Joyful Frog Digital Incubator: Accelerating Startups

Joyful Frog Digital incubator (JFDI) was the first seed accelerator to focus on Southeast Asia (SEA) and is a key resource for new start-ups in Singapore. It focuses on providing coaching, structure and a network to early-stage start-ups, and creating an open and welcoming ecosystem for digital innovation. By the time of writing, JFDI had facilitated multiple “classes” of start-ups in its 100-day accelerator programme. Now it is at a critical moment of expansion, with the evolution of the programme to accommodate three classes per year instead of two, and the introduction of a pre-boarding programme to facilitate the selection process.

1. Show how lean start-up principles are put into action. JFDI’s approach leverages the lean start-up methodology (http://theleanstartup.com/principles). 2. Illustrate how to manage an accelerator for start-ups and develop an entrepreneurship ecosystem. The JFDI accelerator programme takes a group-based approach to entrepreneurship as early-stage start-ups tend to encounter the same problems. These include team formation, customer adoption, understanding the domain, differentiated solutioning, articulation to an investor and illustrating traction. The programme tackles these problems during the 100 days of acceleration and provides a platform for start-ups to pitch their ideas to potential investors on “demo day”, the culmination of the programme.