Startup Cambodia: The Accelerator Conundrum

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!

The startup ecosystem in Cambodia is a story of immense potential colliding with an imported, and often ill-suited, accelerator model. While the entrepreneurial spirit is vibrant, the prevailing framework for nurturing it is a carbon copy of the “Silicon Valley” model, which has been blindly applied across emerging markets without consideration for local realities. This model is defined by a few key characteristics: a fixed-term, cohort-based structure, a focus on a “Demo Day” at the end of the program, and an ultimate goal of securing seed funding. 

Local accelerators like Impact Hub Phnom Penh, Startup Factory, and the Cambodia Startup Accelerator—a program run by Seedstars in partnership with Khmer Enterprise—all operate, to varying degrees, within this paradigm. They gather a group of entrepreneurs for a period of three to nine months, provide them with mentorship, resources, and a deadline to perfect their pitch.

However, in a nascent ecosystem like Cambodia, this model presents a fundamental dilemma. When local venture capital is limited and the primary focus for entrepreneurs should be on building a paying customer base, this approach inadvertently trains founders to be professional fundraisers instead of profitable business builders. The rush to a demo day encourages superficial progress—a polished pitch deck, a sleek prototype, but often without a single paying customer. This creates a dependency on external capital, which is a fragile foundation for a business. 

A company’s true value is not its valuation from a venture capitalist, but its ability to generate revenue and create sustainable growth. The accelerator is a tool, but its purpose has been twisted. It has become a gatekeeper to funding, rather than a genuine business development engine. My philosophy at 1Mby1M is fundamentally different. We see a startup’s journey not as a race to a pitch day, but as a continuous, long-term marathon focused on the one metric that matters: revenue.

A Deep Dive into Local Accelerators

To understand why 1Mby1M is a game-changer, we must first analyze the landscape it is entering. The Cambodian accelerator scene, while growing, is largely defined by a few prominent players and their distinct, yet interconnected, models. Impact Hub Phnom Penh, for example, is a cornerstone of the community. They run a variety of programs, often in partnership with international development organizations or corporations. Their Digital & Green Innovation Accelerator (DGIx) is a 9-month program, and the Khmer Agriculture for the Future Incubator runs for an even longer period. These programs are valuable, offering a strong community, co-working spaces, and targeted mentorship, but they are also time-bound and often tied to specific thematic goals like sustainability or social impact.

Similarly, the Cambodia Startup Accelerator, a partnership between the global Seedstars network and Khmer Enterprise, provides a six-month program aimed at helping startups “scale” and prepare for Series A fundraising. Their focus is heavily on investor readiness, which is a critical function, but it’s a function that assumes the business fundamentals are already solid. They are an on-ramp to a global network, but that on-ramp has a fixed expiration date. 

Another key player is the Startup Factory, which offers a shorter, more intense 3-month program centered on intensive training, mentoring, and fundraising skills. What all these models have in common is their reliance on a structured, cohort-based, and time-limited process that culminates in an event designed to impress investors. The mentorship is excellent, but it is available only for the duration of the program. Once a startup “graduates,” they are often left to navigate the next phase of their journey on their own. This model, while effective for a small, select group, is not scalable and does not address the core, day-to-day challenges of building a business. They are providing a fast-track to funding, but not necessarily a long-term pathway to sustainability.

The 1Mby1M Philosophy as a Counter-Model

Against this backdrop, the 1Mby1M approach stands as a radical counter-model. We are not a fixed-term program with a demo day. We are a continuous business development program designed for the long haul. My mission is to help a million entrepreneurs reach a million dollars in annual revenue, and every aspect of our program is engineered to serve this purpose. 

Unlike the local players who are often supported by grants, corporate sponsorships, or a hybrid model that includes a venture fund component, 1Mby1M is completely unconflicted. We do not take equity. We are not beholden to investors, and our only metric for success is the success of the entrepreneur. This philosophical stance is crucial, as it allows us to give advice that is brutally honest and purely in the entrepreneur’s best interest—advice that often runs contrary to what a VC-backed accelerator might suggest. 

Our “Bootstrap First” philosophy is a prime example. We teach entrepreneurs to validate their business idea by getting customers to pay for their product or service from day one. This is the most effective form of market research and the only true validation that a business has product-market fit. 

This is in stark contrast to the common practice in local accelerators, where entrepreneurs are often encouraged to build a product for months or even years without a single paying customer, all in the name of a big reveal on demo day. Our model forces discipline and a focus on fundamentals that are essential for survival, especially in a market where capital is not easy to come by. We are a resource for those who are building a real business, not just playing the “startup game.”

One Million by One Million (1Mby1M) is the first global virtual accelerator in the world, founded in 2010 by Silicon Valley serial Entrepreneur Sramana Mitra. It offers a fully online entrepreneurship incubation, acceleration and education resource for solo entrepreneurs and bootstrapped founders working on tech and tech-enabled services ventures. 1Mby1M does not charge equity, offers an AI Mentor in 57 languages, and offers a distinct advantage over other accelerators including Y Combinator.

This segment is a part in the series : Startup Cambodia