Launchpeer Arvostelua 106

Launchpeer has been an incredible company to work with, so let's start there.

I've been working with them to build my startup for the last few months.

I think it would be helpful to start from the beginning, for those of you who aren't sure if you should work with them.

First, if you're looking for someone else to build your own company for you, don't work with them; although their work and guidance will help you on the way, it's still on YOU to put in the work.

Second, if you're looking for someone to blow smoke and tell you what you want to hear, instead of what you need to hear, then go elsewhere. Jake and team are incredibly honest and have always called me out on my assumptions or missteps and that has 100% attributed to my success so far.

When I started working with Launchpeer I had a good idea of what I wanted to work on. Jake spent over an hour and a half on a call with me before I paid them a dime just helping me work through the idea to see if it was a good fit and had what it needed to succeed.

Here's the kicker; he didn't sell me on anything. Honestly I was a little surprised but respected that he knew I just wasn't ready yet.

Well fast forward a couple months and doing what Jake recommended I had hundreds of beta signups and was ready to build my app.

So I contacted Launchpeer again and we set up a Kickoff to begin work on the prototype for my app.

I spent the next 6 weeks working with a ton of the team there. I was incredibly impressed by especially Rebecca and Gabriel, both of whom took my crazy ideas in my head and put them into a design and prototype that has attributed directly to...

- 3 investor offers (I'm halfway through closing my seed round)
- 12 letters of intent signed from major brands
- My app is about halfway through being built by my tech cofounder

Now you'd think that after all this work being complete that Launchpeer would move on, but they're still helping me with a ton of stuff. It seems like they really value long term relationships with customers even if they don't really need to (they don't take equity from startups or anything). I've had multiple calls with Jake to talk through things like what marketing strategy I should have, weird negotation questions with investors, he even helped connect me with my first investor which obviously got the ball rolling on the other investors.

Anyway, all this to say, if you're on the fence about working with Launchpeer, don't be.

Because of the format of the programs and services they have, I have had a chance to work with many other entrepreneurs who they are working with as well. I can tell you the ones who don't get results are usually the ones who don't like someone telling them what they should be doing, challenging their assumptions, or who expect all the work to be done for them. At the end of the day it's your business. Launchpeer will help you build it, but they can't build it for you.

This review is based on the experience our founding team had with Launchpeer's startup accelerator program, which all participants pay a fee of $1,000 to be a part of (I believe their fees have increased since we signed up, according to the marketing emails received from the company). We did not engage them to complete any development work for us so cannot comment on this aspect of their business.

My thoughts on our experience with Launchpeer can best be explained by including the email we sent to the founder when we chose to exit the accelerator program. This email was sent on May 20 and, 5 days later, no acknowledgement or response has been received.

"Good morning Jake,

We recently received our MVP recommendation from your development team, and to call it a letdown would be a huge understatement. We waited over 2 weeks for a document that was lacking in detail, reasoning and didn’t offer any value. It showed a genuine lack of understanding as to what our startup is and the problem we’re trying to solve for both sides of our marketplace. The absence of information in the document was startling and does little to back up the claim of Launchpeer being a company that supports non-technical founders. I was genuinely shocked when it was shared with me by members of our team - I thought they were playing a joke on me.

We also have other issues with the accelerator.

- The coaching calls are full of conflicting advice
- There is continual confusion within the training videos (videos appearing and disappearing, references made within the videos to documents or items that don’t exist, incomplete details such as the investor email template)
- Questions going unanswered within the Facebook group

The disappointment we feel regarding the MVP document is the ultimate reason behind our founding team’s decision to exit the accelerator program. The overarching feeling within our team was to simply walk away, but I felt we should explain why and I think it’s important you know our feelings about the MVP document.

I wish you well with Launchpeer going forward.

Kind regards,
Caroline"

At first, when we joined, you could tell that Launchpeer was still figuring themselves out as a company, but the communication and help were always there. Then the longer we stayed with them, the more helpful information we received and they since have become an important step in launching our company and doing it more successfully. Jake, the CEO, is a wonderful person and is always willing to help and reply to any messages. Highly recommend them!