Seasons change, markets change, and landscapes change with time. For the founders out there, in some ways, this is the best time to start a company. It’s almost never been easier for example to incorporate a business or establish a business bank account.  This generation of company builders has new options to help reduce hosting costs with cloud providers compared to previous generation builders' that largely relied on costly on-prem hosting solutions, and with the ascendancy of AI, there are new solutions that can help startups to save on spend across various business operations. However, in other ways, over the past ~24 months we’ve seen a lot more challenges, including, but not limited to, much more competition on the “field of play” (a byproduct of some of the reasons why now is a great time to start a business) and a reevaluation of due diligence standards that VCs are now employing to evaluate deal financing. This is partly due to certain notable events in the not-too-distant past, but also the fact that VCs now face more competition amongst themselves. While early-stage deal count in the US in Q2 of ‘24 is estimated to reach its highest level since Q1 2022 and median pre-money valuations and deal sizes appear to be trending upwards, fundraising timelines are still more elongated today compared to 2019. Make no mistake, this is still a very difficult time to fundraise for early-stage companies. But when is it not hard for an early-stage founder?

We aim to make navigating this new world a more efficient journey for the founders that participate in our accelerator.  With that being our goal, we have iterated on our core accelerator offering for founders. Growth hacks and design best practices have always been fixtures in our talks and workshops, and we have best-in-class operators as mentors to help share key insights on the following main areas:  

• Customer discovery and growth
• Product-market fit & go-to-market strategies
• Pitch development and fundraising
• Partnerships and perks for the modern founder and startup

What we’ve added is a deeper connection between our alumni and our current batch companies in order to unlock more executive, management, and leadership-specific curriculum and coaching. The average number of new businesses created annually has increased by nearly 60% when comparing the three years before the pandemic to the three years following it. More startups means investors today have more options to evaluate. So, naturally, in a time of relatively constrained capital and increased competition, many investment committees will ask the question “are we talking with the best company in this space?” Growth, and previous professional track record, remain part of the evaluation equation. But investors by and large, may want to better understand the quality of the leaders that they’ll potentially be funding.  We believe that bringing back recently successful 500 Global alumni company builders in a recurring coaching capacity, not just for a one-off lecture, will help the founders we work with operate their startups more efficiently, with fewer mistakes, to stand out from the crowd.  Ours is a community of founders where meaningful, long-term relationships are developed.  

We’re excited to announce our Alumni Founder Coaches and Entrepreneurs in Residence, bringing additional practical, real-world, and current best practices to our new batch of companies. For the founders, it is important to understand that we seek not only to improve the leadership qualities of the CEO, but our goal is to improve the leadership of the founding team across the board. We have invested in resources to support this development in order to not only accelerate startups, but also cultivate transformative leaders.

• Alumni Founder Coaches (AFCs): AFCs are experienced entrepreneurs and experts who are alumni of the 500 Global Flagship Accelerator Program and provide guidance and support to newer CEOs and leaders in key areas like leadership, technology, product, sales, and design. AFCs return to support the next generation out of appreciation for the program, leveraging their extensive experience to mentor less experienced founders, share their journeys, and offer valuable advice on maximizing program resources and preparing for the future.
• Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIRs): EIRs serve as crucial role models and advisors within the accelerator, providing day-to-day support and sharing their firsthand experiences of transitioning from founders to industry leaders. Typically, they are portfolio founders who didn’t necessarily go through the program but bring other valuable knowledge and experiences to the newest batch of founders. Their involvement cultivates a practical, experience-based learning environment that enhances the founders' journey from startup to scale.

If you would like to learn more:
Click here for the Flagship Accelerator page with info and application link
Click here to follow along with updates from our team on the the changes we’re seeing and making