Roni K

Archive - May 2014

Valuable Insights Gained from Two Years of Accelerating Awesome Startups

An article I wrote about lessons learned at INcubes was published on TechVibes today.

In the article I share the lessons learned and insights gained from two years of accelerating tech companies at INcubes. I am proud to be part of an organization that constantly learns on the go and seeks to improve. You can read the full article here, I’m pasting a teaser:

 A rolling model allows accelerators to choose the best companies. Our old intake model accepted companies twice a year into two cohorts, which meant we were constantly turning away excellent entrepreneurs because “timing wasn’t right.”

 Spoon feeding, in the long run, does not create strong companies. Companies can often experience an “after acceleration low” and find it hard to keep the momentum when the program ends. One of the reasons is that many accelerator programs focus heavily on specific deliverables (e.g pitch decks) without teaching companies the necessary skills to take initiative and drive themselves forward.

TechVibes Article: Four Things To Do with Your Domain Before Launching

My TechVibes article, inspired by our companies at INcubes: they purchase (many) domains way before they launch, and often don’t do anything with them in the meantime.

What happens is that visitors that go to the company’s URL see an error page or generic ads displayed by domain registrar.

You might wonder who types in the company’s URL before it launches, but you’ll be surprised. This is quite common if people in the company are using email addresses under that domain (interested individuals will copy paste the domain name into a browser to learn more about the company), and more.

You can read the full article here, and I’m pasting a quote:

1. Start a blog.

Using services like WordPress, blogger, and others, you can have a blog on air in no time. Having a blog has substantial SEO value: your domain is indexed on search engines before you launch and you will maintain the page rank your blog gets even if you replace it on launch day. In addition, one of the factors that determine ranking in search engines such as Google, is the frequency in which the page is updated—and a blog by definition updates frequently.

“I’m working on my product, what if I don’t have time to write a blog?” Consider hiring a writer, outsourcing the job, or getting an intern to help with the writing.

The good: easy to set up, significant SEO value, especially if you provide high-quality content. When you launch, your efforts will not be lost; you can continue using the blog on your site, providing relevant content and driving in search traffic.

The bad: requires maintenance (writing and uploading posts), either by you or by someone else.