What specific goals do have in common with your founders?

From the founders perspective, what goal or milestone can we make happen sooner? The standard accelerator model takes the onward funding round as that goal - bringing it to 3-months instead of 12+-months.

For your startups, the goal doesn't have to be a funding round, but it should be a founder goal that is clearly defined such as an early client, a loan, or a validated business model. It doesn't even need to be objective or measurable, as long as you can somehow evaluate it. A clear definition of this goal will help make other design decisions, and will be the bedrock for improvement with every cohort.