Category Archives: Incubators and Accelerators

All of the content related to incubators and accelerators in one place!

Making Decisions and Closing Review Process Stages

Posted on by

We’re almost there! By there I mean we’ve almost completed an entire stage of a submission review process together. Of course, this is just one stage of a review process that I created. Decision.io is meant to be flexible, so don’t worry if your review process looks a bit different.

Today, I’ll show you how to move the submissions that will be continuing on in your review process to the next stage, and how to stop submissions that aren’t successful. My next post will show you how to send customized feedback to every applicant, and that will more or less wrap up the major tasks you’ll complete in a typical review process!

If I’m losing you here, it’s probably because you’re just joining us now. Peruse the links below to get up to speed.

Alright, let’s get to it!

Continue reading →

Rating, Commenting on, and Ranking Online Submissions

Posted on by

Today, we get into the meat and potatoes of Decision.io. We are going to go into the full submission and take a look at our core features including rating, commenting, note taking, and ranking. This is where the organization that Decision.io adds to the online submission management and group decision-making process becomes apparent.

If you’re joining in on our series of product feature posts for the first time, I recommend you take a look at some of the posts below.

Ok, let’s jump into the fun stuff!

Continue reading →

4 Pieces of Unconventional Business Advice

Posted on by

Unconventional advice has a special place in my heart. It seems more genuine. I feel like unconventional advice is born out of experience — often difficult experiences. Conventional advice on the other hand is easily echoed. Too often conventional advice isn’t well thought out but rather repeated because many other smart people have shared this advice in the past.

So with that I give you four pieces of unconventional business advice. Words from some of the brightest minds of the past and present.

Continue reading →

5 Ways B2B Software Is Bringing The Sexy Back

Posted on by

A recent Inc. article titled, Why B2B Startups Are Suddenly So Sexy, declared that B2B software companies are finally being seen as sexy by some investors. That’s all well and good. However, the biggest issue has never been investors failing to perceive the allure of a meaty B2B solution. Afterall, great B2B companies tend to generate revenue before a major round of funding anyway!

The real problem is that people looking to start a B2B company and people who have already started one don’t think they themselves are sexy. They look longingly at their B2C comrades. Their Twitter followings are in the thousands. They are getting covered on all of the major tech sites. Their blogs are littered with comments. Every slight tweak to the app is met with praise from the young and hip around the world.

B2B software companies would probably describe their company as producing something useful, practical, and better than what is currently being used. But definitely not sexy.

Well fellow B2B software companies and those aspiring to join the ranks, I am going to help you hold your head up a little higher around those boastful B2C’s!

Continue reading →

Startup Incubator Success Tracked in Decision.io

Posted on by

In a great post by Jesse Rodgers of TribeHR, he mentioned the importance of identifying performance metrics for your startup incubator. This can help to determine how effective the startup incubator is (or isn’t). At the core of his message is measuring certain performance metrics at the application, in program (accepted), and out of program (graduated) stages and everywhere in between. In this post, we will show how Decision.io can serve a secondary function of tracking startup incubator success.

Continue reading →

ABCs of Decision-Making Biases – Part 1

Posted on by

Here’s a scary thought: when we are sitting down to make the best decision based on the possibilities presented to us, we are often choosing from possibilities that have already been subjected to biases. We may even introduce a different set of biases when it’s time to actually make a final decision. This tendency isn’t due to a lack of intelligence or skill, but rather to the fact that we’re human. The idiom, “to err is human”, is an idiom for a reason!

Whether we are foundation or grant-maker reviewing online submissions and applications, a startup incubator or accelerator reviewing online applications and interview notes to decide on our next cohort of entrepreneurs, or a business building a strategy in a boardroom, these biases promise to get in our way!

For now, we will focus on just four of many common biases that may be present while generating and collecting possibilities to be decided on later. We’ll discuss the biases that present themselves during the decision making stage in Part 2 of this series.

Continue reading →