Investor Introductions For Entrepreneurs Outside Silicon Valley

Can I get introductions to relevant investors, customers, or partners—even if I’m not in Silicon Valley?

Yes, 1Mby1M does facilitate introductions to relevant investors, customers, and partners, even for entrepreneurs outside Silicon Valley. Here’s a breakdown:

Looking to Raise Funds for Your Startup?

Is your startup fundable? The One Million by One Million (1Mby1M) virtual accelerator offers funding diagnostics to its members. If your startup is not yet fundable, 1Mby1M will help develop a funding strategy. If your startup is already fundable, you may access the 1Mby1M network of investors. Learn more through the 1Mby1M Investor Introduction Overview.  

Interested? Apply to win a one-year scholarship to the 1Mby1M Premium program, sponsored by DataStax, valued at $1000. Check out The DataStax – 1Mby1M Startup Challenge.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Geoff Ralston, President of Y Combinator (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Apple SDK was one of the most successful developer platforms. 

Geoff Ralston: This expansion of platforms is something on which you can begin your company. We have a company called Shogun that built their business originally on Shopify and then expanded. There’s enormous availability and possibility by these platforms that get to scale. One other aspect of this that I’m super excited about is, I’ve started a sister accelerator of Y Combinator called Imagine K12 focused on educational technology.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Geoff Ralston, President of Y Combinator (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Exactly. Our spectrum is broader. Yours is specifically the ones that who will get funding.

Geoff Ralston: Forgive me, but I disagree, Sramana. You’re broader than the batch, but YC is broader than that. When I first wanted to start a company in the ‘80s, none of this content was available. Now, there’s so much freely available content and programs that help you take the first step.

Sramana Mitra: That’s the most important thing. I have another couple of nuances that we are seeing. There’s bootstrapping with services. Very good companies are coming out of this mode of entrepreneurship. Oracle was founded in this mode. Alteryx is one of my favorite case studies. I met Dean Stoecker in 2013. He told me this incredible story. They’ve gone public since.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Geoff Ralston, President of Y Combinator (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: At 1Mby1M, we are in the pre-Series A zone. We don’t care if it’s at napkin stage. We work with that entire spectrum of pre-seed, pre series A. Typically, investors have steered clear from companies that operate in this mode. This category uses virtual company architecture extensively. What are you seeing? What is your perspective on this category?

Geoff Ralston: I’m not 100% sure how you’re defining the category. Let me talk about bootstrapping.

Sramana Mitra: Specifically, bootstrapping with a paycheck. They’re keeping their jobs, starting a company on the side, and starting to validate and getting quite a bit further before quitting their jobs. They have a validated business before quitting their jobs.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Geoff Ralston, President of Y Combinator (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let me try to unpack what you said. COVID has been a gamechanger. Until COVID, you wanted people to come and be in Silicon Valley for the three-month program. What is your current perspective on geography? Can they be from anywhere?

Geoff Ralston: It is certainly true that the pandemic left us with few choices. The end of winter 2020 batch was entirely virtual. Our Demo Day had to be entirely virtual. It was impossible, in 2020, to bring a whole bunch of folks together. Our summer 2020 batch was entirely virtual. We completely rebuilt our summer 2020 Demo Day as an entirely virtual program. That’s also true for the next batches.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Geoff Ralston, President of Y Combinator (Part 1)

Geoff Ralston is President of Y Combinator. We had a terrific discussion on what we each are seeing in the startup ecosystem.

Sramana Mitra: Geoff has been involved with Y Combinator right from the beginning. Why don’t we take a look back on the evolution of Silicon Valley and Y Combinator.

Ramping Up For The DataStax – 1Mby1M Startup Accelerator Challenge

The DataStax-1Mby1M Startup Accelerator Challenge will launch on September 9, 2021, at 8:00 am Pacific. This program is focused on supporting entrepreneurs building companies on the Apache Cassandra™ stack. Learn more here and register for the kick-off session here. Sramana talks about the program at this DataStax event last week: