The Accelerator Conundrum: The Velocity Mirage – Can Genuine Traction Be Manufactured in 90 Days?

The Accelerator Conundrum is a multipart series that challenges the prevailing wisdom of the tech startup ecosystem that entrepreneurs should Blitzscale out of the gate. Written by Sramana Mitra, the Founder and CEO of One Million by One Million (1Mby1M), the world’s first global virtual accelerator, it emphatically argues that a better strategy is to Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, focus on customers, revenues and profits. 1Mby1M’s mission is to help a Million entrepreneurs reach a million dollars in annual revenue and beyond. Sramana’s Digital Mind AI Mentor virtually mentors entrepreneurs around the world in 57 languages. Try it out!

Every accelerator program beats the drum of “velocity,” “speed,” and “hyper-growth.” 

The unspoken promise is that in just 90 days, your fledgling idea will transform into a high-flying, traction-generating machine, ready to conquer markets and impress investors. 

But let’s apply some critical thinking here: can genuine, sustainable traction truly be manufactured on such an artificial, compressed timeline? 

I say, unequivocally, no.

True traction is born from deep customer understanding, iterative product development, and the painstaking process of finding product-market fit. It’s about solving real problems for real customers, and that takes time, experimentation, and often, quiet dedication, not a frenetic 90-day sprint dictated by a program calendar. 

The pressure to achieve “results” within a fixed window often leads to premature blitzscaling, superficial metrics, and a focus on looking good for Demo Day rather than building a fundamentally sound business.

Founders often end up chasing vanity metrics – inflated user numbers without corresponding engagement, or pre-revenue “partnerships” that never materialize into paying customers. 

This “velocity” is a mirage. It’s a short-term burst of activity designed to create an illusion of progress for potential investors, rather than a genuine indicator of a robust, scalable business. 

Real growth, the kind that endures, is built brick by painstaking brick, not sprinted over a quarter. 

Beware the illusion of speed when it comes at the expense of fundamental business building.

Photo Credit: Vlad Vasnetsov from Pixabay

This segment is a part in the series : The Accelerator Conundrum