The tracker helps a startup grow in an accelerator. He is like a senior comrade who will support and guide. A tracker usually has two main tasks: to ask questions about business development and to help with tactical calculations with its expertise and connections. Most often, the tracker is an entrepreneur himself or a top manager who knows the business from the inside. According to Dmitry, there are no more than 150 active trackers (those who conduct projects constantly, at least 3+ per month) for the entire market.
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Text: Ivan Survillo
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- Tracker is a mixture of mentor and manager for a startup. The tracker helps the team and gives some of its own expertise. This is not done by some kind of magic; there are techniques such as Lean Startup or HADI cycles.
I help the team to identify the goal or goals that they talk to me, are aware and are ready to run to them. We even have a clause in the rules that the team must write down their goals themselves. This is necessary because while you are talking with the team, everything is cool, but when you ask to write it down, they write something completely different.
Next, I decompose the goal into weekly sprints and make sure the team follows them without going sideways. I help to select methods to achieve goals or solve problems that arise on the way to a goal. Up to the point that I get into marketing with the team, come up with hacks to attract customers or help them conduct interviews with potential customers. In fact, I work with whatever tasks are in the week.
Most often, meetings between the tracker and the team take place in person. Now - more online. We usually have one or two meetings a week. At the meeting, you definitely need the CEO of the team, that is, the one who makes the final decisions, and those who need to be connected at the moment: marketers, sellers, and others.
A tracker is a person asking questions. I speak only when necessary. I ask more and deepen to the desired answer or when a direct request is made to me: “We need help, leads from Facebook do not work. What do we do"?
After the meetings - intermediate touches, during which we make sure that the team ran, or collided with something and stopped, or simply a request is formed: “We don’t understand how,” “I cannot,” or, conversely, “It works. But is this exactly what we want to get? "
- Do you choose the team yourself?
- Usually, accelerator organizers try to make sure that there is chemistry between the team and the tracker. Before the start, a diagnostic session is organized, a selection interview, when you see the team, and the team sees the tracker. Often the teams are asked: "Guys, who did you like more, who would you like to work with?"
- Has it ever happened that chemistry, which was from the very beginning, then failed?
- It was not on my part. I believe that a professional should be able to work with any teams, chemistry is more of a nice bonus. A tracker, on the other hand, usually comes from either a business, or a top manager, that is, a person who knows how to work with a large number of people. I select mechanisms for the team that will work with it: that language, that communication.
- Who goes to the accelerator?
- StartupDrive is a corporate accelerator. There are teams that assume that their business can work with the business of a large company. Conventionally, the Gazpromneft filling station network has a client base that they are ready to provide, and for a startup this is a quick entrance to a large number of B2B clients or private traders. Need a base? Here's your base! Go try something about it.
Usually teams that are in the process of growing go to the accelerator. Perhaps not at very high stages: a year or three of existence. They are not yet ossified, as many large corporations, flexible, can afford to participate in the accelerator.
Well, there are those who are looking for money. In accelerators, there is usually an option to get an investment or a big jackpot somewhere at the end.
- Who definitely shouldn't go to the accelerator?
- Teams whose CEO is not ready to participate in the accelerator. This is the only limitation, in my opinion.
- And you, as a tracker, why do you need an accelerator?
- It all started as a hobby. I passed the IIDF accelerator (friifond), and after a while the guys say: “Can you help diagnose the team? Looks like your business. " I agreed. One, second, third.
Then they say to me: “Listen, do you want to go to work as a tracker? You yourself went through this with your team, now you will look from the other side. " And somehow it went. And when the first money went, I already began to perceive it as a business.
The accelerator helps me keep my mind flexible. When you work with a large number of teams, you need to help completely different businesses with one or two touches a week. This is a great brain strain, for four to five hours a day. You are constantly jumping from the context of one business to the context of another. For me, it's like a simulator: it really helps to be in good shape.
Another point is that the practices that work in other people's startups can be applied to yourself. There is an ethic that you cannot take competitive or close areas. I cannot be a tracker for the yachting business: this is my main income. But what works in B2C marketing for food delivery can often work in other industries as well. For example, in one startup, the guys were looking for channels for B2B software. Classic marketing didn't work very well, and we came up with a thematic chat on Telegram for them. The thing worked great, I use it in my own gathering of clients for yachting webinars. It turned out that the Telegram chat is an interesting channel that I had not looked at before.
