Zero Tolerance for Inappropriate Sexual Behavior at 9Mile Labs

In view of few situations that have recently come to light, we wanted to make a clear and concise statement about an issue that is extremely important to us. We have a zero tolerance policy for inappropriate sexual behavior originating from investors, mentors or founders at 9Mile Labs. Anyone found to be in violation of this policy will be excluded from our program and events.

What constitutes inappropriate behavior? It includes “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature that results in a hostile work environment.

It is 2016, and this should go without saying, but we’re stating this to be unambiguous about the issue.

The 9Mile Innovation Framework© - A Structured Methodology for Building Technology Companies

When we ventured into the startup accelerator business over three years ago (read our story here), we knew we were headed into brand new territory. The startup accelerator business model was pioneered in 2005 by Paul Graham at YCombinator (YC) and then subsequently adopted by many others after high-profile YC successes such as AirBnB, Dropbox, Heroku and others. We were perfectly happy to replicate a proven model, but we also wanted to ensure we continued to learn, iterate, refine, and innovate.  And the only way we knew how was to constantly talk to our customers - i.e., entrepreneurs and investors - and try to deeply understand their challenges and pain points.

These conversations are the genesis of the 9Mile Innovation Framework, our foundational methodology for helping launch and grow startups. Using Steve Blank’s customer development methodology and Alex Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas (BMC) tool as a starting point, we began to build our own proprietary framework for company creation and growth. While we found the BMC to be a great tool, we also needed a foundational framework that helped us with the following

• - A tool to assess a startup’s progress over time, including a self-assessment tool for entrepreneurs to track their own company’s performance.
• - A high-level model for creating enterprise and B2B startups that are focused on solving real-world problems and on customer traction.
• - Provide us a common language to discuss startup progress, challenges, and solutions with entrepreneurs, mentors, speakers and investors.
• - A clear foundational structure for our entrepreneurship and company-building curriculum.

With the 9Mile Innovation Framework, we have a tangible rubric we can use to gauge the current and future success of the companies graduating from the accelerator. Since 9Mile Labs is only successful if its companies are successful, the framework also serves as a measure of how our own business is progressing. Applying the framework to everything we do, there is no hand waving, subjective arguments, or seat-of-the-pants rationalizing. If something isn’t working, we go back to the drawing board and refine our framework.

Just a side note: we don’t claim that every concept in our Innovation Framework is original. We read books, browse startup-oriented publications, follow prominent bloggers, and speak to many people every day. And when some concepts resonate with us, we incorporate them into our thinking – consciously as well as inadvertently. For example, we read a startup-oriented book called Nail It, Then Scale It and really liked that term and started using it; we heard the term “Hacker, Hustler, Visionary” from somewhere else and promptly borrowed it. All innovation builds upon existing ideas; progress comes when you pick “borrowed” ideas and build on them with original thinking (read “Borrowing Brilliance” by David Kord Murray).

The 9Mile Innovation Framework has nine key strategic steps necessary to build any company from idea-to-execution (Figure 1). We call the first five steps in our framework the “Nail It” stage, so termed because investment in scaling activities such as marketing and sales is useless until a startup has achieved these five basic milestones. No business should spend time and money building a product that no one wants. It’s also important to note, that even though there’s a certain sequential nature to this model, startups of course sometimes hit these milestones in different order. Here’s a brief description of the five steps in the “nail it” phase of our framework:

1. 1. Team: Investors, especially early-stage ones, invest in teams first, then the market and idea. At 9Mile Labs, we look for a complete team comprising three roles - hacker, hustler, and visionary.
2. 2. Pain Point: The business idea for a startup must be rooted in a well-understood pain point for a specific customer segment in a significantly large market.
3. 3. Competitive Differentiation:  Every early-stage startup must have an understanding of, and build strategies for creating sustainable differentiation against competitors.
4. 4. Value Proposition: The value the customer receives from the startup must be significantly higher than the total cost of ownership from using the startup’s solution.
5. 5. Product: The actual product the company builds, first as an MVP, later beta, and then as a complete product, must be based on an in-depth understanding of the customer’s pain point and the value delivered to the customer.

Figure 1: The 9Mile Innovation Framework

Achieving maturity on the “Nail It” steps leads a startup to the “Scale It” part of the framework. The startup has the beginnings of a good business and now needs to take things to the next level. Of course, the “Scale It” part of the framework remains iterative as well, with startup teams learning what works and what doesn’t as they work to build a scalable, repeatable, and profitable business model. Things change, and the entrepreneurs must be ready to go back to square one or pivot if necessary. Here are the four steps in the “Scale It” part of our framework:

6. 6. Go-To-Market: Create clear messaging and positioning statements that resonate with the target customer segment, as well as demand generation strategies to target those customers.
7. 7. Customer Traction: Tactics and strategies employed to achieve and track exponential, proven, sustainable customer growth against non-vanity metrics.
8. 8. Business Model: Bringing together much of the work in prior milestones, the business model must be scalable, repeatable, and profitable.
9. 9. Funding Strategy: Every startup should clearly think about its funding needs and explore options such as customer revenue, strategic, angel, or venture investment.

Creating the 9Mile Innovation Framework grew out of our conviction that, while raising money is a very important activity for a startup, a much more important success metric is customer traction. However, amid headlines about unicorns and multimillion-dollar funding rounds, startups sometimes start thinking of funding as the ultimate objective, as opposed to a means to building a successful business.

Following this broad introduction to the 9Mile Innovation Framework, in the next post, we’ll dive into the specifics of each milestone introduced above. First up, the team. Tune into our next post to find out how we evaluate successful teams.

