The Sacramento chapter of the Entrepreneurs' Organization is launching its first version of an accelerator to offer a limited group of growth-oriented business founders and owners access to peers who have successfully grown their own companies.
The group already has a handful of companies lined up for the total of 10 spots, said Arik Levy, president of the Sacramento EO chapter and founder of Sacramento-based Luxer One, a smart locker company that was acquired in 2018 by Assa Abloy Group, a Swedish conglomerate.
“It is not about funding at all. It is not advice. It is sharing experience,” Levy said.
When entrepreneurs experience fast growth in their businesses, they “need people they can talk about it with," he said. "They need confidential questions answered.”
Levy said from his own experiences starting his business, “getting to that first $1 million in revenue is brutal,” adding that every member of EO has been there and gotten past it.
The peer-to-peer support offered is confidential, he said.
To get into the accelerator program, a company must have more than $250,000 in annual revenue, Levy said.
“We’re not looking for ideas. We are looking for people who have built real, viable companies,” he said.
To be eligible to be a member of EO, a person must be a founder, co-founder or majority owner of a company that has more than $1 million in annual revenue. The local program will launch in November. It is open to any kind of business, but many of the peers in the EO group use technology in their businesses.
Members of the local chapter of the Entrepreneurs' Organization include serial entrepreneurs Mark Haney and Aaron Klein, as well as founders of Grin, SkySlope Inc., Rhombus Systems Inc. and Trifecta Inc.
“In a small ecosystem like Sacramento, knowing the right people is so important,” Levy said.
The accelerator will offer peer counseling, as well as quarterly structured training that takes an entire day and helps founders with essentials of business acumen, such as accounting, cash flow and money management.
“It is on the job learning to learn how to make the business successful,” Levy said.
The Entrepreneurs' Organization has 198 chapters in 61 countries. The EO group in Sacramento includes members from 67 companies whose average annual revenue is just over $3 million. The group of companies employs more than 3,000, mostly locally.
