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 Andrew Cain McClary of KdT 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 Andrew Cain McClary of KdT Ventures was recorded in January 2018. 

Andrew Cain McClary, Founder and Managing Partner at KdT Ventures, is a physician-turned VC. The focus of his investment is biology and related fields.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about the fund. Tell us about what your investing focus. How big is the fund?

Andrew Cain McClary: It’s useful to start with a little bit of context on my background. I’m a physician by training. I was in the >>>

Featured Videos

Roundtable Recap: June 28 – Fat Startups vs. Lean Startups: A Conversation with Waikit Lau

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest investor and serial entrepreneur Waikit Lau. Waikit has a refreshingly open attitude towards investing in very early stage companies. Wonderful conversation.

Wonderlend Hubs
As for entrepreneur pitches, we started with Ram Ramdas from Mumbai, India, pitched Wonderlend Hubs, a FinTech company that focuses on 15 second loan application evaluation on behalf of financial institutions in India. Very good execution thus far, and an excellent company with great promise.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Ira Weiss of Hyde Park Venture 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 Ira Weiss of Hyde Park Venture Partners was recorded in January 2018. 

Ira Weiss, General Partner at Hyde Park Venture Partners based in Chicago, talks about venture activity in the Midwest.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about Hyde Park. What is your investment focus? How big is the fund? What sized investments do you like to make? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With William Hsu of Mucker 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 William Hsu of Mucker Capital was recorded in January 2018. 

William Hsu is the Co-founder and Partner at Mucker Capital, a Los Angeles-based fund that invests largely outside Silicon Valley and follows a more fundamentals oriented approach.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about the fund. How big is the fund? Tell us about your own background. Let’s get to know each other and let’s introduce your to our audience. >>>

194th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Biplab Adhya and Venu Pemmaraju, Wipro Ventures

Biplab Adhya and Venu Pemmaraju, Co-Heads of Wipro Ventures.

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8 Investors Discuss Pre-Seed, Post-Seed, and Series A Financing via the Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum

What is the difference between pre-seed, post-seed and pre-Series A? This is not so simple anymore to understand. For entrepreneurs who are seeking financing for the first time, it’s not easy to understand where they fit in.

There is a lot of competition to get into some of the deals for Series A (and Series B). If you look at the numbers, there are 50,000 to 70,000 seed stage investments a year versus 1,200 to 1,500 Series A investments. Clearly there is a lot of companies in that pool that are not getting to Series A. Only a percentage of those are really the hot companies. The hot companies, by definition, are few and far between, which is why there is such a competition. There are a lot of companies in the middle.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Hussein Kanji of Hoxton 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 Hussein Kanji of Hoxton Ventures was recorded in January 2018. 

Hussein Kanji, Partner at Hoxton Ventures, is based in London and the primary focus is on European ventures.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get you acquainted with our audience. Tell us about your fund. How big is the fund? What sized investments do you like to make? >>>

402nd 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Kelly Perdew, Moonshots Capital

Kelly Perdew is Co-founder and Managing General Partner at Moonshots Capital, a firm that has a unique investment thesis of supporting military veterans. Very interesting insights.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Semyon Dukach of One Way 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 Semyon Dukach, One Way Ventures was recorded in January 2018. 

Semyon Dukach is the Managing Partner at One Way Ventures, a firm that is 100% focused on immigrant entrepreneurs.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to you. Tell us about your investing focus. How big is the fund? What sized investments do you make? What kind of investments do you make?

Semyon Dukach: We’re a seed fund based in Boston. We focus on backing great immigrant entrepreneurs. These are founders that have gone through a personal immigration experience and one that was formative to who they are. >>>

Roundtable Recap: June 14 – Spotlight on A Venture Firm that Specifically Supports War Veterans

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Kelly Perdew, Co-founder and Managing General Partner at Moonshots Capital, a firm that has a unique investment thesis of supporting military veterans. Very interesting insights.

VirtuBox
As for entrepreneur pitches, we started with Prakash Rastogi from Noida, India, pitching VirtuBox, a content management platform that already has validation and revenue. We discussed scaling strategy.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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6 Investor Podcasts and Linking Bootstrapping to Financing

I’m a huge proponent of bootstrapped entrepreneurship. Having worked within the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem for all these years, I’ve observed with interest the development of different ecosystems in different parts of the world. Bootstrapping happens to be one of the really important ways that startup ecosystems come up. You get a few startups that become successful in a bootstrapped manner and then the investments start.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mackey Craven of OpenView Venture 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 Mackey Craven of OpenView Venture Partners was recorded in January 2018. 

Mackey Craven, Partner at OpenView Venture Partners, discusses what Series A VCs are looking for in the realm of software investments. We talk at length about the Series A gap from the perspective of a fund that focuses on Series A and beyond.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about your investing focus. Let’s get to know OpenView. How big is the fund? What sized investments do you like to make? >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Laurel Touby of Supernode 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 Laurel Touby of Supernode Ventures was recorded in January 2018. 

Laurel Touby, Managing Partner at Supernode Ventures, and a former entrepreneur and avid angel investor, has now launched her new institutional pre-seed fund.

Sramana Mitra: I’m surprised our paths haven’t crossed until now. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With John Frankel of ff 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 John Frankel of ff Venture Capital was recorded in December 2017. 

John Frankel, Partner at ff Venture Capital, discusses the firm’s investment thesis as well as key trends in the industry.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about your investing focus. How big is the fund? What sized investments do you make?

John Frankel: We’re a New York-based seed stage fund. We look to invest in companies when they’re just getting going. We >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Anand Daniel of Accel Partners (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.

Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Anand Daniel of Accel Partners was recorded in May 2016. 

Anand Daniel, Partner with Accel Partners, discusses Accel India’s investment strategy at length.

Sramana Mitra: I’m sure you have an extensive analysis of the Indian market at this point. It would be great for our audience to have some view into how you are thinking about your investment focus today. What stage? What sector? What are your geographical constrainst? How are you thinking about the global opportunity versus the India-facing opportunity? >>>