- Is it difficult for you, as a tracker, to work in an accelerator?
- It's hard when the team doesn't give a performance. You work with her, give all the best the same as with other teams, but some succeed, while others do not succeed at all. You get lost, because you do everything the same way, the methods are the same, the business is the same, and the team will not perform. It's difficult with such.
Most often, the reason is not that the technique does not work, but that the team from the very beginning did not fully understand why they needed the accelerator, or at the moment of passing the accelerator realized that they did not need it. The team's goals have changed, but she does not admit it. You start digging and get to the bottom of what is really happening, but a lot of energy is burned. Fortunately, this rarely happens.
- Is it hard for a startup in an accelerator?
- As a past two accelerators with different startups, I can say: it's hard.
Accelerator = great strain on the resources of the whole team and even more strain on your resources as a founder. When I passed the accelerator at IIDF, they had a full-time enrollment in Moscow, and I myself was from St. Petersburg. I just had a baby who was 6 months old. I say to my wife: "This is the case, I am flying to Moscow for 3 months, but I will return." He flew away, and she was left alone.
In Moscow, I was often unavailable, because I worked during the 24/7 accelerator. Then I stayed in the capital for another year, because we opened a Moscow office and I could not leave. This situation lasted for a year and a half.
- Did you think how justified these sacrifices are for you?
- Then I was sure that I was acting absolutely correctly, otherwise I would not have done so. But after a while I can say: the project did not take off the way I wanted it. It has become a normal, local business that brings money, but I wanted world-wide, I wanted it to be the next level ...
Maybe I would have done it without sacrifices, without traveling for a year and a half, but there is no right answer here: history does not know the subjunctive mood. I definitely don't regret it. Without this I would be someone else, and who the devil only knows.
- Does a tracker need any education?
- Rather, you need experience in your business. Ideally, if it is long and you yourself worked, you did something with your own hands. I am a direct adherent of this. There are trackers who claim that the main thing is to know the technique. In my opinion, if you haven't tried it with your hands, you will only be able to do something in words. Experience decides. “What exactly did you do”, “There is something to brag about” - this is the main thing.
About education: there is a school of trackers. Not even one. This is an interesting phenomenon that was born only in Russia. Familiar guys went to Y Combinator in California, where they were directly interested: “We do not understand, tell us? What is a tracker school? What is a tracker? "
They have a story about mentors. The mentor says, “I'm a team building guru. What do you want to ask me? I will give you a workshop, then come to me with any requests, I will help you. " And the tracker guides the command through the accelerator. Maybe it's the difference in cultures. In the States, you type your subjects, and at our university they kick you to pass your term paper.
- Do you, as a tracker, have something to brag about?
- There is.
I had two commands in the StartupDrive accelerator. The first is Ucar. The team worked in B2B, and in the accelerator with me they entered a new segment - B2C. The team grew tenfold in revenue, taking into account covid, lockdown and restrictions. I think this is part of my result.
The second team is the Rental Club. The guys are making a marketplace for construction equipment. We changed the model for them and rebuilt the product. They were focused on the owners of the equipment, now they came from the client's side. The guys increased the average bill from 180 to 2700 rubles. 15 times.
Now Rental Club has a number of proposals from funds that are ready to invest in them after seeing a new model that has turned out. The guys seem to become normal big business. The only one in this market who can do it. No one in Russia had ever been able to do this before.
By the way, their example just shows well what the coordinated work of the tracker and the startup in the accelerator brings. The Rental Club had a call center that deals with the selection of special equipment. The scheme is as follows. The customer says: "I need equipment for the object." She is quickly searched for, rushed and lived on commission. Nice big growing business.
Then they made an IT platform for renting special equipment. They took existing orders from the market and threw them there. There were few orders, the order was worth little, because it is not unique. The business didn't start.
In a couple of meetings, we came to a substitution of concepts. It turned out that in the main business the scheme is as follows. The customer comes and says: "I need three bulldozers." They find them for him, and it doesn't matter how many of their bulldozers are actually available from Rental Club. The main thing is that these bulldozers are on the market and can be found.
