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.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Daniel Keiper-Knorr of Speedinvest (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 Daniel Keiper-Knorr was recorded in January 2019.

Daniel Keiper-Knorr is Founder and General Partner at Speedinvest, a venture firm based in Vienna. It’s great to see exciting energy and activity in Vienna, one of my favorite cities.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by getting you acquainted with our community. Tell us about you. >>>

Featured Videos

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Frank Malek of Impacteo (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 Frank Malek was recorded in January 2019.

Frank Malek is General Partner at Impacteo, an impact investment fund that invests in companies in the US and in Europe. This includes companies in digital health, climate change, FinTech, etc.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to you and to Impacteo. Tell us about your background. What is the investment thesis of Impacteo? >>>

433rd Roundtable Recording on February 28, 2019: With Rebecca Kaden, Union Square Ventures

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

Roundtable Recap: February 28 – Pay Attention to Physical Experiences, Not Just Digital

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Rebecca Kaden, General Partner at Union Square Ventures. We discussed her firm’s capital efficient investment thesis and debated the pros and cons of blitzscaling.

Wellnesys
As for entrepreneur pitches, up first Muralidhar Somisetty from Bangalore, India, pitched Wellnesys, a digital powered yoga mat to help corporations offer personalized wellness services to their employees. We discussed business model and pricing model as it pertains to validation.

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190th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Matt Holleran, Cloud Apps Capital Partners

Matt Holleran, General Partner at Cloud Apps Capital Partners, talks about his firm’s investment thesis in what he calls classic Series A. His is one of the rare firms that invest at the concept stage.

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432nd 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Swapna Gupta, Qualcomm Ventures

Swapna Gupta, Senior Investment Manager at Qualcomm Ventures, explains the firm’s investment strategy.

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431st 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Yash Hemaraj, Arka Venture Labs and BGV

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 B-to-B SaaS companies.

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432nd Roundtable Recording on February 20, 2019: With Swapna Gupta, Qualcomm Ventures

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

Roundtable Recap: February 20 – Think Through Your Working Capital Needs

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Swapna Gupta, Senior Investment Manager, Qualcomm Ventures, who explained the firm’s investment strategy.

Zodhya
As for entrepreneur pitches, up first we had Rohith Pallerla from Hyderabad, India, pitching Zodhya, a hardware device that optimizes energy consumption in commercial air-conditioning systems. Zodhya already has paying customers. However, the company needs to address flaws in its working capital strategy that stems from the current pricing model. Very interesting and instructive discussion that entrepreneurs should listen to and learn from.

Qlicket
Next, Vivek Kumar from San Francisco, California, pitched Qlicket, a blue collar workforce retention solution, also with paying customers.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Navid Alipour of Analytics Ventures (Part 1)

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

Navid Alipour, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Analytics Ventures, talks about their AI-focused venture studio in San Diego.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about Analytics Ventures and yourself. What are you looking at?  What is your investment thesis? Let’s get acquainted.

Navid Alipour: We are based here in San Diego, California. I like to describe Analytics Ventures as a three-legged platform. One leg is our fund, which is a dedicated fund. The mandate from our investors is to invest in companies that we co-found with other scientists for academic entrepreneurs or other public or private corporations under the venture studio model. >>>

431st Roundtable Recording on February 14, 2019: With Yash Hemaraj, Arka Venture Labs and BGV

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

Roundtable Recap: February 14 – A Discussion on the Indian B-to-B SaaS Opportunity with Yash Hemeraj of Arka Labs

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Yash Hemaraj, Founding Partner at Arka Venture Labs and Partner at Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV). Arka has recently partnered with 1Mby1M to accelerate Indian B-to-B SaaS companies.

SnapSupport
We then had Madhu Augustine, a 1Mby1M Premium member from the San Francisco Bay Area, pitch SnapSupport, a revenue generating B-to-B SaaS company.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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430th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Nandini Mansinghka, Mumbai Angels Network

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

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429th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Preeti Rathi, Ignition Partners

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

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428th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Ondrej Bartos, Credo Ventures

Ondrej Bartos, General Partner at Credo Ventures based in Prague, focuses on investing in Central European startups. Their major success story is UiPath in robotics process 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.

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