We started Iterative to support founders like you. And the journey has just begun.
We invest the full amount upon admission. We then work with the founders closely on their idea for 3 months during the cohort. After 3 months, they present to a select group of investors with the goal of raising a larger round of investment.
Our vision
Increase the GDP of Southeast Asia through entrepreneurship.
Although not a perfect measurement, we believe people's lives improve when the GDP of their country or region increases. Academic research has shown the strongest stimulus for increasing GDP is entrepreneurship. We want to help.
Our mission
To build the most vibrant, supportive, and intellectually honest community of founders.
The best way to help is leveraging our experience to support founders who in turn use their experience to help other founders. In the end, that looks like a community of founders helping other founders.
Our story
Brian Ma & Hsu Han Ooi at Brian's bachelor party working on the MVP for what would eventually become Weave (YC S14). The premise for the bachelor party was, we rent an Airbnb for the weekend and don't come home until we've launched a new product.
Ian Ma & Hsu Ken Ooi in Hsu Han's basement on the first day of their first startup which would eventually become Decide and be acquired by eBay. They worked in that basement for 2 years. If you notice the jackets and sleeping bag in the lower right, it's because they didn't turn on the heat to save money.
We’ve started from 0, multiple times. We’ve worked out of the proverbial and literal basement. We’ve been told by investors that our idea was too small, too big or just dumb. We’ve gone from thinking we would be the next Facebook to wondering what we were doing with our lives. We’ve been you.
How we help
- Invest USD $150K to $500K: This is the least important thing we do. We think of our investment as a show of commitment and to align incentives. There is no program fee. Note: We have made exceptions in the past but they are exceedingly rare.
- Work with you on your idea: As founders, we’ve started 3 companies (Decide, Weave, Divvy Homes), raised over $100M+ from the best investors (a16z, Index Ventures, etc) in Silicon Valley, sold 2 of them and the third is a unicorn and still going strong. Before each company, we’ve tried dozens of ideas that didn’t work. As a result, we learned a lot about what ideas are promising, how to validate them, and how to grow them. Typically, we can quickly tell you whether you’re trying to do too little or too much and where you should focus. If not, we can definitely tell you how to go about answering those questions.
- Help you with investors: We’ll introduce you to investors in Southeast Asia and Silicon Valley, but we’ll spend much more time on the following:
- Fundraising Guidance: Even with a strong pitch, you need to run a good process. We’ll teach you how to target the right investors and approach them in a way to maximize your chances of getting funded.
- Understanding & Negotiating Terms: If it’s your first time, understanding and negotiating the terms of an investment can be scary, especially in Southeast Asia, where the terms tend to have much more variability. We’ll help explain terms, call out abnormal ones, and give guidance on what’s typical right now.
- Developing Your Pitch: Most startup pitches are too long and emphasize the wrong points. We help you create a pitch that’s concise and highlights the things about your startup that are important to investors. We then help you workshop it by practicing with your batchmates then with investors who are friends of ours before finally pitching at Demo Day.
How it works
- We run the program in batches: We believe this works better for everyone. It allows us to run the program more efficiently, and the startups probably learn just as much from each other as they do from us. However, we invest in companies on a rolling basis so we recommend you apply now.
- At the start of the batch: You will be assigned a lead partner responsible for your well being during the batch, based on your needs and their expertise. The first thing you and your lead partner will do is set goals for the end of the program. Where do you want to be at the end of the program? Typically this involves growing your primary metric 5% to 7% every week for the batch duration.
- Participate in events during the batch: Every week, you meet with your lead partner to give an update on your progress, discuss challenges, priorities, and next steps. Founders have told us they benefit from these sessions in 2 ways. First, they rarely have someone they can talk to openly, who has been where they are, and can empathize and give practical advice. Second, they come out of these meetings with clarity. When you’re the founder of an early-stage founder, you’re often so busy getting things done, and you rarely take a step back to think about whether you’re working on the right stuff. We find that the ability to prioritize and focus is the biggest difference between first and repeat founders.
- Demo day: After 12 weeks, we host a Demo Day where startups can present to a selected audience of investors to help kickstart their fundraising efforts. Demo Day marks the end of the batch.
- Stay for the community: Iterative doesn’t really end after 3 months. We continue to give advice and make introductions as long as our startups need—-and so does the informal network of Iterative companies. We think of our batch program as just orientation into the larger community.