The Accelerator Conundrum: Navigating Your Path to Startup Success

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.

187th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Mark Selcow, Costanoa Ventures

Mark Selcow, General Partner at Costanoa Ventures, talks about the firm’s primarily B-to-B investment thesis and strong penchant for investing in companies that have grown up outside the Bay Area.

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188th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Harald Nieder, Redalpine Venture Partners

Harald Nieder, Partner at Redalpine Venture Partners, an European firm primarily focused on Germany and Switzerland.

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189th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Arihant Patni, Ideaspring Capital

Arihant Patni is Managing Director at Ideaspring Capital, a fund focused on enterprise companies born in India and selling to the global market.

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434th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Rahul Chowdhri, Stellaris Venture Partners

Rahul Chowdhri, Investor at Stellaris Venture Partners, shares some fascinating examples of consumer ventures catering to the next 400 million consumers in India.

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433rd 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Rebecca Kaden, Union Square Ventures

Rebecca Kaden, General Partner at Union Square Ventures, discusses her firm’s capital efficient investment thesis and debates the pros and cons of blitzscaling.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Yash Hemaraj of Arka Venture Labs (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Yash Hemaraj was recorded in February 2019.

Yash Hemaraj, Founding Partner at Arka Venture Labs and Partner at Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV), discusses Arka’s recent partnership with 1Mby1M to accelerate Indian B2B SaaS companies.

Sramana Mitra: Tell our audience about Arka and we’ll take it from there.

Yash Hemaraj: We launched Arka Venture Labs in the summer of 2018. Arka Venture Labs is India’s first B2B focused cross-border accelerator. Our idea is to seed the next wave of enterprise innovation coming from India and to connect them to the global ecosystem. Primarily, we’re forward-looking at B2B-focused companies. >>>

436th Roundtable Recording on March 20, 2019: With Sumant Mandal, March Capital Partners

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

Roundtable Recap: March 20 – How Large Companies Address Existential Threats

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Sumant Mandal, Managing Director at March Capital Partners, a firm that invests largely in enterprise facing businesses with deep technical differentiation. The conversation includes excellent insights into the changing dynamics of the networking space and how companies like Cisco and Juniper are managing their existential threats.

V Words!
Then, Tim Lieu from California pitched V Words! a mobile game that he wishes to raise money for. Unfortunately, games don’t get funded unless there is proven traction.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nandini Mansinghka of Mumbai Angels Network (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Nandini Mansinghka was recorded in January 2019.

Nandini Mansinghka is CEO and Managing Director at Mumbai Angels Network, one of the oldest angel networks in India.

Sramana Mitra: Nandini Mansinghka, from Mumbai Angels Network, has been a very early entrant into the Indian entrepreneurship financing ecosystem. She’s a big influencer at a big high impact player in the Indian ecosystem. I’m thrilled to catch up after so many years. Nandini and I last saw each other in person back in 2011 when I was doing a workshop in Mumbai. I will let you introduce yourself and the work of Mumbai Angels Network as a starter and then we’ll dive into the details. >>>

435th Roundtable Recording on March 14, 2019: With David Lambert, Right Side Capital Management

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

Roundtable Recap: March 14 – Do NOT Write Software Without a Business Model Hypothesis

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest David Lambert, Managing Director at Right Side Capital Management, a firm that invests small chunks of capital in capital efficient ventures. The firm is very much in line with the Bootstrapping to Exit philosophy we’ve been discussing.

Mopstar
As for entrepreneur pitches, up first we had Ajay Nagar from Frisco, Texas, pitching Mopstar. The company has started generating small amounts of revenue from early customers, and shows good early promise.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Preeti Rathi of Ignition Partners (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Preeti Rathi was recorded in January 2019.

Preeti Rathi, Partner at Ignition Partners, discusses the changing dynamics of seed investing.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about yourself as well as acquaint our audience with Ignition Partners. >>>

434th Roundtable Recording on March 7, 2019: With Rahul Chowdhri, Stellaris Venture Partners

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

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Ondrej Bartos of Credo Ventures (Part 1)

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Ondrej Bartos was recorded in January 2019.

Ondrej Bartos, General Partner at Prague-based Credo Ventures, focuses on investing in Central European startups. Their major success story is UiPath in robotics processes automation that has raised $265 million at a $3 billion valuation. UiPath has over 2,100 customers and claims to have annual revenues of $150 million. We discuss the Romanian company in some detail.

Sramana Mitra: I heard about your firm from your friends from Czech Republic or Czechia now. You may have seen the stories we’ve done on some of your local colleagues. I’m really looking forward to getting acquainted with you. I would like to start by having you introduce yourself and Credo Ventures to our audience here. Then we’ll discuss what you’re up to out there. What are the trends in your space? >>>

Roundtable Recap: March 7 – Fascinating Ventures with Good Early Traction

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Rahul Chowdhri, Investor at Stellaris Venture Partners, who shared some fascinating examples of consumer ventures catering to the next 400 million consumers in India.

Neeman’s
As for entrepreneur pitches, up first we had 1Mby1M Premium member Taran Chhabra from Hyderabad, India, pitching Neeman’s, a new shoe brand that is getting great traction in the Indian market.

Tibot
Next, Faisal Basar and Shahid Bandarkar from San Francisco, California, pitched Tibot, an AI-powered telehealth app to support dermatology care.

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