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.

399th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Steve Beck, Serra Ventures

Steve Beck, Managing Partner at Serra Ventures, discusses his firm’s non-Unicorn investment thesis. Refreshing to hear.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Play | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS

Featured Videos

197th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Suresh Shanmugham, Saama Capital

Suresh Shanmugham, Managing Partner at Saama Capital, talks about the Indian venture capital eco-system, trends, exits, and his firm’s investment strategy.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Play | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS

198th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With SC Moatti, Mighty Capital

SC Moatti, Managing Partner at Mighty Capital, discusses Whales, Dolphins and more. A wonderful conversation full of wisdom and pragmatism.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Play | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS

199th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Deb Kemper, Golden Seeds

Deb Kemper is Managing Director and Chair of the Boston Forum at Golden Seeds, an Angel Group and Micro VC focused exclusively on women entrepreneurs.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Play | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS

200th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Kanwaljit Singh, Fireside Ventures

Kanwaljit Singh is Founder of Fireside Ventures, a fund focused on building consumer brands in India. This is an excellent conversation about the nascent opportunity that, I expect, will be a major, worldwide phenomenon in the coming years.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Play | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Don Hutchison (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 Don Hutchison was recorded in October 2017. 

Don Hutchison is one of the most experienced and long-term Angel investors in Silicon Valley. We discuss the trends of the industry and ways to mitigate the Series A gap that is a serious issue right now.

>>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With David Blumberg of Blumberg 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 David Blumberg, Blumberg Capital was recorded in September 2016. 

David Blumberg, Founder and Managing Partner of Blumberg Capital, has been in the business for a long time, and we had a very interesting chat about the evolution of the venture business over the last 15 years. We also discussed some areas where there are opportunities to build new scalable businesses.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with your read of how the venture capital industry that we’ve been swimming in for

>>>

399th Roundtable Recording On May 10, 2018: With Steve Beck, Serra Ventures

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

201st 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Utsav Somani, Angel Investor, AngelList India

Utsav Somani, Angel Investor at AngelList India, talks about the newly launched AngelList India.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Play | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS

Roundtable Recap: May 10 – Not All Micro-VCs Are Chasing Unicorns

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Steve Beck, Managing Partner at Serra Ventures. Steve discussed his firm’s non-Unicorn investment thesis. Refreshing to hear.

Isha Pay
As for entrepreneur pitches, we started with Bama Venkatachalam from Fremont, California, pitching a cryptocurrency gateway for e-commerce companies to accept payments in all kinds of crypto currencies. Bama is a 1Mby1M premium member.

>>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bryce Roberts of OATV, Indie.vc (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 Bryce Roberts was recorded in August 2016. 

Bryce Roberts, Managing Director, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV), and Founder, Indie.vc, discusses the issues with the venture capital financing model, and explored alternatives.

Sramana Mitra: You have a very different point of view about venture capital than the traditional VC point of view. Tell us what your philosophy is. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Greg Sands of Costanoa 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 Greg Sands, Costanoa Ventures was recorded in December 2017. 

Greg Sands, Founder and Managing Director at Costanoa Ventures shares his investment focus.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about your investing focus. How big is the fund? What size investments are you making?

Greg Sands: Costanoa Ventures invests in the entire stack of business-facing software. These are companies that change the way the world does business. We’re investing out of a $175 million third fund. There are two modes. We do seed investments, which most typically are half a million to a million and a half. Then Series A investments that range from $2 million to $6 million. >>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Dave Hornik of August 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 Dave Hornik, August Capital was recorded in December 2014. 

Dave Hornik, General Partner, August Capital, as some of you may know, shocked the industry years ago by being the first VC to start blogging. His peers were aghast! Well, clearly, he saw something before everybody else, and today, many VCs blog, Tweet, and do all sorts of other things to engage in social media, now a dominant force in the industry. He discusses a number of points, of which, I want to particularly draw your attention to his views on the subject of Freemium.

Sramana Mitra: I have this memory of almost 10 years ago when you were blogging. >>>

Roundtable Recap: May 3 – Spotlight on EdTech

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Jennifer Carolan, Co-founder and General Partner at Reach Capital, a venture firm with 100% focus on EdTech. The conversation was an excellent exploration of the state of the union in EdTech investments.

Vpharmacist
As for entrepreneur pitches, we spoke with Tamilvendan Rajaraman from Chennai, India, pitching Vpharmacist, an online pharmacy that is bootstrapped and executing very well, competing in a crowded market.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

>>>

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Guy Resheff of Grove 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 Guy Resheff, Grove Ventures was recorded in December 2017. He is no longer with the firm. 

Guy Resheff, Partner at Grove Ventures, focuses the spotlight on Israel.

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

Guy Resheff: Grove Ventures is an early stage VC focusing on deep technology companies. Anytime you see a very tough technical problem involving deep science, that’s what we are all about. Our fund size is $110 million. We invest in seed and A >>>