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 Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Lisa Chai, General Partner at Interwoven Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: We have this Entrepreneur Journey series where we love to invite entrepreneurs to come tell their stories, just like you’re telling your story in this session. So, if these guys have crossed the $5 million revenue benchmark, please send them over to tell their story if they want to share.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Lisa Chai, General Partner at Interwoven Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do some use cases. Tell us about some companies that you’ve invested in Vertical AI. Let’s understand a bit more about those.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Lisa Chai, General Partner at Interwoven Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: From what I gathered, you are focusing on Vertical AI? Is that a correct observation?

Lisa Chai: We lean heavier towards Vertical AI, but it’s not a mandate.

Sramana Mitra: Okay. Let’s double click down on Vertical AI. We’ll come back to what else you’re doing besides Vertical AI.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Lisa Chai, General Partner at Interwoven Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What do you want to see in a company? What is the stage of development of the company that you want to see before you’re willing to write a check?

Lisa Chai: We want to see some type of product that you’ve already developed like a demo. If you have a couple of pilot customers, that’s wonderful.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Lisa Chai, General Partner at Interwoven Ventures (Part 1)

Lisa Chai, Co-founder and General Partner at Interwoven Ventures, discusses her firm’s investment thesis.

1Mby1M AI Investor Forum: Nicholas Fok, General Partner, Erez Capital (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Nick, let’s do another use case or another company that you’ve invested in.

1Mby1M AI Investor Forum: Nicholas Fok, General Partner, Erez Capital (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: For those of you who are listening, it’s actually not a bad business to do a wrapper. You can build a business by doing AI wrappers that are specific to a vertical or specific to a use case, and you would find customers. It’s better as a bootstrapped business. VCs are not going to invest in wrappers, because the VC funded company has to go from zero to a hundred million dollars in five to seven years. So, you need a defensible competitive advantage. You need an exit strategy and so forth, none of which are going to be viable with just a wrapper business.