The Accelerator Conundrum: The Herd Mentality and Groupthink Trap

When you gather a cohort of startups, put them through the same program, expose them to the same “mentors,” and push them towards the same Demo Day objective, you inevitably foster a dangerous phenomenon: the herd mentality and groupthink trap. 

This environment, far from encouraging disruptive innovation, often breeds conformity to a prevailing dogma: Blitzscaling from the get go. Go big or go home. 

True disruption rarely emerges from groupthink. 

Yet, within accelerator walls, there’s often an unspoken pressure to conform to the “Silicon Valley way,” to adopt the prevailing wisdom on aggressive fundraising, blitzscaling, high burn, and Unicorn chasing.

This is not the only way to build a successful venture.

In fact, this route is fraught with failures.

Even at YCombinator, the most exclusive (98% rejection rate) and best performing of the 3-month accelerators, failure is common.

Roughly 39% of YC companies have raised a Series A round. This is exceptionally high compared to the broader startup ecosystem, where most startups never get past the seed stage. But, 61% have NOT.

Why not?

Because it takes time to pivot, find product-market fit, and a viable trajectory. 

If the herd mentality within an accelerator is blitzscale or go home, entrepreneurs who might have succeeded as bootstrapped businesses get dismissed.

And they fail.

Photo Credit: katerinavulcova from Pixabay

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