Why Founders Should Avoid Equity Deals Before Validation

Giving up equity early on is one of the worst decisions an entrepreneur makes. Say, you give up 15% for $200k in pre-seed accelerator funding. What happens next?

You haven’t validated anything yet.

You don’t know whether your business has the capacity to go from 0 to $100M in 5-7 years.

That’s what VCs are looking for: Blitzscaling.

Most businesses cannot blitzscale.

After 3 months, you realize that you need to bootstrap your business.

It will NOT grow exponentially.

But now you have 15% equity tied up with an accelerator that considers you to be a failure because you haven’t been able to raise further funding.

Sounds familiar? Happens all the time.

Accelerator Equity is Expensive.

If you want acceleration without parting with equity, join 1Mby1M Premium, a no-equity accelerator and one of the best accelerators for bootstrapped startups, designed to help founders grow on their own terms.

You also can get started with my Digital Mind AI Mentor right now. The first 3 questions are free.

If it makes sense, we will help you raise money AFTER you validate that you are fundable.

If not, keep bootstrapping. We will help you get to profitability. You are a success!

You should define your own success, not parrot what investors define for you.

Excess is not a requirement for success.

Making money for investors is not a requirement for success.

So do you want to validate first, or just blindly part with large chunks of equity upfront?

Image by AdamNir from Pixabay