Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Chris Heivly, Executive Director, LaunchBox Digital (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Do you announce in a press release or on the Web that the next program session open, and companies start applying?

Chris: That’s correct. We do some outbound marketing. We get some mentions in the technology and entrepreneurial press. We’ve run for three years now. There’s a very strong word of mouth in this community for these accelerator programs.

Irina: When will you start accepting applications for the next accelerator? What is the process?

Chris: Probably around April [2011]. The application process is an online process. We do not accept business plans. We have a 20- to 25-question form that they fill out online. Everyone fills out the same form.

We ask that each team submit a one-minute video link in which they talk about their concept, their idea, their company. This which gives us a number of different ways in which to evaluate the company, the idea, and the entrepreneurs. Then, we go through about a two-month process, a stepped process, to finally come down to the seven to ten companies that we’ll make an offer to.

Irina: The most recent time you ran this, you received 140 applications. How many were accepted?

Chris: Seven. We made eight offers and seven accepted. We do up to 10 offers.

Irina: You invested in those companies, right?

Chris: Yes. When you’re accepted into the program, you arrive here, we fill out some paperwork, and make sure we convert them all, if they haven’t been converted, to a C-Corp. If they haven’t actually created their companies, we’ll create them for them. All of that is free of charge. They just have to pay their filing fees. We set up all the legal documents for them. We make that very seamless. Then we write the check for $20,000, which they’re able to use in any form they feel best suits them.

Our goal is to finalize the selection process about four weeks before we get started so that the teams that don’t live in the area can travel here and get their housing set up. Once we start the program, then we have a multi-pronged approach to running it. It’s not a fixed thing, but we have three or four major legs on the stool.

Like many of these accelerator programs, the key is mentorship. So, all of our programs are built around the question, How do we engage as many serial entrepreneurs as we can to enter the process to work with each of the companies, individually and collectively? There are couple things we do that are interesting about and unique to our model.

First of all this area. Research Triangle Park (RTP), is very, very rich with seasoned, talented entrepreneurs. We have a bucket of about 80 to 100 entrepreneurs who have all agreed to help out in some form or some way.

The first thing we do, which we believe is the most important and is unique to our program, is in the first week, one of the founders from each of the companies – we have a fairly large event with 200 to 300 people, which includes all of these potential mentors and advisors  and the companies – get up and do a one-minute pitch about who they are and what they’re going to try to accomplish over the next three months.

It’s a really cool event. First of all, the entrepreneurs start, from day one, getting their pitches ready. The pitch is important. The pitch usually yields money, and money is the gasoline in the car in a lot of cases. With that event, we’re starting to match up our mentors to the companies.

In doing so, within that first week, each of the companies gets a board of advisors, not unlike a board of directors, who have committed, at least three hours a week to work with the company. This is every week for 12 weeks.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Chris Heivly, Executive Director, LaunchBox Digital
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