Our Blog

This week, the ISA 2016 cohort focused on currency testing – finding out if customers will pay for the solution teams created to solve their problems. To help with this, the week began with a workshop on sales strategy led by Ben Anderson, Trace Steffen, and Trevor Carlson. Trevor and

Outside investment isn’t the only path to startup success. Many of Iowa’s best known startup success stories began by bootstrapping. ISA Mentor-in-Residence Cammie Greif and the other co-founders of TaxACT started out in February 1998 on the second floor of an old mortuary with coffins in the basement (rent was

The ISA 2016 Cohort is only a few days away from finishing their first month of the program. As the first month comes to a close, the cohort prepares to shift their focus from finding early adopters to sales strategy, financial models, and marketing. The next month will have workshops,

As the days till Launch Day decrease, the energy in the ISA 2016 Cohort keeps increasing. Weeks 2 and 3 introduced new elements to the cohort that will be part of their regular cadence including Founder Firesides, Workshop Wednesdays, and Sprint Demo Days. Each week, starting in Week 2, the Cohort is

With the countdown clock ticking down the seconds until Launch Day, the ISA 2016 Cohort is acutely aware of just how fast the 90 days fly. The first week of the ISA was filled with intense training sessions to teach teams how to maximize the brief time. Taking lessons learned

Locked in an office on calls from dawn until dusk for 25 days, Iowa Startup Accelerator Managing Director David Tominsky worked to whittle down 200 applicants to the top startups to put in front of investors. Thousands of emails, hundreds of hours on the phone, and one investor meeting later,