The Similarities and the Differences

The main similarity to accelerators in Silicon Valley is Tech Ranch is a startup accelerator. In that they’re all similar.

However the differences are significant.

Focus on the Entrepreneur, not the Startup

A good entrepreneur can do more with a bad idea, than a bad entrepreneur can do with a great idea.

When you couple this with the fact that most startups fail, what is being created and nurtured at Tech Ranch is not startups per se, but entrepreneurs.

Every investor and accelerator says they focus (and fund) teams. What they seem to really mean (and I’ve heard some say this quite bluntly) is they invest in people who persevere when the going gets tough.

At some point in the life of every startup, the going gets tough. If the entrepreneurs then bail, update their resumes, and get jobs, the investors lose their money. So the primary focus on investing in teams is preservation of invested capital. It’s about the money (but in all fairness this is known up front).

Kevin Koym, the founder and CEO of Tech Ranch on the other hand, seems to have been infected with the idea of “making a dent in the Universe”, an idea that may have ingrained itself in his grey matter when he worked for Steve Jobs at NeXT several years ago.

One of his goals is to toughen these boys and girls up so when they do hit a major bump in the road, it’s just a major bump, not an emotional collapse.

Not only that, but when a founder finds himself without their startup (it went bust, they got kicked out, whatever), they come back to the Tech Ranch community, plug themselves back in, and start their next one.

This “tough love” idea was solidified in Kevin’s mind when he survived a physical attack in 2009 (when random attacks in downtown Austin were not unknown) and survived relatively unscathed because his Aikido sensei had previously pushed him hard.

Kevin saw that the “tough love” he received from his Aikido sensei prepared him to handle this attack.

He realized his purpose is to push his entrepreneurs in similar ways. Entrepreneur journeys contain hard times, sometimes very hard times. Training in handling obstacles can make the difference between success and failure.

Strong Focus on Community and Collaboration

As John Donne so eloquently said….. “No man is an island; Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main”.

As Issac Newton said….. “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”.

The point here is the narrative of the individual who single handedly changes the world is false and it’s refreshing to walk into a startup accelerator who pushes the falseness of this idea onto their entrepreneurs.

Every successful startup is part a community that supports them, and that they (hopefully) support in turn. Being part of a community that supports and pushes the concept of community increases your resources and your chances for success. Of course this doesn’t work when people simply pay lip service to the idea, which again is why it’s so refreshing to see how Tech Ranch pushes this concept hard.

Specific examples (at Tech Ranch these are called “nodes”) of this are:

Bi Weekly Campfire The 2nd and 4th Friday of every month an event called Campfire is held. Campfire is open to everyone, members and non members and has a structure which encourages people to meet new people for purposes of making business connections. The making of connections is the focus and the entire event is structured to that end. People are even encouraged to share new connections they made to the entire group so people who were not directly involved learn more about who does what. This fosters even more useful connections.

Chuck Wagon Lunches Every Thursday Tech Ranch caters lunch for any member who desires to show up. The purpose is to share a meal, and talk about their businesses in a casual unstructured environment. Generally 10 to 12 members participate and every so often serious significant connections are made.

Venture Forth Alumni Network A Venture Forth groups meets every week for 10 weeks (expanded from 8) and they foster deep connections with each other which leads to the creation of informal “alumni” networks of people who have stayed in touch for years after they take the program together.

Low Cost (by Comparison)

Tech Ranch provides four programs for entrepreneurs. The first one free, the next two are cheap, short, and focused, while the main one is on par with my understanding of the costs of accelerator programs in Silicon Valley.

Network of Potential Investors or Lack Thereof

This is one of the biggest differences between Tech Ranch and Silicon Valley (and other incubators as well). The standard entrepreneur model is: ideas leads to funding which leads to growth which leads to a successful exit. The successful exist is where the investors get paid.

The problem with this model is the taking of investment capital surrenders some level of control, and in some cases it causes the entrepreneur to surrender full control (boards sometimes kick founders out).

