Data-Driven Startup Acceleration at Scale: Gust and Peachscore Unite!

Peter Swan , CEO , Gust INC

6 Aug 2024

New startups are most vulnerable to failure in the first 48 months. During this critical period successful startups require support navigating setup, fundraising, and the path to product market fit. Unfortunately, many founders struggle to access early-stage support, especially those that are bootstrapping, under-resourced, or building in emerging ecosystems.

At Gust, we aim to solve this challenge. That’s why we’re excited to partner with Peachscore to offer a new data-driven, equity free, virtual startup acceleration platform. This platform is specifically tailored for startups from the idea stage through Series A. It combines structured education, tailored guidance, and practical application to help startups grow smarter, faster, increasing their chances of success.

The Problems

Traditional in-person startup accelerators support a limited number of startups and require significant investment through dilution and relocation. Alternative founder education and startup acceleration solutions are more accessible–often available virtually and less likely to take equity–but founders struggle to get value out of them for a few common reasons:

1. 1. Information overload – founders get disconnected or conflicting advice from educational resources, advisors, investors, lawyers, accountants, and other founders.
   2. Theory-to-practice breakdown – programs don’t bridge the gap from education to implementation and it’s easy for things to get lost in translation and lead to critical mistakes.  
   3. Reality gap – startup stories are often vastly different from startup realities. Content tends to prioritize the story. Founders waste time patterning after fictional trajectories established by survivorship bias.
   4. Lack of startup specialization – high-growth startups are special and it can be exceedingly difficult for founders to differentiate between general business resources and startup-specific resources, especially in emerging ecosystems.
   5. Lack of ongoing support – many emerging offerings provide time-limited support. After the initial period, founders are left to navigate the journey on their own or through communities they’re required to find or cultivate independently.

Our Solution

We’ve designed our acceleration platform to combat these struggles in a few ways:

1. 1. Experience – over decades of helping thousands of founders navigate relationships with co-founders, advisors, investors, lawyers, accountants, and entrepreneur support organizations, we’ve developed an effective translation layer to help founders make sense from the information overload and communicate effectively with billable hour professionals.
   2. Tools – we’ve built software to help founders manage the leap from education to implementation without losing track of key details along the way. From benchmarking and progress tracking to corporate formation, equity management, and financial modeling, we provide tools that support founders on the path to product market fit rather than distracting them from it.
   3. Perspective – we’ve built programming and processes to provide a behind-the-scenes look at how startups are actively solving problems. Founders have a front row seat to the challenges of their peers as they’re happening rather than when they’re summarized later on a podcast or in a blog post.
   4. Data – we’ve got a ton of it and it’s not just focused on established startup ecosystems. We’ve combined that information with Peachscore’s data-driven tools to offer unparalleled market intelligence to help founders find competitors, match with resources, make fair equity offers to team members, and negotiate fundraising terms.
   5. Network – we’ve built a network of accelerators, angel investors, startup-specialists, and entrepreneurs to provide expertise on an ongoing and continuous basis. We’ve consciously cultivated like-minded people and partners that are willing to work with our founders in a way they can’t or won’t elsewhere.

This offering isn’t meant to replace focused accelerator programs designed to help founders plug in to industry- or location-specific networks or navigate strategic and growth challenges like regulatory hurdles or immigration. In fact, we think it’s an excellent complement to these programs; one that solves many of the issues with the existing alternatives. If you’re involved in an accelerator or other entrepreneur support program that focuses on early stage startups, we’d love to chat about how our work can be mutually supportive!

Ready to join us? Apply to the Peachscore + Gust Data-Driven Accelerator today.

What’s in the box?

• A 12-week accelerator program culminating in graduation and an online demo day.
  • Graduation certificates signed and endorsed by the Fred Kiesner Center for Entrepreneurship at Loyola Marymount University, ranked in the top 25 entrepreneurship programs in the United States.
• 1 year of support and access to the Gust & Peachscore ecosystem, platform, and community:
  • Mentorship, office hours, and daily advisory sessions.
  • Expert workshops to solve strategic challenges and learn as your peers solve theirs.
  • Monthly company update coaching to help you activate your network.
  • Monthly pitch practice with investor feedback.
  • Corporate formation, equity management, and cap table management software and services at a 40% discount.
  • Access to Gust’s vetted network of startup lawyers, accountants, and startup service providers with pre-negotiated discounts.
  • Business intelligence, real-time market insights and in-depth recommendations for resources and capital powered by Peachscore’s data-driven platform.
  • Pitch to Gust’s Angel Collective and the Peachscore Angel Group for investment up to $500k.
  • Over $2M in perks offered by our partners.
  • Visibility in an ecosystem of 300+ corporate executives, 100+ universities, 13k+ investors, and 40+ government agencies.
    

More details here.

Is it working?

It’s challenging to build scaleable, effective startup support. We’re building with intention and care to make sure we get it right. Here’s some of the feedback that gives us confidence we’re headed in the right direction:

• Net Promoter Score of 66
• Product Market Fit measurement 50%
• 55% of founders say the program has been critical in progressing their startup
• Someone actually said, “Like YC in a box with no dilution =)”

At Gust, we build for early stage startups, the people and organizations that support them, and the angels who fund them. We know it’s not the fastest way to build a business, but we believe it’s the best way to build an enduring company that has an outsized impact on the startup ecosystem.

If you’re interested in partnering with us to build a better, more equitable startup ecosystem, get in touch.

Introducing the Peachscore + Gust Data-Driven Accelerator. Industry Agnostic | Equity-Free | Online

Check it out!