Education

Accelerators

Accelerators are incubators on steroids.

These programs recruit scalable companies that have shown early promise. They coordinate dramatic transformation within a compact timeline.They are like early-stage investment firms, as they provide seed funding in exchange for equity. Accelerators hedge bets by connecting entrepreneurs to resources, mentors, customers, investors, and community allies.

The rise of the accelerator model is interesting. Accelerators help entrepreneurs build stronger companies, but they need money to function. How do they support the financial investments in each company? What about staff salaries, community events, and all the resources they provide? There’s usually an initial fund raised to start these programs. Some accelerators also have financial infusions from sponsoring organizations. With this financial foundation in place, accelerators then depend on the performance of the companies in their portfolio. When a portfolio company is acquired or exits, the accelerator’s equity converts to cash or ownership options in more successful businesses.

As an accelerator’s portfolio performs, its reach widens and the program prospers. This motivates program directors to pick the right companies. It also gives founders the confidence that the experience is built for them to succeed. These complementary relationships are how accelerators make a lasting impact in less time.

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Incubators vs. Accelerators vs. Venture Studios vs. Coworking

For entrepreneurs, so much potential makes it easy to fall in love with the idea of being an accelerator-backed company. As business owners consider applying to accelerators, it’s important to understand the terms. When startup accelerators first started in 2005, they were industry agnostic. As this collaboration-based investment strategy has evolved, industry-specific accelerators have also emerged. This means there are more accelerators than ever and not all of them will be the right fit. The educational, networked, and cultural experiences matter. Entrepreneurs must vet accelerators like they would other equity investors. Do terms of the accelerator align with the long-term goals of your company? Will the implied results outweigh an intense time commitment? Even if it’s temporary, will the team be required to relocate? How deep is the network of fellow founders who have worked through the accelerator? Do portfolio companies stay connected? If so, how does that connected landscape support your work beyond the program?

The accelerator experience can be life changing for a startup. Based on a deep understanding of each company, these action-packed programs #GiveFirst and help build on what’s working. They also quickly identify areas for improvement. This empathetic support combined with a shared mission to grow allows accelerators and their portfolio companies to be more successful as everyone collectively builds to go big.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Maverick

“I don’t like that look…”
“It’s the only one I got.”

Entrepreneurs enjoy the ride on our highways to the danger zone. There’s a comfort in uncomfortable and the edge is where’s it at. Skills and tactics can be learned, but steady action, confidence, humility, and long-term persistence are just a few things required to embrace entrepreneurship as what it needs to be: a lifestyle.

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Everyone has a creative spirit. When an appetite for (calculated) risk is applied, the entrepreneurial spirit is unlocked. This can be nurtured by community and work that feels like play. This grows the entrepreneurial spirit until it becomes a way of life.

When building becomes a part of who you are, the result is not authenticity, it’s consistency. As open-mindedness and generosity lathers into long-term consistency, trust bubbles. Trusted community members who then invest toward understanding those they serve, will almost always find some form of success. This might be the side hustle they love talking about, the innovative role they build as a linchpin inside an existing organization, or that first hire that grows into a whole new business.

As Top Gun: Maverick reminds us, it takes commitment to feel your way through this mission. Don’t think. Make entrepreneurship a lifestyle to keep learning, building, and having fun on your way past hypersonic.

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“Talk to me, Goose.” —Maverick

By Ben McDougal, ago

Playforce

Work and play are often seen as distinct and different, but the expectation of top talent has evolved. People crave a connection to enjoyable activities that deliver a sense of purpose and belonging. When work feels like play, the fun environment invites people to take on bigger challenges. To support the future of work, students, educational organizations, employees, and employers must adapt together.

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Welcome to your first taste of a new community-driven initiative that will feature special guests sharing occasional contributions. Interested in collaborating? Let’s chat!

When we think about work that feels like play, it’s not just pinball all day. The definition of “fun” is to spend time doing an enjoyable activity. When a team has fun with satisfying work that matters, the group’s true potential is unlocked and individuals are more likely to become indispensable. This leads to more generosity, laughter, caring, scientific questions, learning, gift-giving, and mapmakers eager to go beyond what’s expected.

A recent study identified 16 trends that are shaping the future of work. It found that, in addition to more flexibility and fair wages, employees want greater autonomy. Employees want the freedom to be creative and to find purpose in the way they spend their time. When this balance is achieved, people are happy and the sense of satisfaction allows them to do their best work. Along with more innovative productivity, this culture also leads to lasting retention.

As today’s workforce is transformed into tomorrow’s playforce, it’s important to consider the difference between work that feels like play, compared to work with playgrounds nearby. When fun activities only serve as a distraction, the facade of fun will wear off. It’s also good to remember that what’s fun for one person could be more of a chore for others. Personality assessments and ongoing interactivity will help you understand individuals and the part they play within the system. The better people know each other, the more inclined they’ll be to act themselves. Acting professionally shouldn’t mean dimming one’s personality. The more comfortable people feel at work, the better they’ll be able to focus on what’s important. Too often, attempts to optimize employees’ work-life balance stem from a flawed assumption that we must create boundaries to differentiate life and our work. Perhaps the opportunity and the future of work, is to create an experience where the two coexist as one?

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This caffeinated contribution was written by Elizabeth Tweedale. Elizabeth has (co)authored six books, exited an AI company called GoSpace, and is now the CEO of Cypher Coders, the UK’s leading coding school for children. She’s passionate about family, preparing kids for the future, and can be found in our Roasted Reflections group.

