Tacklebox Accelerator Syllabus

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Tacklebox Accelerator Syllabus

Program Syllabus

Tacklebox is a seven-week test of the market viability of your idea. Weekly workshops, 1-on-1 strategy sessions, customer intent tests and investor pitches stress test your idea and give you the foundations to launch.

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Logistics

Commitment

Detail

Cost

$3,500 per startup (additional $500 per co-founder)

Contact Hours

2hr Weekly Workshop + 45min 1x1 check in each week

Commitment

3-5hrs of contact hours (Group workshops + 1x1’s) with 5hrs+ independent work weekly

Length

7 weeks

There are no rows in this table

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Outcome: Validate your startup idea and leave with all the tools to grow it

Business Understanding/Startup 101

Validation of Customer and Market

System of Acquisition Channels

Develop early Product Features (market driven)

Opportunity for feedback from Investors

Next Steps/ Structure to move forward

Structure

Workshops: Our weekly, 2-hr workshops anchor the program. Delivered to each cohort (~12 small, curated founders) over Zoom, workshops consist of foundational content pulled from 250+ company launches. The detailed curriculum is below 👇, but our overarching goal is clarity. You need to know if your idea has potential - if it's worth your valuable time to pursue. We'll help you make customer-driven decisions so you can validate and scale, always building something customers love.

One-on-one Strategy Sessions: The workshops help you set your destination, the one-on-ones help you course correct during the journey. We'll dig in each week, pushing you on strategy, operations, differentiation. We expect a lot but won't do the work for you - we teach you to fish. This is where you learn what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

Investor Pitches: The program culminates with pitches to early-stage investors. These investors have certainly written checks for our founders, but the pitches are also a great opportunity to level-set. More transparency. Where do you stand now in relation to other early stage startups, and where do you need to get to?

Alumni: Our community is made up of hundreds of like-minded founders with diverse experiences. Our database helps you keep track of who's working on what, who's willing to be a cofounder, or who you might want to work with on your next thing.

Where our founders go next.

Our alums generally take one of five paths after Tacklebox:

(~25%) Friends + Family Raise / Crowdfunding Platform ($20-150k) ➡️ Initial Product: Customer, acquisition channels (CLV = +3xCAC), business model, and initial features were mostly validated. The money is often for product build-out (whether technical or physical) and growth (marketing). Friends and Family often doesn't mean literal friends and family - we teach you how to identify and approach people who aren't professional investors but can write "small" checks. These founders often continue on to the Sprint Program, and may or may not quit their job. Alums in this bucket include:

Fohm⁠

Curastory⁠

, Control

(~25%) Bootstrap ➡️ Initial Product: Customer, acquisition channels (CLV = +3xCAC), business model, and initial features were mostly validated. The founder has saved up money and will spend that developing the product. These founders often continue on to the Sprint Program, and may or may not quit their job. Alums in this bucket include:

CoSolo⁠

Happy Medium⁠

Bestkept⁠

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(~10%) Accelerator Program / Startup Studio 🚀: Customer, acquisition channels (CLV = +3xCAC), business model, venture scale growth (could theoretically get to $100mm in revenue) and initial features were validated. Team is complete and working full-time. These founders have gone on to programs like Y Combinator, Techstars, ERA, etc., which invest ~$120k and take equity. These founders must quit their jobs. Alums in this bucket include:

The Lobby⁠

Via⁠

Stemless⁠

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(~10%) Pivot to Adjacent Customer 🔁 : The SOM (initial customer segment) we chose didn't have urgency to solve the problem - not validated. Through the process we uncovered adjacent customer segments worth testing. Our founders generally push through the Tacklebox process with this new customer segment following the cohort. They'll often eventually get to the Sprint Program once a customer segment hits. They don't quit their jobs. Alums in this bucket include:

Sussd⁠

Polymer⁠

Thompson & Prince⁠

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(~30%) Scratch this Idea✌️, Start Something New: The SOM didn't have urgency to solve the problem and no adjacent customer segments jumped out - not validated. This happens. Not every problem needs a solution. Often, founders realize something about the customer, market, acquisition channels, or competition that pushes them to search for another idea. Some of our best products come from this realization. The founder now understands the process and can pursue their next opportunity with the Tacklebox system and an MBA in entrepreneurship. Alums in this bucket include:

VanGo⁠

NuvoCargo⁠

The Ridge Growth Agency⁠

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Course Flow

Week

Focus

Pre-Req

Startup Foundations

Week 1

Understand your Market

Week 2

Trust your Damn Pickles

Week 3

So That They Can (S.T.T.C)

Week 4

Product Differentiation

Week 5

Customer Intent Test + Hyper-Specific Workshops

Week 6

Build Testing Systems and Feedback Loops

Week 7

Pitching + Growth

There are no rows in this table

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Pre-Req (2-4 weeks prior to Tacklebox starting): Startup Foundations

Weekly Outcome: Get started on things with longer feedback loops (customer interviews) and internalize the Tacklebox process, stack, philosophy, and expectations.

Goals:

Familiarize yourself with the Tacklebox Stack + Philosophy

Run 10 Customer Interviews

Tactics + Resources:

Teachable + Coda + Slack

Customer Interview Guide + Templates

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Week 1: Understand your Market

Weekly Outcome: Know exactly what a great initial customer segment looks like - one that can support any type of business you'd like to build. Develop and begin executing on a system to find your initial customer segment.

