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 Vinny Lingham of NewTown 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 Vinny Lingham was recorded in November 2017.

Vinny Lingham, Co-founder and CEO, Civic.com, and Managing Partner of Newtown Partners, discusses his investment thesis in B-to-C seed ventures. We also discuss the role ICOs are playing in filling the gaps in certain seed-stage ventures.

Sramana Mitra: So you’ve hadn’t an interesting entrepreneur journey. Tell us about Gyft. >>>

Featured Videos

382nd 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Bruce Cleveland, Wildcat Venture Partners

Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners, is one of the early employees at Oracle, as well as a co-founder of Siebel Systems. He is working on a book on The Traction Gap framework that his firm uses in its venture capital practice.

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226th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Andrew Cain McClary, KdT Ventures

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.

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225th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Ira Weiss, Hyde Park Venture Partners

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

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Tod Francis of Shasta 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 Tod Francis was recorded in September 2014.

Tod Francis, Managing Director at Shasta Ventures, starts with a discussion on the history of retail, all the way from shoe stores, to departmental stores, and back to specialty retail. This is followed by a similar overview of the history of e-commerce ranging from Amazon’s strategy to how specialty retail is translating into niche e-commerce, and how Tod is looking at investments in the category.

Sramana Mitra: I think the best question to start out with would be what do you see has happened to the e-commerce business since the 90’s? >>>

382nd Roundtable Recording On January 18, 2018: With Bruce Cleveland, Wildcat Venture Partners

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

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Warren Weiss of Foundation Capital (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 Warren Weiss was recorded in April 2017. 

Warren Weiss, General Partner at Foundation Capital, has a long track record in the Silicon Valley venture capital industry. He shares areas that he and Foundation are excited about as opportunities for building future Unicorns.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with your overview and synthesis of what you feel right now about the industry, about ventures, and about how to build these unicorn companies. What have you learned? What have you seen? What are you thinking about opportunities for future unicorns? >>>

3 Investors Reveal an Inside View of the Latin American Startup Scene in Podcasts

Throughout Latin America, the number of online buyers and ecommerce sales are expected to continue to increase significantly over the next few years. While Latin America consists of more than 20 countries, the region is dominated by six key markets – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Stretching from the northern border of Mexico to the southern tip of South America, including the Caribbean, a number of startup hubs have emerged within these key markets. All good news for entrepreneurs.

Several investors focused on the Latin America startup scene shared their perspectives and discussed the trends in the market with me. If you are an entrepreneur with an interest in the region, you will gain an insider’s view by listening to these three 30-minute podcast interviews.

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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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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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