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 Rob Schultz of Serra 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 Rob Schultz of Serra Ventures was recorded in March 2018.

Rob Schultz, Managing Partner at Serra Ventures, discusses catering to startups in under-served geographies. His point of view aligns with what we’ve heard from some other investors.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about Serra Ventures and about yourself. Let us introduce our audience to you. How big is the fund? What is the investment focus? What sized investments do you make? >>>

Featured Videos

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Yanai Oron of Vertex 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 Yanai Oron of Vertex Ventures was recorded in March 2018.

Yanai Oron, General Partner at Vertex Ventures, took us through his firm’s investment focus on deep technology ventures in Israel. The discussion includes an excellent window into how VC firms have different arithmetic depending on their size and structure.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about Vertex. Tell us about yourself. Let’s introduce you to our audience and also let’s get to know you. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Christina Brodbeck of Rivet 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 Christina Brodbeck of Rivet Ventures was recorded in March 2018.

Christina Brodbeck, Founding Partner at Rivet Ventures, talks about the firm’s investment thesis of funding companies that target the female demographic in its purchase decision cycle. Very interesting and under-served market.

Sramana Mitra: Why don’t we start by having you introduce yourself a little bit and what your background is? Then we’ll dive into Rivet Ventures. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Amos Ben-Meir at Sand Hill Angels (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 Amos Ben-Meir of Sand Hill Angels was recorded in February 2018.

Amos Ben-Meir, Investor and Board Director at Sand Hill Angels, is a veteran angel investor. You will hear lots of details on working with a prominent angel group, as well as other types of syndicates.

Sramana Mitra: I think what we should start with is having you introduce yourself a little bit to our audience your history with startup investing. You’ve been around for a long time. What does the industry look like from your >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Gary Little of Canvas 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 Gary Little of Canvas Ventures was recorded in March 2018.

Gary Little, Co-founder at Canvas Ventures, discusses the various types of venture capital and the evolution of the industry into a rather segmented current eco-system. For an entrepreneur trying to raise money, all this is extremely complicated, but essential to understand, or else, you will find yourself trying to fit a round peg into a square hole.

Sramana Mitra: I think what would be great for our audience is to hear about a bit of your backstory before Canvas >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mark Hasebroock at Dundee Venture Capital (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 Mark Hasebroock of Dundee Venture Capital was recorded in February 2018.

Mark Hasebroock is Founder at Dundee Venture Capital, based in Omaha, Nebraska. The firm invests in the Midwest, likes small, capital-efficient deals and is open to early exits.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about Dundee. What is your focus? What do you like to invest in?

Mark Hasebroock: We started Dundee Venture Capital in 2010 with the idea from Omaha, Nebraska that there was probably some really good >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Alan Chiu at XSeed (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 Alan Chiu of XSeed was recorded in February 2018.

Alan Chiu is Partner at XSeed, a seed-focused venture fund based in Silicon Valley. Alan talks about the level of risk his firm is willing to take and under what circumstances.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s introduce our audience to XSeed. Tell us about the firm.
>>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rami Elkhatib of Acero Capital (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 Rami Elkhatib of Acero Capital was recorded in February 2018. 

Rami Elkhatib, General Partner at Acero Capital, talks about his investments in companies that require a longer development cycle. As you know, 1Mby1M often uses Bootstrapping with Services as a core methodology to scale companies to fundability. Rami actually loves to invest in such businesses, read on.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as the fund. What is your focus? What kind of things >>>

410th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Slava Rubin, Indiegogo

Slava Rubin, Founder of Indiegogo.com. Slava walked us through the trends on his crowdfunding platform.

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409th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Dafina Toncheva, US Venture Partners

Dafina Toncheva, Partner at US Venture Partners, is an expert in Cyber Security. We discussed a variety of topics including the shifting of Series A metrics to $2M-$3M ARR for SaaS companies.

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410th Roundtable Recording on August 7, 2018: With Slava Rubin, Indiegogo

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

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Nate Redmond of Alpha Edison (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 Nate Redmond of Alpha Edison was recorded in February 2018.

Nate Redmond, Managing Partner at Alpha Edison, a VC who has put trust-driven ventures at the center of his investment thesis. It’s a very interesting conversation for both entrepreneurs and investors to listen to.

Sramana Mitra: Tell our audience about Alpha Edison and yourself. Let’s introduce you to the audience. The last time we spoke, you were doing something else. You were in the middle of putting this new thing together. >>>

409th Roundtable Recording On August 2, 2018: With Dafina Toncheva, US Venture Partners

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

Roundtable Recap: August 2 – Conversation with a Successful Woman Venture Capitalist

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Dafina Toncheva, Partner at US Venture Partners, an expert in Cyber Security. We discussed a variety of topics including the shifting of Series A metrics to $2M-$3M ARR for SaaS companies.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

>>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rajul Garg of Leo Capital (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 Rajul Garg of Leo Capital was recorded in February 2018. 

Rajul Garg, Head of Investments at Leo Capital, discusses the Indian startup eco-system and his fund’s investment focus.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s introduce you to our audience. Tell us about your investment focus. How big is the fund? What sized investment do you make? >>>