The Accelerator Conundrum: Navigating Your Path to Startup Success

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!

Alright, let’s cut through the noise and get to the brutal truth of the startup accelerator world. Many entrepreneurs, starry-eyed and naive, leap headfirst into 3-month accelerator programs without truly understanding the long-term implications. It’s time for an incisive commentary, a necessary dissection.

1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Financing

Raising money to build a startup is a huge challenge. To be able to raise any money at all, you must first understand how investors think. We have developed the following courses catering to entrepreneurs in different stages of their entrepreneurial journey.

How to Teach Technology Entrepreneurship Using the 1Mby1M Methodology and Case Studies: How Investors Think

Considering how omnipresent the topic of fundraising is in the entrepreneurship media, it is entirely reasonable to dedicate a quarter or a semester to teaching how investors think.

Featured Videos

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Hamiz Awan, Founder and Partner at Plutus21 Capital (Part 1)

Hamiz Awan, Founder and Partner at Plutus21 Capital, discusses Blockchain infrastructure and platforms.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s introduce you to our audience. Tell us a bit about our background as well as about Plutus21 Capital. 

553rd 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Aniruddha Malpani, Malpani Ventures

Dr. Aniruddha Malpani, Founder of Malpani Ventures, is an active angel investor in Indian startups for the past decade. Wonderful conversation.

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553rd Roundtable Recording with Aniruddha Malpani, Malpani Ventures

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:

Roundtable Recap: November 11 – Discussion with a Veteran Angel Investor in Indian Startups

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Dr. Aniruddha Malpani, Founder of Malpani Ventures, an active angel investor in Indian startups for the past decade. Wonderful conversation.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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9 Udemy Courses on How to Raise Pre-Series A Startup Funding

If you’ve never sought money for a startup, you may not be aware of how difficult it is. I know it first-hand, and thousands of entrepreneurs that I’ve advised throughout our 1Mby1M Accelerator would tell you the same.

That’s why we are committed to educating each founder about how investors think. We do not want anyone to waste their time or the time of others. We are firm believers in minimizing waste at all levels.

551st 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Sandeep Sardana, BluePointe Ventures

Sandeep Sardana is Founder and General Partner at BluePointe Ventures. We had a terrific discussion on how we each look for a startup story through financial metrics.

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9 Udemy Courses on How to Raise Post-Seed Startup Funding

Raising money is a huge challenge. To be able to raise any money at all, you must first understand how investors think.

This specific course covers how post-seed and pre-Series A investors analyze startups and what they are looking for. We will have in-depth conversations around startups and funding with several real-world investors.

10 Udemy Courses on How to Raise Seed Startup Funding

One frustrating observation remains with me. Entrepreneurs constantly come to us for assistance with their funding in situations where their chances of fundraising are ZERO.

We can’t do anything to assist them, regardless of how strong our investor connections are. We can’t help startups get funding until they are fundable. It pains me to see so many entrepreneurs who have no concept of what it takes to raise funds.

4 Udemy Courses on How To Build a Unicorn Startup

Unicorn is a startup with an estimated valuation of over $1 billion. More than 1000 unicorns exist today.

Snowflake, Atlassian, ServiceNow are examples of startup unicorns. They’re massive, multi-billion dollar publicly traded companies now. Yet, they all started as an idea, took one step after another, grew in size, and so on.

Roundtable Recap: October 7 – Exit Strategy – Further Guidance

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Jukka Alanen, SVP of Strategy and Corporate Development at PagerDuty, to discuss Exit Strategy.

V-REAP

For the entrepreneur pitch, we had Yugandhar Dodda from Hyderabad, India, pitch V-REAP, a rural skill development social venture.

eelspace

Then David Orok from Uyo, Nigeria, pitched eelspace, a freelancer marketplace for Nigeria.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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548th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Lloyed Lobo, Boast.ai

Lloyed Lobo, Co-founder and President of Boast.ai, discusses his failures and eventual success building AI startups. Wonderful conversation.

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548th Roundtable Recording with Lloyed Lobo, Boast.ai

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

Roundtable Recap: September 30 – What Works and What Doesn’t in AI Startups

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Lloyed Lobo, Co-founder and President of Boast.ai, discussing his failures and eventual success building AI startups. Wonderful conversation.

Teleperson

For the entrepreneur pitch, we had Jesse Hollander, from Delray Beach, Florida, pitch Teleperson. Unfortunately, as I have said repeatedly, it is impossible to raise money to build MVPs, and this conversation is yet another iteration of this same flawed assumption that pervades the startup ecosystem.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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543rd 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Hamiz Awan, Plutus21 Capital

Hamiz Awan, Founder and Partner at Plutus21 Capital, discusses BlockChain infrastructure and platforms.

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