Goals:

Understand initial customer segment characteristics and the dynamics of an initial market that catalyze growth

Create your system for customer outreach and establish weekly goals

Meet and interact with your amazing cohort-mates (~10 startups per cohort, usually 15-20 total founders)

Tactics + Resources:

Startup Smile Curve

Inflection Points

Touchpoints

2-hr workshop via Zoom

45 min strategy one-on-one

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Week 2: Trust Your Damn Pickles

Weekly Outcome: Translate customer interviews into tight customer segments (SOMs) with an urgent, unique, unmet problem we can solve. Begin testing messaging to validate we can get customers to take some sort of action to solve this problem via the One Person Landing Page.

Goals:

Define tighter SOMs with demographic and psychographic guardrails based on that markets JTBD

Begin crafting highly targeted outcome messaging

Identify preliminary assumptions we're making about customers in our SOMs

Tactics + Resources:

Assumptions Matrix + Persona

JTBD

DMU's of Persona

One Person Landing Page (Landing Page Resources)

Touchpoints

2-hr workshop via Zoom

45 min strategy one-on-one

1-hr group virtual "happy hour"

1-hr group work session

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Week 3: So That They Can (S.T.T.C)

Weekly Outcome: Start running message tests in public to multiple channels. Begin understanding message efficacy and early data points for CAC + conversion rate. Find unique, differentiated acquisition channel(s).

Goals:

Test messaging + urgency via Landing Page + acquisition channels

Find unique acquisition channels (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn don't count) based on SOM inflection points

Acquire cold customers

Tactics + Resources:

Landing Page Flow (Landing Page Resources)

Social ad templates + guides

Traction Channels

Cold email strategy for B2B

Consultative approach for Marketplace

Touchpoints

2-hr workshop via Zoom

45 min strategy one-on-one

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Week 4: Product Differentiation

Weekly Outcome: Translate customer work into the two core features you think will differentiate your product. Make sure your messaging of that product is perceived by customers as clearly different from current solutions and worth trying.

Important note: Most customers DO NOT have products at this point. We're validating customers want the product we might build prior to building it.

Goals:

Create channel and messaging tests to ensure true separation / differentiation from how customers solve the problem now.

Map out a Customer Intent Test (CIT) test to validate / disprove riskiest assumption and kickstart the feedback loop.

Tactics + Resources:

Competitive Deep Dive

Week 5: Customer Intent Test + Hyper-Specific Workshops

Weekly Outcome: Run tests with customers to understand if they care enough to take action. Gather data points on each step of the process - acquisition channel, top of funnel messaging, mid-funnel conversion, call-to-action. Learn from customers who made it through the funnel.

Goals:

Ditch the swimmies and run full cycle tests with the intention of acquiring and selling to cold customers.

Deep dive on each founder's industry to set up systems for B2B, B2C, marketplace, B2B2C, physical product supply chain, digital product stack / developers, etc.

Tactics + Resources:

Database of past CITs from Tacklebox alumni

Financial Report Templates

Mid-Funnel Deep Dive

Touchpoints

Evening Working sessions

45 min strategy one-on-one

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Week 6: Build Testing Systems and Feedback Loops

Weekly Outcome: Synthesize the first round of tests and create a second round of tests. You'll choose one of three paths for the next tests:

Deeper intent test on initial SOM

Higher level intent test on an adjacent SOM

New channel / strategy for initial SOM

Pivot - we'll talk through this if it makes sense

Dig deeper on next steps - funding, accelerators, getting a product built, when to quit.

Goals:

Run new round of tests

Calculate CAC for each channel - create weighted value

Understand options for next steps

Synthesize first 6 weeks into 2-minute pitch

Tactics + Resources:

Value-based Pricing

Accelerator Resources

Fundraising Deep Dive

Touchpoints

2-hr workshop via Zoom

45 min strategy one-on-one

Investor Pitch

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Week 7: Pitching + Growth

Weekly Outcome: Understand where you are and where you'd like to get. Set a weekly plan to get there.

Goals:

Establish Process + Customer Goals for the next 1/3/6 months

Decide immediate next step: Fundraise, bootstrap, accelerator program, funding platform (Kickstarter, iFund Women, etc.), re-evaluate

Nail investor pitches

Tactics + Resources:

System Audit

OKR Template

Touchpoints

2-hr workshop via Zoom

45 min strategy one-on-one

2-hr group work session

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Application

Tacklebox currently has a 20% rate of acceptance to the program. We look for dynamic founders who have an interesting POV and determination to make their idea work.

What makes a strong application?

Early action - what have you already done?

Industry expertise - why are you the person to solve the problem?

Compelling point of view - why are you different?

Understanding of customer - what specific customer are your serving?

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`Apply for the next cohort`⁠
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Not ready to apply?

Receive general updates

here⁠

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Listen to the Idea to Startup podcast

here⁠

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Book in 15 mins with a Tacklebox team member

here⁠

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Program Syllabus

Logistics

Structure

Where our founders go next.

Course Flow

Pre-Req (2-4 weeks prior to Tacklebox starting): Startup Foundations

Week 1: Understand your Market

Week 2: Trust Your Damn Pickles

Week 3: So That They Can (S.T.T.C)

Week 4: Product Differentiation

Week 5: Customer Intent Test + Hyper-Specific Workshops

Week 6: Build Testing Systems and Feedback Loops

Week 7: Pitching + Growth

Application

What makes a strong application?

⁠Apply for the next cohort⁠⁠

Not ready to apply?

⁠
`Apply for the next cohort`⁠
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