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.

Roundtable Recap: January 18 – The Traction Gap Framework with Bruce Cleveland

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners, one of the early employees at Oracle, as well as Siebel Systems. Bruce is working on a book on The Traction Gap framework that his firm uses in its venture capital practice. He discussed the methodology at this session.

The Lorusso Machine
As for the pitches, Steve Lorusso pitched The Lorusso Machine, an energy generator that costs about $1000 for consumer installations.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Featured Videos

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mohit Gulati of ITI Growth 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 Mohit Gulati was recorded in December 2017. 

Mohit Gulati, Founder and CIO of Altius Ventures, which recently changed their name to ITI Growth Ventures, discusses the Indian startup eco-system.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us your about investing focus. How big is the fund? What size investments are you making? Let’s get you introduced to our audience. >>>

381st 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With William Hsu, Mucker Capital

William Hsu, 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.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Ken Elefant of Sorenson 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 Ken Elefant was recorded in December 2017. 

Ken Elefant, Managing Director at Sorenson Capital, discusses at length the investment thesis of his firm.

Sramana Mitra: So tell us about Sorenson capital. What is the focus of the firm? How big is the fund? What size investments do you make? Let’s get to know the footprint of Sorenson Capital.

Ken Elefant: As you probably know, Sorenson Capital was founded in 2002. We have a little bit over a billion dollars under >>>

229th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Mackey Craven, OpenView Venture Partners

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.

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236th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Semyon Dukach, One Way Ventures

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

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239th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Hussein Kanji, Hoxton Ventures

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

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Roundtable Recap: January 11 – Going Broad Usually Isn’t a Great Startup Strategy

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest William Hsu, Co-founder, Partner at Mucker Capital, a Los Angeles based fund that invests largely outside Silicon Valley and follows a more fundamentals oriented approach.

True TRP
As for the pitches, first, Ramkumar R S from Mumbai, India, pitched True TRP, a content monetization platform.

Amascope
Next, Catalin Lesscu from San Francisco, CA, pitched Amascope, a film-based promotional service for marketing books.

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Seed Investors On How They Decide What To Finance In Podcasts

Startup entrepreneurs interested in seeking financing should learn how seed investors decide what to invest in. Different investors look for various qualities in the entrepreneurs and startups that are presented to them. Previous experiences, domain expertise, and revenue run rate are obvious qualities to check. Entrepreneurs stress-tested by tragic circumstances may not be. Listen to the following seed investors discuss their decision-making processes, their portfolios, fund sizes, and more during these recent 30-minute podcast interviews.

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

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

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380th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Laurel Touby, Supernode Ventures

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

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Alastair Mitchell of EQT 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 EQT Ventures was recorded in December 2017.

Alastair Mitchell, Partner at EQT Ventures, talks about the European Startup Funding trends.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about your investing focus. How big is the fund? What size investment do you make? Help our audience get to know your investment activity.

Alastair Mitchell: EQT Ventures is a relatively new firm that is about 18 months old. We started out of Sweden, the Silicon Valley of Europe. It’s an amazing place with a phenomenal track record of building some global companies. When we started off, we were a $630 million fund. >>>

380th Roundtable Recording On January 4, 2018: With Laurel Touby, Supernode Ventures

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

Investors Discuss E-Commerce Startup Trends in Podcasts

Entrepreneurs working on e-commerce startups face unique challenges today. You can learn more about the trends investors specializing in e-commerce startup financing are seeing by listening to the following 30-minute podcast interviews. These VCs and seed investors also discuss the key indicators they look for in the startups they invest in.

Daniel Gulati, Principal and Head of Seed Investment Practice at Comcast Ventures, discusses e-commerce startup trends and what can and cannot be venture financed at this stage, and why.

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Roundtable Recap: January 4 – What Pre-Seed Investors are Looking for with Laurel Touby, Supernode Ventures

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Laurel Touby, Managing Partner, Supernode Ventures, a former entrepreneur and avid angel investor who has now launched her new institutional pre-seed fund.

Go Qwyk
As for the pitches, first, Don Rector from Los Gatos, CA, pitched Go Qwyk, an app for tour bus operators to manage their tour groups. The company has three pilots in the works.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Amir Banifatemi of K5 Ventures (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 Amir Banifatemi was recorded in October 2017.

Amir Banifatemi is the Founder and Managing Partner of K5 Ventures, a fund focused on pre-seed, seed, post-seed, and early-stage investments from Southern California. Amir is also a Board Member and former President of Tech Coast Angels, a group of 340 angel investors from Southern California.

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