The Accelerator Conundrum: Navigating Your Path to Startup Success

The Accelerator Conundrum is a multipart series that challenges the prevailing wisdom of the tech startup ecosystem that entrepreneurs should Blitzscale out of the gate. Written by Sramana Mitra, the Founder and CEO of One Million by One Million (1Mby1M), the world’s first global virtual accelerator, it emphatically argues that a better strategy is to Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, focus on customers, revenues and profits. 1Mby1M’s mission is to help a Million entrepreneurs reach a million dollars in annual revenue and beyond. Sramana’s Digital Mind AI Mentor virtually mentors entrepreneurs around the world in 57 languages. Try it out!

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.

Use Bootstrapping with Services to Increase Your Probability of Fund Raising

Raising funding for startups in Silicon Valley is a low probability game. Fewer than 1% who try actually succeed.

Outside the Valley, the startup ecosystems are mostly immature, and the probability gets even lower.

The bar to raise seed funding is getting higher and higher. Seed investors are mostly operating as growth investors, expecting that the entrepreneur will somehow manage to bridge the gap and bring a concept to realization. In fact, what these investors really want is to invest in businesses that have traction, not just validation.

In short, they want to come to the rescue of victory.

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Featured Videos

How to Raise Pre-seed Startup Funding

The toughest round of funding an entrepreneur will seek to raise is pre-seed investment. It has the lowest probability of success, the highest amount of ambiguity, is poorly defined, and causes the greatest amount of confusion and missteps out there.

Over 99% of the entrepreneurs who seek financing are rejected.

So, my humble advice to all entrepreneurs: please learn to assess your own probability of getting funded.

For our Seed Capital series of podcasts and blog interviews, I’ve interviewed hundreds of investors, especially micro-VCs and angels who play an important role in the early-stage game.

As I expected, a large number of investors are still chasing Unicorns. They are interested in investing in companies that will go from 0 to $100M in 5-7 years. And they will consume a great deal of capital in the quest of hitting the coveted billion-dollar valuation mark.

However, I am pleased to report that I have spoken with a good number of investors who recognize the niche opportunities.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Sergey Jakimov, Co-Founder and Partner at LongeVC (Part 1)

Sergey Jakimov is Co-founder and Partner at LongeVC, a firm focused on the Longevity space. We discuss trends and opportunities in this sector full of whitespaces waiting for the entrepreneur’s magic touch.

Sramana Mitra: Give us a little bit of an introduction about your background as well as about LongeVC.

Best of Bootstrapping: Illuminate Ventures’ Cindy Padnos Discusses Seed Rounds

If you have been bootstrapping and think you are ready for investors, you need to learn how investors think. First, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page. Then, start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Today, I introduce you to Cindy Padnos, Illuminate Ventures.

Cindy Padnos, Founder and Managing Partner at Illuminate Ventures, discusses a topic that we’ve been highlighting recently: the need for multiple seed rounds as a way to bridge the Series A gap. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here or watch the roundtable video below:

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about Illuminate Ventures. What is the focus of the firm? How big is the fund? What sized investments do you make?

Cindy Padnos: We’re on our third fund. It’s a $30 million fund. Our focus is exclusively in the enterprise or B2B category. We invest in startups that are SaaS business applications, cloud computing, mobile software targeted towards the enterprise.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping to Exit with David Lambert, Right Side Capital

If you have been bootstrapping and think you are ready for investors, you need to learn how investors think. First, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page. Then, start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Here is my conversation from 2019 with David Lambert of Right Side Capital Management.

David Lambert is 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. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here or watch the roundtable video below:

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about yourself. Tell us about Right Side. Let’s get acquainted.

David Lambert: I have predominantly been a career entrepreneur before starting Right Side Capital. I came out to the San Francisco Bay Area to go to Stanford in the late 80’s. A month after I graduated, I started my first company.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kyle Asman, Managing Director at Backswing Ventures (Part 1)

Kyle Asman is Managing Director at Backswing Ventures, a firm that has a non-Unicorn investment thesis.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get acquainted. Tell us about your background and also about Backswing Ventures.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bhaskar Ghosh, Partner and CTO at 8VC (Part 1)

Bhaskar Ghosh, Partner and CTO at 8VC, discusses his firm’s investment thesis, and we have an interesting discussion about the definition of a “good” entrepreneur.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Giuseppe Donvito, Partner at P101 Ventures (Part 1)

Giuseppe Donvito is Partner at P101 Ventures based in Milan. We have a wonderful conversation about Italian startups.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to you and get acquainted ourselves as well.

Giuseppe Donvito: I’m a Partner at P101. I’ve been in the venture capital and private equity industry for more than 20 years. I have a Masters in Telecommunications Engineering, an MBA, and completed an advanced executive course at Northwestern University at Chicago.

596th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Julien Pham, Third Culture Capital

Julien Pham is Founder and Managing Director at Third Culture Capital (3CC), a firm focused on investing in the healthcare space.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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596th Roundtable Recording with Julien Pham, Third Culture Capital

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

Roundtable Recap: November 17 – Spotlight on Healthcare Investing

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Julien Pham, Founder and Managing Director at 3CC Third Culture Capital, a firm focused on investing in the healthcare space.

Afterlife

As for entrepreneur pitches, we first had Brett Maxfield from Los Angeles, California, pitch Afterlife, a concept-stage venture that is waiting for financing to get off the ground.

Efeedo

Next, we had Javed Christi from Saint Charles, Missouri, pitch Efeedo, a revenue stage venture in the crowded restaurant POS space, that is looking to raise financing.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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595th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Sergey Jakimov, LongeVC

Sergey Jakimov is Co-founder and Partner at LongeVC, a firm focused on the Longevity space. We discuss trends and opportunities in this sector full of whitespace waiting for the entrepreneur’s magic touch.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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

595th Roundtable Recording with Sergey Jakimov, LongeVC

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

Roundtable Recap: November 3 – Spotlight on Longevity Startup Opportunities

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Sergey Jakimov, Co-founder and Partner at LongeVC, a firm focused on the Longevity space. We discussed trends and opportunities in this sector full of whitespace waiting for the entrepreneur’s magic touch.

13 Layers

As for entrepreneur pitches, we first had Justin Perron from Lexington, Kentucky, pitching 13 Layers.

Climate CRO

Next, we had Dr. Justin Lancaster from Barnard, Vermont, pitching Climate CRO.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Heather Hiles, Founder and Managing Partner at Imminent Equity (Part 1)

Heather Hiles is the Founder and Managing Partner at Imminent Equity and a pioneering entrepreneur in the Black community. Heather also has deep experience in financing Black entrepreneurs, as well as on the education side to close knowledge gaps at scale.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get you acquainted with our audience. Tell us about you and the tracks you have traveled to get to where you are today. Tell us about what you’re working on at Imminent. What is your investment focus?