If the future of work is fun, we must guide children away from an outdated “workforce” and toward a “playforce” to activate creativity, productivity, satisfaction, involvement, and purpose. The world is their playground and no permission is needed to contribute. Education can be about delivering access to skills, tools, and community. When children are encouraged to connect, play games, be kind, and learn with passion, they engage not because they have to, but because they’re having fun. This empowers students and as they reach the playforce, they’ll understand the superpowers they’ve nurtured in their own areas of interest. Beyond the classroom, this translates into employees and employers who are more likely to enjoy their work when given the opportunity to do what they’re best at.

As we see/hear in the closing chapter of YDNTB, “life is too short not to enjoy your work.” Together, let’s change the equation to make work a lifestyle, which sets us free to have fun making a difference.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Listen

Listening is louder than it sounds.

Most entrepreneurs like to talk and the more obsessed we are, the more vociferous we seem to get. Idea machines must be willing to share compelling stories, but listening is a key part of any transmission. This may seem obvious, but with precious air time up for grabs and knowing so much about our own interests, listening can devolve into feeling like a required distraction.

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Hearing is passive. Listening is active.

As we guide people through the layers of understanding, active listening forms a bond much faster than forcing yourself to be heard. The fear of not having time to deliver your message will linger, but when we truly tune into what another person is saying, it shows we care. It also helps us better harmonize our thoughts within the moment and counters the common mistake of overloading others with too much numbing details all at once. Knowing each conversation is part of a broader relationship and community-building journey, good listeners are almost always given a chance to make a bigger impact.

Ready for an experiment? The next time you meet someone new, embrace your inner scientist. Set your introverted/extroverted mindset aside and focus your attention on asking as many thoughtful questions as you can. The less you talk, the better. This will feel awkward if you just fire question after question, so be concise with each response, then return to more thoughtful questions for a more natural interaction. Consider expanding this social experiment by purposely doing this throughout an entire networking event. Remember who you talked with and track how the listening-focused conversations evolve. Over time, how do these relationships built on listening, compare to others where you’ve been more outspoken? Here are a few tactics to support your practice.

  • Center your internal attention.
  • Stay engaged with eye contact.
  • Use jarring questions to dodge small talk.
  • Don’t interrupt or jump to conclusions.
  • Occasionally paraphrase what was said.
  • Avoid the urge to make it about you.
  • Ask curious questions to go deeper.
  • Exit gracefully, without a sense of rush.

This type of active listening will extend your ability to hear more, but also make your responses more in-tune with what others are thinking, versus always trying to prove your point. Selflessness may keep a conversation from landing exactly where you want in that moment, but as you move from one topic to the next, you’ll learn how others work. When done well, an unspoken bond forms. This synchronization creates space to explore more directions you’d like to take future conversations, but now with the priceless ingredient of shared enthusiasm.

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Listening within a support network ignites optimism, connection, and motivation. A healthy balance is to also listen to your challenge network, which keeps us intellectually humble and rooted in reality.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Linchpin

We are often told being extraordinary makes us special. We each write our own story in life, but as Neil deGrasse Tyson suggests, perhaps the sameness of our cosmic composition is what makes each of us fundamentally special from start to finish? This eliminates the need for permission and invites us all to be remarkable.

Our connected era has evolved society away from the industrial age. The factory (existing organizations that have an established system in place) and replaceable cogs that follow instructions to keep the vast machine churning has faded in favor of those who unite tribes, are champions of change, and willing to make a ruckus. Back in 2010, Seth Godin gave those who choose to be indispensable a name: Linchpins.

Linchpins are artists who consciously care enough to go beyond mediocre. Linchpins solve interesting problems and make judgement calls without a map. They welcome weird. They are scientists who stay curious. They are generous and passionate about the art of connection. Through an inclusive, positive-sum lens, linchpins lead and let others lead without seeking credit. They are fearless, in that they are unafraid of things they don’t need to be afraid of. Linchpins leave resumes behind with work that transcends time as they build at speed of trust and relentlessly #givefirst, knowing that accelerating others generates unmatched energy.

The skills of a linchpin are hard to quantify with tradition metrics, but a willingness to bring your true genius to work is an open invitation for us all. Over time, the linchpin’s art often becomes meaningful to many, which makes work less about trading time for money. In this centered state of career nirvana, nobody can compete with being you. Cogs in a machine are replaceable and can therefore be paid less. When you are a linchpin, you have leverage and there is no option but to reward you for work that is a creative expression rooted in lasting purpose.

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“Leaders don’t get a map or a set of rules. Living life without a map requires a different attitude. It requires you to be a linchpin.” -Seth Godin

If indispensability is so accessible, why doesn’t everyone accept the invitation to be a linchpin?

One primal reason is the indoctrination of an education system that was designed to produce factory workers. From an early age, we are brainwashed to pursue perfection, to color in the lines, to follow instructions, to care what others think, and to define success by worldly consumption. Educational transformations are all around us and great teachers willing to be linchpins are activating students to go beyond the system. Instead of molding obedient factory workers who’s only hoping to be taken care of by factories built on promises of the past, we can teach people to take initiative. To invite doubt. To passionately explore one’s superpowers. To solve interesting problems while leading us with reverse charisma and confident humility.

Another reason why some stay complaisant, is the outdated promise of an American Dream. Gone are the days of clocking in on time and keeping your head down just long enough to climb a ladder built to resist change. The factory worker’s willingness to play it safe may extend a sense of temporary security, but this is a choice that makes you easy to replace with cheaper labor, faster tools, and advancing technology. Whether it’s fueling innovative action as an intrapreneur at an organization that prefers linchpins over factory workers, diversifying your career portfolio with an inventive side hustle, or building pain-killing projects as an entrepreneur, we may only live once and life is too short not to enjoy your work.

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What makes you indispensable?

By Ben McDougal, ago