How do startups accelerate their growth?

Last Friday, we brought a close to the inaugural cycle of our accelerator program 2018/19. PortXL is the world's first global maritime, ports, logistics, shipping, energy, chemicals startup tech accelerator.

I joined PortXL solo ( and as a C-suite gig) December 2017. With no industry background and honestly no idea of how accelerators work, I took on the role. It made sense because I saw the role as leveraging my corporate understanding and a one year exposure in the startup world. At the point of joining, I was a little known as the Chief Builder of Startup Asia Women, a community supporting women who run and / or work at startups. That was how I was spotted by PortXL.

I have to admit I was initially skeptical about what value accelerators offer startups. Perhaps there are so many in all shapes or forms, particularly in Singapore. And ever so often you hear of a slightly different approach.

Sometimes it starts with you being chosen and you go with it. I find that the best way to learn. Dive in and learn as you go. In my case, I was not starting from zero given PortXL has been well recognised in Europe for their formula of accelerating startups in this particular space, backed by more than 10 large corporate partners.

I have since appreciated the big distinction between accelerators which focused on B2B vs B2C and those who are industry agnostic vs industry specific. PortXL is the latter. I am writing this as much as an observer as the person who was all engrossed to make sure our first year of launch in Singapore would be a success.

Through this journey, this is what I would like to share, taking a step back always to review the bigger picture combined with the feedback we received along the way.

Let's start with what do accelerators like PortXL do. In many traditional industries - maritime being one of them - you would be asked "what is an accelerator?" My simple answer is an accelerator accelerates, that of the progress and growth of the startup.

When looking for an accelerator, be clear what your business model is and be clear what kind of accelerator you are looking for, if it aligns with your goals for your business.

Here are a few things PortXL does really well. My team and I adapted what was started in Rotterdam more than 4 years ago to our Singapore program.

1. Criteria

PortXL has been very transparent with their selection criteria for startups. In many ways, this is due to its accountability which we will cover in the next point. We are very clear about the kind of startups we DO NOT ACCEPT. They are B2C, last mile logistics, startups with no product and just a concept and startups with no team.

If you are a startup looking for an accelerator, understand the segment the accelerator is playing in and the kind of business model they support. We will cover more the reason why further in this article.

2. Accountability

PortXL is very clear about the outcome we are trying to drive. Fundraising is not the main aim of our program. Many startups will need a longer time than they expect to validate their products. Validating in a B2B space poses a lot more challenge because your end customer is most likely a large corporate. If your target customers is a small business then you still have larger addressable market and wider access. We aim to facilitate connections and conversations to empower pilot projects. A pilot is a small-scale test or proof of concept where large maritime conglomerates (in PortXL context) co-innovate with the startup to access a fraction of their current asset or process to validate if the solution solves the problem identified. The premise is that rather than trying to build a complete product and try to "sell" it to corporates, co-create with them with some basic building blocks that demonstrates a solution but yet flexible enough to take in more inputs from the customer to develop further.

3. Go-to-market strategy

The biggest difference between B2B and B2C models is the go-to-market strategy. Some startups adopt a B2B2C model too. In many ways, B2B is clear-cut but inevitably operations may be more complexed and requires more customisation. B2C gives you the flexibility to create a product or a solution which could dramatically transform a user experience, solving a small problem or inconvenience en masse.

The biggest feedback we get from startups at PortXL is how we open access to corporates for them. Corporates do get inundated with many requests from established startups and budding startups to showcase their solutions. Knowing that PortXL has scouted and validated from a large pool through the help of corporate partners gets startups immediate attention and feedback from corporates at different stages of our recruiting and accelerating process.

4. Mentorship

Mentorship takes on a different definition depending on the kind of accelerators you join. At B2C accelerators, you may have access to a pool of mentors around fundraising, tech, marketing, startup operations and more. At PortXL we focus on corporate engagement, business modelling and large account strategic selling. Mentors are from corporates to share insights of the industry and the problems the companies face. Mentors make introductions within their own organisation as well as externally within the industry. As the scale of projects tend to be more complexed, mentors are a big help to providing clarity and shaping the intended solution.

Through a series of events and roadshows, corporate executives at maritime conglomerates have also derived value through interactions with fellow industry peers and startups.

5. Success

The measurement of success is not how much funds have been raised or the development of an exit strategy. Our KPI orientates around how many startups have engaged multiple fronts of a large maritime conglomerate, culminating in a pilot or more. The same solution could be adapted to address different business units of a corporate or the solution may be integrating different business units.

6. Startup commitment

Joining an accelerator should not be taken lightly. What you get out of an accelerator program directly corresponds to what you put in. B2B startups demand more facetime or engagement time with corporates unlike A/B testing you could implement with most B2C operations. Corporates tend to have limited time or there are many stakeholders to go through and often not in one sitting.

Pitching takes on a different language and the skill of building business cases and selling with corporate speak becomes more crucial and time consuming.

7. Alumni

PortXL Rotterdam has accelerated 34 startups in the last few years. The wealth of knowledge and experience is tapped for our current cohort of 7 and for the corporates in this region. We see synergies between startups in the current cohort too between Singapore based startups as well as between overseas and Singapore-based startups. This will further ensure the startups can continue to build their business with corporates they have started to engage here.

Over and above all these, what I have discovered is that maritime startups develop solutions that have impact on the environment and on saving lives and not just about saving millions of dollars. I now appreciate the true value of an industry-focused accelerator.

Christina Teo is the director of PortXL Singapore. A veteran in the tech and mobile space, she is active in the startup scene as a community builder, angel network builder. She frequently speaks at events and judges startup competitions. She has established a strong traction around a series of events WomenChangemakers and created she1K, the world's first global corporate executive women network which champions, funds and boards startups.