Dave: Hey everyone, Dave here with another episode of the Philly Tech Connect Podcast. I’m speaking with Patrick Thompson. Patrick began his journey in PR, marketing, and journalism, but he was once recruited into an incubator and has never looked back. He now consults in the same area, has his own incubator called Bootstrap First, and is a member of the PTE community. He’s a great dude. Patrick, how are you doing?
Patrick: I am doing well, and thank you for the kind words!
Dave: So tell us a little bit about your time being in an incubator. Where is this in your journey or your life? What motivated you to join one, or what did you get out of it?
Patrick: So it really started—I’ll even rewind a little bit. I started, as you mentioned, doing PR, marketing, all sorts of copywriting, internal and external comps. But it was pretty much for emerging technology companies. So that really gave me a lot of exposure to these earlier stage companies—their successes, their wins, and also what they struggled with—their failures. And it just got to the point where I wanted to do more than help companies tell their stories. I wanted to play a bigger role in building them up and helping them be successful. That’s when, as you mentioned, I was recruited into an incubator. It was a digital asset incubator, and really, that was a point in time where the model shifted a bit. When you’re helping companies tell their stories, you’re not really focusing on some negative things that are taking place. You’re communicating the value propositions to the world—what it is that they’re good at. Now, when you’re on the inside, you do see what they struggle with. You do hear more about their challenges, and they’re asking for help more often. Part of your job is to connect them with resources that are more likely to help them succeed. I guess that experience gave me a look at what became both sides of the coin—not only where people were winning but also where people were struggling, and I found that invaluable. I think learning is kind of this continuous thing. So it was great to see one side of it—okay, I’m helping people tell their stories. Then it was great to get that experience on—okay, I’m seeing what goes wrong and what goes right, and it’s the resources people need to be successful, and that journey is ongoing. It’s never-ending, so it is what I do today, and I don’t believe it’s going to stop.
Dave: Yeah, I love that, man. “Incubator” is a word that’s kind of out there. I’m never quite sure about where it fits in with an accelerator and the differences and stuff, but why might a founder want to join an incubator, and what should they expect?
Patrick: You make a good point right off the bat. A lot of people use words like “incubator” and “accelerator” interchangeably, but they are two quite different things. So first, I’ll say when it’s the right time for an incubator, because an incubator comes before an accelerator. It’s much earlier stage. I would honestly say it’s pre-seed. It’s before somebody’s raised for a pre-seed round, or maybe they have raised pre-seed, but it is that very early stage before they’ve found anything that even looks like product-market fit. Maybe they don’t even have customers at that point. It really is like the chicken and eggs at the incubator, and they want to hatch; they want to blossom into something, but they just haven’t been able to do that yet.
Versus an accelerator, which I’ll just touch on for a second. An accelerator is when you’re further along. You most likely do have clients and customers. Maybe you haven’t found product-market fit, but maybe you’re pretty close to it, and you need fewer resources to probably catalyze your success. Maybe it is just tapping into the right network, and they’re helping you with things like distribution and making customer segments aware, but you’re much further along in your journey at that point in time when it is time for an accelerator. So that’s the incubator-accelerator distinction.
But I do need to ask, what was the original question that led me down that road?
Dave: I think I was also asking why a founder might choose an incubator. Why not just maybe wait and try an accelerator, or what are they looking to kind of get out of it? How long should they expect to be in it? What do they expect to give up for it? Just give a little insight into the model.
Patrick: Yeah, so thank you for putting me back on track there. I think it’s the right time for a founder or a startup to look for an incubator if—I like to say idea stage—they truly are at the very beginning of their journey, or maybe they have been at it for, let’s say, two or three years, but they’re really struggling to get clients and customers into the business. I like to call that pre-revenue, where they’re just not at that point where they have this repeatable sort of customer factory—this is how we find people, this is how we bring them in, this is how we keep them happy, this is how we keep them coming back to the business. And I think people turn to incubators for many reasons.
I think some of the most common ones I see are that, one, this is a lot of people’s first kind of business journey, and unless you are surrounded by either individuals that have done it before or others who are on that same journey, it could get pretty lonely and isolating. I think it’s very easy to get confused and kind of go down the wrong route or stray away from the path that is most likely to take you to success. I think that’s one reason people kind of look for a framework—a week-over-week structured framework that’s likely to increase their chances of being successful.
Another thing that I see is that some people need an accountability partner. A word I’ve heard people use is like, “Hey, it’s almost like a personal trainer for startups,” where it’s great that we can sit alone and have all these ideas, but unless somebody’s holding our feet to the fire, really forcing us to have deliverables for the business that bring us closer to—in my case, it’s an early adopter launch—I bring people closer to their early adopter launch. If somebody isn’t checking in on them week over week, or even a couple of times per week, a lot of people just don’t end up doing the work. I think those are two of the biggest reasons that people find value in tapping into an incubator and two of the biggest reasons I see people coming to the Bootstrap First incubator.
Dave: What should someone expect to have to give to be in the incubator? Is it more of just a straightforward paid model, where you pay a price and then you get access to it, or do you give up equity, or is it a mix of both?
