Design a Better Business

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DIFFERENT WAYS TO SCALE

Accelerators, incubators, and startup studios are relatively new constructs that focus on scale, and scale only. In these programs, startups use design to churn through pivots until they find scale or burn out. If you want to scale design in your organization, it’s important to know how the successful ones do it.

A BIT ABOUT ACCELERATORS

If you were to do a web search for accelerator programs, you would find more than 2,000 of them across the globe. Partly because of inexpensive capital and partly because of the success of well-known accelerators, like Y Combinator, Techstars, and others, the accelerator space has seen explosive growth in the last few years. With all of the press and success accelerators have generated, big companies like Royal Bank of Scotland, Sephora, Nike, Target, Google, and the Los Angeles Dodgers have started their own accelerators.

Accelerators work for both startups and big companies, although bigger companies, with their larger network and greater resources, can use accelerators to sponsor startups, promote entrepreneurship, and nurture founders.

WHAT IS A STARTUP ACCELERATOR PROGRAM?

A startup accelerator program is an intensive business and personal development program that supports a small team of founders, who have big ambitions for growth and impact. The support comes in a form of mentorship, affordable office spaces, and some starting capital. In a nutshell, a program consists of the following core elements:

• A ...