It’s been two years since Halo Incubator ’opened its doors’ to the women founder community in NYC. The concept—provide resources, mentoring and funding opportunities for early stage entrepreneurs—is a common one. So common that in the U.S. alone there are hundreds of incubators and accelerators. However, what we, the co-founders of Halo, found missing in New York was industry agnostic incubator programs for women founders. Inspired by our experiences with the University of Chicago Booth School Of Business’ Accelerator Program (the New Venture Challenge), we realized that we had the right toolkit to launch our own program for founders who otherwise would not have access to quality business training. In February of 2018, we began to lay the foundation for Halo Incubator.
Halo is the only in-person, industry agnostic accelerator program for women founders in NYC. When we evaluated where we could add the most value to the already blooming startup ecosystem in New York, we felt that creating a supportive community of women founders who can share their challenges and wins with each other was critical. As important as startup 101 training would be for these founders, so would having a close community for them to rely on. Most of our founders are stand-alone business owners, and many are new to NYC, making the early stages of launching their businesses even more lonely. Additionally, we saw value in providing opportunities for the pre-seed, often pre-angel founders who need all the extra resources and network effects to get their startup off the ground.
So far, we’ve completed three cohorts, Fall 2018, Spring 2019 and Fall 2019 and we couldn’t have asked for a more driven, energetic, innovative group of women. Our founders are full of grit and creativity, own businesses in a wide range of industries including beauty, health/wellness, food, parenting, and apparel. We began Halo like any startup with a lean team of two co-founders, the support of our network, and a bootstrapping mentality. While we plan to raise a fund in the future, a fund was not our initial goal. Without upfront capital to launch with, the path to growing Halo wasn’t easy, but support from our corporate partners, such as the law firm Orrick, and our mentors and guest speakers, helped us bring together top quality resources when our own resources were limited.
Most accelerators and incubators are either government or university backed, exist within corporations or are venture funded. We consciously chose to avoid working with any of the above and because of this we want to share a few of our learnings from launching an accelerator in this unconventional way:
What we have learned from founding an incubator and growing it without a venture fund.
Every founder wants a check but many do not have a spending plan for the cash. We focused on how to evaluate where to invest a capital raise and as a result our founders have a better understanding of their immediate business needs and can clearly articulate those to potential investors.
Aside from business skills and access to people and money, consider what other needs founders have. In our case we saw a strong need for EQ training including public speaking and building confidence. A large part of our program is tailored to give our founders public speaking skills and to develop strategies for maintaining confidence in pitches and other crucial meetings.
Lean heavily on your network and people willing to help your business or cause when you are just getting started.
Don’t be a taker, play the long game. Nothing substantial or meaningful comes from short sighted strategy or actions. Our first priority is and always has been to give back to the women founder community and our cohort members.
Small steps and bias for action leads to compounded results. There are times you will want to give up or think your small trajectory won’t be able to propel you forward, but over time you will create traction and one day look up and you may just have a company on your hands!
With each cohort we host, we develop a deeper understanding of the ever evolving challenges our founders face and become further evolved in assisting them with creative solutions. As we began our fourth cohort this month, we are invigorated by the new group of women joining us and eager to help them in tackling the obstacles that they have had standing in their way. For more information on Halo Incubator visit us at https://www.haloincubator.com/
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