How to Speed Up Your Startup

But the real speedup begins as the entrepreneurs get initiated into the eCeleration process -- eHatchery's philosophy of time, which aims to take entrepreneurs and their ideas through three key phases. "ECeleration is an attempt to apply real process to the chaos of the earliest stage of a startup," says Levy, who adds that the process is patent-pending.

The first stage is "ignition," a startup's first 30 days with eHatchery, during which the incubator's management team works with the entrepreneurs to clarify their business model and craft a strategy. This period of reflection may sound as if you're slowing down to go faster. But, Levy explains, it is absolutely critical: "It doesn't matter how fast you run if you're not heading toward the finish line. When you're working 24 hours a day, and 10 people are doing 100 tasks in one room, it's easy to race pell-mell down a blind alley."

It was during the ignition stage that FigLeaves changed its focus, avoiding months of potentially fruitless work. During ignition, companies create a "survival checklist," formulating objectives that have to be met before moving to a viable Web pilot and getting the next round of funding. "In order to change the world for the long term, you first have to survive long enough to change the world," quips Mike Dickerson, 36, eHatchery's entrepreneur in residence, who oversees the eCeleration process. One of FigLeaves's survival issues: Could this unknown startup get access to branded products? Setting a tangible goal of a specific number of brands, and a date by which to achieve it, became an item on that company's checklist.

The second stage of eCeleration is "momentum," during which the company begins achieving the goals on its survival checklist. During momentum, rapid application development takes place, and an initial marketing plan is formulated. In the final stage, "overdrive," entrepreneurs test and define their concept, raise an initial VC round, and transition out of eHatchery.

Such acceleration would be difficult to achieve without the help of eHatchery's management team. Last December, for example, when four entrepreneurs, led by CEO Mike Fowler, joined eHatchery to launch VetExchange, they knew that they had a problem. It was less than six weeks before the crucial North American Veterinary Conference, in Orlando, Florida. The team hadn't yet developed its product and didn't have enough time to launch even a viable working pilot site. Meanwhile, the Western Veterinary Conference, in Las Vegas, was also fast approaching. Fowler and his team needed to act fast to make an impression on their target market, but they were loath to put up a vaporware site just for the show. Besides, what exactly would they put on the site?

So the eHatchery team consulted with former Coca-Cola marketing whiz Sergio Zyman, the chief marketing officer at Z Group and an adviser to eHatchery. He's just the kind of high-level talent that a four-person startup wouldn't be able to bring in on its own. His message to the VetExchange group was clear, recalls McCallum: "If you don't make a big splash, then you should pack up shop, because it will be another year before you'll see those people again."

Zyman also cautioned the entrepreneurs against wasting money and energy on delivering a message that they'd later have to take back or reframe. So, rather than trying to craft a marketing message that would guess at what its customers wanted or to cover up the fact that VetExchange didn't yet have a product, the team decided to use the veterinary conference as a high-profile listening exercise. David Berney, eHatchery's director of marketing, used a business contact to facilitate a deal with Land Rover: EHatchery would buy a two-year lease from Land Rover and give it away as a prize to a randomly chosen veterinarian who completed a VetExchange questionnaire at the Orlando conference. Of some 4,000 veterinarians who attended the convention, roughly 2,500 filled out a survey. It was an innovative mind flip: Don't come up with a hastily put together marketing message for a product that doesn't yet exist; instead, find out what your potential customers need, and let them know that you wish to create it.

The big lesson behind this small example is this: It is better to be first with less than to be last with more. Success on the Web isn't just about time to market; it's also about "time to learning." That's the real advantage of being the first mover in a category, of working hard to stay a few weeks or months ahead of potential competitors. "The point is not to have everything on day one," says Levy. "The point is to be out in the market, learning what people want."

For FigLeaves, being "out in the market" meant launching not in mid-February, as the company had originally planned, but in late December. Recalls Ari Straus: "Jeff Levy said, 'Get the site up as soon as possible. The sooner you're up and running -- even if your selection isn't as wide as you'd like, and your functionality isn't as sophisticated as you'd like -- the sooner you'll understand how people are shopping and what they're looking for.' "