And then the model was turned over and began to be dug by the owners of the equipment, although the customer is important in this story, because he contributes money. When the CEO and I dug it up, he says, "Thank you, you opened my eyes." And it seems that everything sounds simple and clear, but it is not always possible to reflect yourself from the outside. As a result, this business went.
- Do you think trackers are in demand on the market?
- I know that 80% of sales of one of the major accelerators are tracked. It is already a must have for the market. Even not-so-large corporations hire trackers. In my opinion, the market will be saturated for three years. He is now experiencing a severe deficit. The same trackers go around the market, from one accelerator to another. New ones appear, but they do not have a certain observation, and often they do not linger: either they leave themselves, or they simply are not called further.
While there is demand.
- Do you work with startups as a psychologist?
- It seems to me that this is one of the important competencies of the tracker - to be a psychologist. I have been doing business psychology for myself for ten years now. I bought courses, read literature. Without being a psychologist, you can't be a great tracker.
- What is the thrill for you to be a tracker?
- Expansion. Such a man's desire.
Let me explain: as a tracker, I do not only two of my businesses, but a hundred more businesses pass through me a year, and some of it turns out. As I walk down the street, I see a delivery truck that I started up. A month later, I notice that there are more and more trucks. I think: “But I remember that the guys were thinking whether to close themselves or not. They are growing! " It's a thrill.
- Has it ever happened that startups came to you after accelerators?
- They come. We maintain contacts. Sometimes they come to buy tracking. Sometimes I even agree to this. We communicate with someone as with entrepreneurs. It happens, and the guys help me. For example, international affairs go Global. They began to succeed in foreign markets, and they tell me how they work there. Extremely helpful.
- Is there any ethical code of the tracker?
- There is.
It so happens that you work with two identical startups in the same industry. The Code assumes that you will work with everyone individually. You cannot say that something worked for one, so it will work for another. Everyone comes to his own. To say to one, “Do this because it worked for another,” is unethical.
You cannot show the "internal" if you have not been given consent to do so.
You cannot transfer from one accelerator to another something from the "internal", motivation, startups, commission.
- How to recognize a good tracker?
- A good tracker asks more questions than it says.
You can agree to hold a diagnostic session with the tracker - a format when the tracker identifies bottlenecks in the project and understands for itself whether it will be of value in working with a person / project. And during this time, you can see the approach itself.
There you can also ask about the relevant cases with which the tracker worked. If he has sufficient discernment, he will quickly be able to show such cases from practice.
Another plus for the tracker is certification. It was once made by IIDF as the founder of the tracker profession in the Russian Federation. The site has categories and names of certified trackers. It was one-time for the market, but in any case it is an actual check for persons.
- What, in your opinion, are the pros and cons of the StartupDrive accelerator?
- Thanks to COVID-19, StartupDrive was the first accelerator in my life that spent most of the time online. Even the demo day went online. For the first time, I could be anywhere, and I did not have to travel to meetings. This is great because my bandwidth got higher and I had more time for my projects. For startups, the story is the same: that case of mine with a trip to Moscow for a year and a half might not have happened.
The downside is that the StartupDrive accelerator is industry-specific. Not everyone can get into it, and you are limited by resources. If you come with a startup to a neutral accelerator, then different companies can enter there, and in our case, the startup must make do with the resources of one specific one. But StartupDrive resources are tailored for this and can quickly benefit a startup.
StartupDrive is also one of the first corporate accelerators, where we discussed the interests of a startup and a corporation. There was no such thing: "We will now chase a startup into this thing, and he has to do it." They said: "Guys, we can be compatible in this." In the end, the startup said, “Yes, I like it. Let's go, "and the other side said," We like it and the result will suit us. " Only after that did the tracking start. It is very cool.
There was not much theory - also a plus. But there was a lot of practice. There was a very high involvement of the team of the company itself. It has never happened that someone did not come from Gazprom Neft to call. This is a big bonus. Usually such a thing breaks down in corporations that want an accelerator, but the team is not ready, and the startup starts to fight with itself, and in the end, nothing happens.
Gazprom Neft's StartupDrive accelerator has a really working history.
Accelerator started accepting applications . In 2021, StartupDrive will continue to work with startups that develop technology products in the areas of any type of mobility, cargo transportation, anti-fraud, taxi, car sharing, as well as retail and fintech. Submission of applications on the official website of the accelerator.