Tech Ranch focuses on teaching their entrepreneurs how to bootstrap their ventures. If and when a startup does need investment money to expand, investors take a more serious look at the startup as they by the time that conversation starts, they already have traction.

Acquiring customers and generating revenue brings in short term money, and may be enough for the business to grow without outside investment. In the event a business plateaus and needs outside investment to fund growth, that’s fine. It is sometimes needed. But as an entrepreneur if you can avoid it you can also avoid getting caught in the quarterly earnings cycle, which investors live by.

As an entrepreneur you should never kid yourself. Taking Angel or Venture Capital money brings a Wall St. investment bank mentality into the business and as soon as you take investment, you work for your investors.

The Philosophy of Tech Ranch

Entrepreneurs Community of Practice

The key words here are “community” and “practice”. I spoke earlier on the community focus, so here I’ll talk about practice.

The way you get good at something is by initially being bad at it. Excelling at anything requires practice.

An old Roman soldier once said “Anything learned while sitting down isn’t worth knowing”. While this not literally true in the 21st century, there is a strong value to learning by doing. Experiential learning tends to stick.

So what does Tech Ranch push in the spirit of practice?

I’ll use a specific example to illustrate this point.

Part of the Venture Forth program is on forming a Board of Advisors. This lesson (like all lessons) has three parts: 1) Concept: The basic idea of what you need to do. 2) Immediate practice. In this case every Venture Forth participant is required to create a prospect list by area of expertise or by name. 3) Every person in the Venture Forth program then shares their list will every other member and it becomes a “who do you know” discussion. After the specific Venture Forth lesson ends the entrepreneurs are required to reach out to their prospect list and assemble their Board of Advisors. If (or when) they run into little road blocks, they work their issues with their group members.

This is just one example of how Tech Ranch pushes the idea of Concept, Practice, and Community.

Teaching “Grit” (Overcoming Obstacles – Quickly)

It gets rough out there, in every startup. Things happen that could be perceived as setbacks, sometimes major setups, and sometimes insurmountable obstacles. And sometimes the difference between them is more perception than reality.

Before Andy Groves joined Intel on the day of their incorporation, he had to escape Communist controlled Hungary (not immediately before, but you get the point). It’s likely that issues that arose during the early days of Intel were perceived by him as “manageable” whereas to someone else they were “major”.

So how to you teach “grit”? How do you teach people to overcome obstacles, preferably quickly? While there is no one magic answer, a piece of this puzzle is to set high standards and expect people to rise to meet them. While as a startup incubator you are there to help your entrepreneurs, sometimes the best help is high expectations and the unvarnished truth.

Talent Agency

Success = Preparation + Seeing Opportunity + Action

This is yet another interesting (at least to me) aspect of the Tech Ranch philosophy. Entrepreneurs are introduced to (somewhat guided) to opportunities that seem to fit their needs and their product -market fit.

The idea that the entrepreneurs are “raw talent” looking for opportunities is helpful to the individual startups as well as the eco-system overall.

While this is not drastically different from what other accelerators do in principal, like other aspects of Tech Ranch, looking at entrepreneurs as “talent” looking for break is a refreshing perspective.

Provides a 1-2 Punch

The clear delineation of “preparation” plus “opportunity” (or what Tech Ranch calls the “Community of Practice” plus “The Talent Agency” provides clarity to the entrepreneurs and other members of the community.

Tech Ranch Works

To date 5,500 entrepreneurs have gone through the paid programs, and 573 have graduated from a Venture Forth program. Once they’re launched “into the wild” statistics are not available as the focus at Tech Ranch is to help launch more, rather than track the ones that have already launched.

About the Author

Kevin Carney is an expert in Inbound Marketing, who teaches and writes on the topics of Inbound Marketing, SEO, and WordPress. Kevin founded and runs Inbound Marketing University, the online school and community where people learn how to attract their desired audience to their website and convert website visitors into prospects. Kevin can be followed on social media at @kevinbcarney, +KevinCarney, and LinkedIn, and contacted on the Inbound Marketing University Website.