A year ago, Oracle announced the global expansion of its Startup Cloud Accelerator program to a total of eight locations, building on the success of an incubator started a few months earlier in Bangalore, India. Over the course of 2017, we added Bristol (England), Delhi, Mumbai, Paris, Sao Paulo, Singapore, and Tel Aviv.
As the global lead and an enthusiastic champion of this program, I want to share what we have learned so far and preview our plans for 2018. Having started three companies without ever associating myself with an incubator or accelerator, I took it as a challenge to build a program—an ecosystem, really—that I would find valuable if I were leading a startup today.
Any new organization, whether it’s an independent startup or a program within a multinational company, learns lessons the hard way as it finds its footing. We’re no different. We took some missteps and acted on some bad assumptions, but we also learned quickly. Part of the trick was figuring out what Oracle is uniquely positioned to offer to startups that they can’t get elsewhere.
My belief was always that Oracle would benefit as much from associating itself with these young, cloud-based technology companies as they would gain from aligning themselves with us. Certainly, we wanted to expose them to Oracle Cloud and how to tap Oracle resources in the process. But the real wins come where we can enable co-creation and co-innovation that benefits all of us—the startups, our customers, and Oracle.
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It turns out that what the startups prize most are introductions to Oracle’s customers and a chance to prove their technologies in the context of serious business applications. Whenever we could match a startup with an innovative product and a business with a need for that innovation (and a willingness to beta test), that was a beautiful thing.
In search of those opportunities, we found ourselves pulled toward working with later-stage startups over absolute beginners—startups with products rather than merely ideas for products. That made some of our program benefits, such as access to coworking spaces, less relevant in many cases. And it helped in our thinking for shaping future expansion strategies.
Major Steps Forward
While we didn’t get everything perfect out of the gate, here is what I am most proud of:
- Proving the naysayers wrong, we launched new accelerator locations at a rapid clip, recruiting five to six startups in each one.
- We attracted applications from thousands of startups, with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, healthtech, fintech, human capital management, blockchain, marketing automation, supply chain, and hospitality.
- We garnered interest from 50-plus Oracle regions/cities wanting their own program.
- We brought 15 startups from around the world to Oracle OpenWorld, giving them a chance to meet Oracle Executive Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison at an intimate founder-to-founder event at his San Francisco home.
- We identified and created ecosystems within Oracle to spur co-innovation and co-creation across our startups, Oracle, and customers.
- We graduated our inaugural cohort, in Paris, and our second one, in Tel Aviv, with Sao Paulo and others to follow shortly. We’re preparing to open applications for our next round of startups.
Major Takeaways
From the beginning, we said we’d embody a “startup mentality,” learning, adapting, and iterating as we grow. As such, we’ve learned some key lessons this past year:
- Mature startups should be a stronger focus. Earlier-stage startups are still in play, but we will keep a closer eye on late-stage startups, especially as we consider expanding. This focus is better suited to those ecosystems of co-creation and co-innovation—the real win for all.
- We don’t need physical locations everywhere to make a big impact. A year ago, we were intending to establish 20 or more physical locations. Now, we’ve decided it makes more sense to expand on the basis of a lower-touch, “virtual” style program that can reach more of those later-stage startups. Meanwhile, I think there is more we can do to optimize our existing physical locations and add a few more down the road.
- Localize each program for its unique market. One of the things I think we got right was varying and adapting the program based on its location, and you’ll see us continue with that strategy. It’s common sense, really, but localization is key, as the needs of companies in Tel Aviv are not the same as those in Paris or Bristol or Sao Paulo or Singapore. We have a blueprint for the program, but we treat it as a starting point rather than the final word.
- Bring more diversity to the program. Although diversity was a criterion in our initial startup selection process, we want to do much better. For example, last year we had about 20% women founders in our startup cohorts. We want that percentage, along with other diversity factors, to rise.
A big focus will continue to be connecting startups with Oracle’s global customers to create and nurture those ecosystems of co-development and co-innovation. We will be tapping resources such as Oracle’s new Industry Innovation Advisors team and the Oracle Innovation Design Engine, our platform for co-innovation on user experience design, as well as many other internal and external resources.
The next generation of entrepreneurs is building a cloud-based future—and Oracle will be alongside those people as they enable business transformation. Our startup initiatives can help democratize the Oracle brand while supporting global entrepreneurism and fueling future innovations.
A year from now, I hope to be able to report more progress, but I don’t expect to have achieved perfection. One thing I love about working with startups is the learning never ends.
Reggie Bradford is Oracle's senior vice president of Startup Ecosystem and Accelerator.
