Startup accelerators tend to grow the size of each new class over time, as more of their portfolio companies find exits, their network of mentors expands, and they find new ways to scale things up. The most recognized example of this is almost certainly Y Combinator, which started with a group of just eight companies in 2005 and has since grown to over 150 companies per recent batch.
VC and former Tinder VP Jeff Morris Jr. is taking a different approach with his new accelerator, Product Club: starting small, and staying small. The first batch of Product Club companies will be made up of just three companies. While Morris tells me this might grow a bit over time, he doesn’t see it expanding drastically. “I imagine it being up to ten,” he says. “But no more.” “I’ve spoken to a lot of people who’ve built accelerators and have said ‘There’s no way you’ll find a winner with class sizes that small’,” Morris tells me. “But I’m kind of okay with that if it means we can be more hands-on.” Product Club will invest $100k in each company, taking 5% equity in return. In addition to investment, the program will provide one-on-one mentorship with a different mentor each week, with each session “100% focused on product development.” Though new, Product Club has already built up a pretty notable roster of mentors, including:- Danny Trinh (Head of Design at Zenly)
- Merci Victoria Grace (Investor at Lightspeed, formerly Head of Growth at Slack)
- Scott Belsky (Founder of Behance, CPO at Adobe)
- Sriram Krishnan (Investor, formerly led consumer product teams at Twitter)
- Manik Gupta (Investor, former Chief Product Officer at Uber)
- Brian Norgard (Investor, former CPO at Tinder)
- Jules Walter (Product monetization at Slack, co-founder of the BlackPM network)
- Josh Elman (Board Partner at Greylock, Investor, former VP of Product at Robinhood)