Patrick: Similar to a lot of things in this world, it’s dynamic, and I’m always trying to evolve as well. For the first cohort, which is up and running at the moment—and I’ll touch on that for a second, too—the success metrics are beginning to appear. We have one company that recently raised $100,000 in non-dilutive funding. We have another company that recently won the Best in Class at a conference that they were attending. For this first cohort, it was purely a participation fee to be part of the program. Moving forward, so cohort number two and beyond, it is a participation fee and a small percentage equity—2% equity in the second cohort—to participate in the program.
What the program looks like might as well be touched on as well. The program is 100 days in its entirety, and it’s really broken into three different stages. In the first, they deconstruct their idea and understand if it’s financially feasible. In stage two, it’s a lot of customer discovery because that’s the point in time when the hypothesis of a solution that they have is either confirmed to be something that people within the market want, or at that point in time, you learn that nobody wants this thing that you’ve set out to build and that you would like to build. But regardless, the pain points that your target customer segment experiences do emerge over that period of time. Once you identify the patterns and the problems people are frequently experiencing, then you can design a prototype that really speaks to that early adopter audience and convert a percentage of them—I like to say 10%—into paying clients and customers. So it’s really a lean startup framework that we run over the course of 100 days, and that’s what the program looks like. We’re also working on a program for alumni as we’re going to have this alumni network, but that’s nothing that we’re ready to talk about right now.
Dave: Oh, good! I love that you’ve introduced already the model behind Bootstrap First. It’s a little bit—it’s an interesting name. I want to kind of hear your reasoning behind calling it that, and also, the model that you’ve described—is that something that one would expect to be kind of uniform across incubators, or is it sort of like a unique approach that you’re taking here?
Patrick: I’ll start with the second question, then I’ll dip back into the first. It’s not an uncommon model. There are some instances where there’s a participation fee, and startups give a percentage equity in their company. There are other models where maybe the incubator or accelerator makes a small equity investment in the startup that’s participating in the program in exchange for equity, but both are common models that are seen pretty frequently.
Now, when it comes to why the name is Bootstrap First—really, my focus began, and notice I say began, as helping companies bootstrap. I feel like a lot of early-stage startups get caught up in trying to raise venture capital or a significant amount of money before they even have clients and customers. I think this is kind of a misallocation of time and resources. I would rather see people go out into the market, see if people are willing to pay for this solution that they want to provide, and do it that way. And once they have clients and customers, if they want to go the route of raising funding, that makes a lot more sense, and their likelihood of being successful is much higher. So the name began as Bootstrap First, but it’s evolved. That’s no longer the full focus of what it is. I know that I’ve referred to it as an incubator throughout our conversation, but that’s only one arm of what I do. In reality, Bootstrap First is the startup lab, so there is the incubator, there is the podcast, there are events. So it’s just the name that I started with, but it’s not all that I do.
Dave: That’s cool, man! So, why Philadelphia? What made you choose this city to set up your incubator and do all your things? Is there something that you find unique about the city that makes it a good location for starting your business and doing business there?
Patrick: Yeah, so Philadelphia is where I was born and raised. I do like to say that it’s where I went to school, but really it’s where I got my education. And I think there are several reasons for choosing Philadelphia. I think Philadelphia is a very under-indexed market. I think there are a lot of opportunities in Philadelphia for entrepreneurs who are trying to either test or pilot their solutions that they want to bring to market. And even more than that, Philadelphia is kind of a tech hub—there’s Comcast, which everybody knows about. But I think Philadelphia is a place where a lot of companies are being formed that people just don’t know about yet. And even a step further than that, it’s one of the best cities in the country for a work-life balance, and it’s one of the more affordable cities in the U.S. as well. So it’s a great place to build. It’s a great place to work. And at the same time, you’re not going to be stretched thin because you can’t afford it. I just think it’s a great place overall, and I’m going to keep calling it home.
Dave: Awesome, man! So where can people find out more about Bootstrap First, and if they’re interested in reaching out to you and being part of it, what should they do?
Patrick: Yeah, so anyone that’s interested in finding more about Bootstrap First can visit bootstrapfirst.com. That’s all spelled out. And even on bootstrapfirst.com, there is a link for the newsletter, and we talk about news and events that are happening within the community as well as some of the companies that are part of the program. So those are two of the best places to find us, and if people want to reach out to me personally, LinkedIn is a great way to get ahold of me, and I’m always down to have a conversation with someone that’s trying to build or someone that’s looking for a co-founder. I enjoy networking. I enjoy talking to people, so people can definitely reach out.
Dave: Patrick, thank you so much for being on the show! Any final words for our listeners?
Patrick: No, it’s my pleasure. The last thing I’ll say is the slogan. It’s—”Startups are a marathon, not a sprint.” So I hope people keep that in mind, and I’m more than happy to be on the show today. Thank you for having me.
Dave: Love it, man. Thanks, Patrick. Catch you later.
Patrick: See ya.
Dave: Hey, everybody! Thank you so much for listening to the Philly Tech Connect Podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening so you don’t miss a single episode. And if you want to check out more of our content, visit phillytechconnect.com. Until next time, stay connected!