9Mile Labs is a leading Enterprise / B2B high-tech accelerator based in Seattle. 9Mile Labs celebrates the graduation of its fifth cohort on Mar 3, 9:30am; register as our guest with promo code “GOLD” at http://m9.9MileLabs.com! 

The accelerator is currently accepting applications for the upcoming program (beginning in July, 2016) at http://apply.9MileLabs.com.

Come meet our 9 Exceptional B2B Technology Startups on Nov 20

What is a startup accelerator and how can it help launch a technology idea into a market-ready business? Who is developing some of the best B2B and cloud-services technologies in the Pacific Northwest? Why is our region one of the best in the country for cloud and B2B startups? Our latest Milestone9 event will answer these questions, and introduce the 9 companies graduating from our program. Join us Thursday, November 20, from 2:00-6:00 p.m. at the Washington State Convention Center by registering at http://m9.9MileLabs.com. The Pacific Northwest is home to some of the top enterprise and cloud services companies in the world, and should be a beacon to any enterprise startup. Concur is one such remarkable success story, and we’re excited to have its co-founder, COO and Chairman Rajeev Singh keynote the event. He’ll help welcome hundreds of business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, mentors, friends and family for great content, discussions, networking and demonstrations of some of the hottest technologies launching today!

This marks the third successful cohort of companies from the 9Mile Labs program and we can’t wait to help launch them into the community. And if you’re entrepreneurs interested in joining a B2B startup accelerator, our next program kicks off in January 2015 – application deadline December 4. Whether launching a startup out of college, from of an established career, or developing an idea on the side, entrepreneurs can apply to our program at any time here.

Register soon and we’ll see you there!

9 Rules for Being an Effective Mentor

In my experience, having effective, talented, and knowledgeable mentors has been the most powerful startup accelerator that I know. The best mentors I've worked with do a lot of the things on this list. You can call these the 9 rules of being a mentor - they will help you provide feedback to entrepreneurs you know and respect. These are not meant to be a definitive list (you should make your own list of things that work) and will get you started toward the process of sharing your expertise with a startup team. Rule #1: Use your Superpower (and know what it is)

Maybe you are amazing at Operations. Perhaps you understand Finance better than anyone you know. Or you can design an email marketing campaign to ensure the highest percentage of opened emails. You know your superpower (or you should) - and you can be a really effective mentor if you can leverage your experience in a way that doesn't say "do this, or else" to the entrepreneur you're advising.

Rule #2: Be Mindful of Limited Time

You are busy; the entrepreneurs are busy too. So show up on time, whether it's an in person meeting or a phone call. Give people information to review before the meeting. And answer any questions promptly so that you can give the best impression possible to a budding entrepreneur about how you can do things the right way. (Bonus points awarded if you thank them for emailing you and demonstrate a great customer service affect.)

Rule #3: Give to Get

This mentoring relationship is not about you: it's about what you can provide to a person trying to do a very difficult thing. If you do nothing else with your mentoring relationship, you should be focusing on what the other person says that they need (and listening for the unspoken, unmet needs as well.) You can also use the power of your networks to spread the word and really amplify the efforts of a fledgling business.

Rule #4: Make Introductions and Provide Context

I'm sure you've received more than a few emails or requests in your time where you read the email and are not sure why the person is contacting you and how they would like you to help. Providing context makes things better for you, the entrepreneurs, and anyone else they are working with. For example, "This is ____, he/she is solving this problem ____ for this customer ___ . It would be great if you could (clearly defined ask) by (clearly defined date.) If this doesn't work for you, please suggest another resource who might be able to help." is a short, focused way to request assistance. You may also need to do a "pre-ask" and make sure the resource is willing and able to help.

Rule #5: Build a Community of Mentors

A community is only as effective as its members, and the totality of the network provides the relationships and ideas that make the network really thrive and grow in value. Please meet the other Mentors, the other startups, and be open to the idea that you are always learning. You never know what a day will bring when you're open to new opportunities.

Rule #6: Only Offer What You can Deliver

The relationship with your startup company will be better if you set ground rules for how you can be contacted, what you can offer, and what you're expecting to give. (You might ask the same questions of them.) Setting these expectations up front will avoid disappointment and will make it clear what sort of communication cadence you need to build.

Rule #7: Make "Checking In" into a Habit

Set up a regular meeting with your team – either in person or on Skype – and encourage the entrepreneurs to drive the meeting using a well-defined agenda. A great start to an agenda (suggest your own favorite) is "what I did, what I'm doing, and where I need help." Sending answers to the same set of questions is also a great way for teams to inform their mentors - a tool like iDoneThis or 15Five or a shared Google Doc can do the trick here.

Rule #8: It's Not Your Startup

Building a relationship with a set of entrepreneurs is exciting, and sometimes develops into a lifelong relationship. And remember that you are there to provide advice, to help frame decisions, and to be correct when someone asks you a specific question. But it's not your startup. Remembering that fact makes it easier for you to deliver difficult and important advice, and it also frees the entrepreneurs to ignore your advice when they need to make their own way.

Rule #9: Ask the Right Questions

In best Steve Blank form, encourage your teams to "Get Out of the Building" and validate their assumptions with real customers as soon as possible. You can help them build their hypotheses by asking incisive questions, but ensure they make key decisions based on the customer insights they uncover during customer validation.

Are these the same rules I would have written when I first joined a startup? Nope. So remind yourself that your own personal rules for serving as a mentor (and for being mentored) will change over time. Your job as a mentor should be to focus on creating, communicating, and delivering unique value for the startup you're mentoring, and to help them do the same for their customers.

This guest blog post was courtesy of Greg Meyer, a 9Mile Labs mentor.  You can learn learn more about Greg at his website or by following him on Twitter (@gmeyer)