Thinking about applying to any of the over 50 incubators? Don't be like 70% of the applications that get an email like this: Thank you for taking the time to apply for X incubator. This year we had the difficult task of selecting companies from a field of over 100 applicants. Unfortunately your company has not been selected to participate. We wish you the best on the road to come. Your goal is to get into the interview process.
Storymix Media applied to six incubators, was selected as a finalist in three, and chosen to participate in Capital Factory. Here's what you should take away from what we learned:
4 Simple Steps to Avoid the Instant Trash Bin:
If you want your application to quickly end up in the reject pile, just do these things:
1. No Team
2. Just an Idea
3. No business model, no traction
4. Takes more than 15 minutes to explain your business
1. Are you a single founder? Or worse yet, the business brains with no ability to adjust your code during the incubator? Single founders can work if you have the ability to quickly test iterations to your business model. Mentors want to know that you can test their theories during your 5 to 12 week time in their program.
2. All the incubators say that it’s fine to apply with just an idea. Nowhere do they indicate that you will get accepted that way. You need to be able to show something by demo day.
3. Every year it gets more competitive to get into an incubator. The companies have more traction, more customers, and are overall farther along. It looks good to an incubator to be able to tout their success with you. If you already had some success prior to acceptance into a program, it makes it that much more attractive to them.
4. If it takes more than a minute to explain your business, you’re most likely out. They have to read through hundreds of applications - make it simple.
For our applications we highlighted the fact that we already had a product that customers were already paying for. Plus, we focused on the most basic part of our business model and quickly showed the roadmap to expand and grow into other verticals. Finally, we pointed them to our website where they could watch a video of our product (see below) to get a feeling of our capabilities and expertise.
Storymix Media is disrupting the traditional wedding video market. In the 90 billion dollar wedding market, 70% of brides choose not to get a wedding video. Why? Because wedding videos are traditionally long and boring and the fun, exciting videos average a $5000 price tag. We ship HD cameras. Friends and family shoot every special memory over the entire wedding weekend. Then we professionally edit their video. Using our exclusive online Storyboard, couples choose their scenes and personalize their movie. With an average package price of $350, brides at every budget can have a fun, personal wedding video.
