Troy is the Co-Founder of gener8tor. gener8tor’s turnkey platform for the creative economy connects startup founders, musicians, artists, investors, universities and corporations. gener8tor operates more than 45 accelerators annually across North America, working with more than 200 startups per year. Since its inception in 2012, gener8tor has worked with 500+ startups that have cumulatively raised $500M+ in follow-on venture capital.
What were the top 3 mistakes you made as an entrepreneur, and if you could start over what would you do differently?
Listening to narrow-minded advice early on
Venture capital and startups are a global industry, but economic development tends to be a local game. When we started gener8tor in 2012, we ran accelerator programs exclusively in Wisconsin. This was great for the community and the state, but we wanted to grow and expand outside the state and even the country. Yet, when we started our expansion, many economic development incumbents questioned our growth strategy. Were we capable of growing beyond Wisconsin or outside the United States? Were we going to grow too fast too soon? Should we just stay and grow in Wisconsin?
I always want to practice what we preach at gener8tor. If we tell startups that we’ve invested in to “grow” then we, too, should grow our organization. Today, we operate 45 accelerator programs each year in 25 cities across 13 states and provinces and two countries. If we would have listened to many of the economic development incumbents who questioned our growth strategy then, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
Not hiring a recruiter sooner
With our growth came a need to hire the very best talent. As our track record and brand grew, our ability to attract attention from more people who wanted to work for us grew with it. For almost every job posting we made, we received hundreds of organic job applicants. The pool of candidates became overwhelming. We weren’t staffed to weed through every single application nor did we have the ability to proactively fill open positions. We were being too passive.
Our team is our most valuable resource. If we had hired an in-house recruiter sooner, we could have been more proactive in our approach to hiring and filling open positions. We could have been more efficient in filtering through the candidates to find the person with the best qualifications and the right workplace cultural fit to meet our staffing needs. It’s vitally important to have someone who is dedicated to growing our team and helping our company move forward. Today, the gener8tor team is 70+ full-time employees with a full-time recruiter on staff.
Realizing that investors are global
Whether you’re a venture capital (VC) fund or a startup raising venture capital, COVID-19 has made the business world truly more global. It’s also made capital even more liquid. There’s been a longstanding mantra that VCs only invest within a 90-mile drive, but the pandemic has created more opportunities by expanding this thinking and replacing it with, “VCs are investing anywhere they can hop on a Zoom call.” The shift has opened doors that are leading to global connections.
In addition, the work-from-home and remote environment is leading more investors (VCs and institutional LPs) to look for greater portfolio and fund diversification. It’s imperative to seek out funding from outside your personal bubble. Don’t rely solely on the pocketbooks, balance sheets, and opinions of the one or two local VC funds and angel groups in your local area. Instead, actively seek potential investors from around the country to help diversify your portfolio.
Troy Vosseller Co-Founder of gener8tor
