide strong mentorship / connection than the answers. Whether it’s financial modeling or sales training, sometimes the most effective learning comes from founders who are just one stage ahead of you (an insight we came to when I was at All Raise as well). ?? Collecting data from alumni involves picking up the phone and calling them. ?? CRM's and platforms are critical to keep everyone engaged (and track data), but a solution didn't emerge as winner. I swear I didn’t plant this theme, but accelerators are either swimming in spreadsheets and Airtables and/or investing a ton of money (even up to 60 engineers internally) to build a homegrown platform. One panelist mentioned that systematizing accelerator ops in a tool can cut down the time to launch ("I can launch an accelerator in a day by replicating the system I built!") -- so it's pretty important to get this right. This is why I'm building Campground -- to integrate the CRM part with the participant-facing engagement without needing to invest hundreds of thousands of $$. I just love hosting learning conversations like this to support the growth and professional development of program leaders. You can join our community too, link in the chat! And great to meet y'all - Kathleen Quinn Steeves, Sylvia Flores, Sohela Shah, Ph.D., Madeleine Vecchione, Kate Drane, Marion Araque, M.Ed, Grace Anne Belangia, Marcus Thompson, Caroline W., Troy Daley
