Ignite 2.0: A Year On
tl;dr We’re a year into our ‘2.0 accelerator’, and the model is going well. We’ve found our first cohort and have closed applications — but we’ll be relaunching both Ignite Office Hours and our Pre-Accelerator. Interested in what happens next? Get in touch!
It’s been almost a year since Tristan introduced Ignite 2.0 — our ‘new’ programme approach; bringing the accelerator into 2017 with a remote structure (amongst many other things).
It’s also been a year since I joined the team 🎂 and, in the spirit of Tristan’s initial announcement, Gabriela and I thought it was about time we shared what’s been going on, what we’re up to at the moment and what’s coming next…
We’ve spent the last twelve months travelling around the UK (Newcastle, London, Manchester, Cambridge and Edinburgh to name a few cities we’ve visited) meeting and supporting entrepreneurs around the country. During that time, we’ve interviewed literally hundreds of founders and seen some incredible people, businesses and concepts.
What’s worked
We’ve got twelve incredible startups on the programme — superb founders from around the UK solving issues from debt collection for SMEs to web-based language learning to activities for toddlers to customisation tech for the fashion industry to digitising the bereavement process. You can learn about the teams in a post Gabi wrote here.
The remote programme has attracted an interesting type of founder. They want to build sustainable businesses, rather than the next overhyped, overvalued startup. We’ve seen an increase in the average age of applicant founders (a quarter of our founders are parents), and we’ve seen a really positive increase in the gender ratio of our founders. Five of our twelve teams have female founders — it’s not brilliant, but it’s a strong start. The founders, with our iterative programme structure, have also helped shape their acceleration experience.
We’ve seen a fantastic response from the 130+ businesses in the Ignite portfolio. With our monthly offsites open to alumni, Gabi, Tristan and I have been able to spend more time with founders from previous Ignite programmes than ever before.
Alongside extensive (and ongoing) portfolio support and management, we’ve also had 2.0 teams spend longer than the initial 6 month commitment on the programme with us. Some have gone on to stand on their own two feet, some have raised (and are raising — say hi if you want to know more), some are even generating five figure monthly revenues. Others aren’t quite there yet.
With Ignite 2.0, we can support them all.
What hasn’t worked
When we initially launched the 2.0 model, we hypothesised we’d be investing and working with roughly thirty teams in our first year, 80% being outside London/ the South East.
For a few reasons (more on those later), we haven’t quite done that yet. We’ve had to focus on startups in London and the North West, and we’ve only been able to invest in twelve businesses so far. We’ve also, as a business ourselves, struggled with generating sufficient revenue on more than one occasion #startuplife.
So what’s next?
As I alluded to earlier, we need to follow our own advice and Always Be Iterating. Initially, that means a few short-term changes:
- We recently closed applications. We don’t have a concrete date for sourcing new startups at this time.
- However, we don’t want to stop supporting entrepreneurs in the UK (and further afield), so we’ve re-opened Ignite Office Hours, as well as (re-)launching a female founders’ meetup group. Have a startup-related issue? You can book time to talk the Ignite team every Thursday afternoon here.
- Are you an early-stage founder, or you’ve got an idea you don’t know how to take to market? We’re launching a new and improved Pre-Accelerator for you very soon! Sign up to the Ignite newsletter for more info.
We’ll be looking at how to continue doing what we love, nationally, while improving on the areas that need a bit of work. We’re working with our current cohort until the end of the programme in September 2018, and we’ll keep you in the loop with what’s coming next in the coming months.
One last thing
Can you help? As we continue working with founders and optimising our processes, we’re keen to explore the startup ecosystem — at every level.
Are you a university or corporate employee looking to foster innovation within your department, school or class?
Are you a student member of an entrepreneurship society looking to start your first business?
Are you an investor (private equity, VC, angel, corporate) looking to invest in UK-based seed-stage startups?
We’d love to buy you a coffee and have a chat. Let’s talk!
Acknowledgements
Thanks to With Jack’s Ashley Baxter for the wonderful photos and videos from the first year of Ignite 2.0.
Ignite is, and always has been, a collaborative collective. The 2.0 programme wouldn’t be possible without the ‘founding’ team — Tristan, Martyn, Gabi and Alex. You guys are awesome. Thanks again to the Ignite founders, who put us on this amazing journey back in 2011.
Our inter/national network of mentors, EiRs, advisors, founders and angel/ institutional investors — as well as the portfolio of Ignite founders — makes us what we are today. Special thanks to our investment partners, ADV and the fantastic angels around the UK, who help us support the founders we work with.
