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specifically. So how do you get into a program like ours? I mentioned, you definitely want
to have a great team in place, because that's what we're looking at first. Who are the people
behind this? What is their unfair advantage? Have they been in this space for a long time
and, all of a sudden, saw something that we could not see and now they saw this opportunity
to solve this problem? Looking at who the people are, so obviously
the more technical people on the team, that does play a role. Because you're going to
be in a pressure cooker for 12 weeks, so you're going to need to do a lot of work. On one
front, you want to do a lot of work on the development side and also on the business
side, so we're looking for teams that are well-balanced.
We're seeing that teams of four often do very well, so you'll have a CEO that's in the sales,
marketing, and business kind of role primarily, a CTO, a lead developer, and then a fourth
person that is the designer and who can actually do some [inaudible 1:06] . That's an all-star
team.
Now we won't take a team just based on their roles, but that's sort of the mix that we're
seeing that are performing really, really well. But the biggest thing is making sure
that the team that's running the accelerator understands why you're coming into it.
If you're coming in thinking that you have all the answers or if you're coming in for
the money, those are the two worst things that you can do. You need to come in completely
open-minded, ready to hear things you're going to hate hearing. Right?
Because the goal of the program for that 12 weeks is essentially to tear a business apart,
look at every angle, every aspect of your business and make sure that you have solutions
and directions for all of the things that we identified as potential issues. If you're
coming in completely closed-minded, it's not going to work because it's going to take four
weeks before you get any work done.
Come in completely open-book, ready to change everything, and not coming for the money,
right? You're not coming in for the money. You're really coming in for the value of the
mentors and what they can bring your business. But if you're not open-minded, then the mentors
will...It's like talking to a doorknob, right? That's not what you want.