Accelerators are a rite of passage for many entrepreneurs. And no wonder: these short-term programs focus on ironing out all of a startup’s internal problems on the operational or organizational level. They do this through mentorships with industry leaders and educational opportunities from experts in the field.
But entrepreneurs who have gone through several accelerators say that they aren’t all created equal. The important thing, they stress, is finding one that’s the proper fit.
Take Cincinnati-based entrepreneur Natasia Malaihollo, who launched her first company, a hyper-local social media network called Sooligan, on the campus of the University of California Berkeley. She soon realized she didn’t have the proper mentors to guide her, so she found an accelerator.
Malaihollo’s company didn’t receive any seed funding after going through the program, so she had to cut her losses. The accelerator wasn’t a match for what she needed, causing her to do a lot of soul-searching.
“I went through a tough time and mourning the company after three-and-a-half years of investing my time and money,” says Malaihollo. “That experience is still pretty fresh in my mind. But you learn there’s a sense of urgency and how quickly things move. If you stop taking on opportunities, somebody is going to come in and do better.”
What’s an accelerator?
Accelerators are a recent phenomenon compared to incubators, and have only emerged within the last decade or so.
The concept was launched in 2005 when Paul Graham founded Y Combinator, a high-speed program that moved past the incubator model. Companies in accelerator programs generally receive seed money and access to a large network of mentors in exchange for a small amount of equity.
Some of the oldest and largest accelerators in the U.S. include Y Combinator, TechStars, and 500 Startups. DreamIt Ventures, Startupbootcamp, and Seedcamp have also had plenty of participants.
You may have heard the word “accelerator” used interchangeably with “incubator.” There are similar components, and both play a role in the life stage of a startup. If an incubator is the seed and soil that grows your business, an accelerator is like the greenhouse that provides the optimal growth environment for the plants to grow.
Accelerators have an application process, and the top programs are very selective. For instance, Y Combinator accepts about 2% of applicants. Meanwhile, Techstars fills 10 slots from about 1,000 applications.
Finding the right one
Malaihollo and a friend eventually came up with the idea for Wyzerr, an app to reinvent the way customer feedback is collected, analyzed, and presented. They continued to work on the idea for nine months after graduating from a New York-based accelerator.
A few months later, she and her co-founder were accepted at The Brandery, a Cincinnati accelerator. Malaihollo says she hesitated at first because she feared that after participating in two other accelerators, people would start to doubt her ability to build a strong, scalable company.
“But when I started researching The Brandery and saw its track record, the mentors, and the focus on consumers, I realized it was a perfect fit for my current company,” she says. “I finally found the right fit.”
Malaihollo says that her startup company is now getting the support it needs. An important takeaway for her is doing your homework by researching which accelerator to choose.
Although The Brandery provides up to seven mentors for each of the 10 to 12 startups it accepts, Malaihollo says that it’s important to not get lost in the noise. More mentors isn’t always the best thing.
“There’s something called ‘mentor whiplash,’” Malaihollo says. “You’re interacting with so many mentors, and everybody has a different opinion about what you should do with your company, the direction it should take, and the customers to target. There were some mentors who gave feedback that seemed good at the time, but in retrospect, our initial ideas and initial plans were much more valid and valuable.”
These days, even experienced entrepreneurs are going “back to college,” so to speak, and enrolling in accelerator programs after having graduating from several others. Alex Iskold, a managing director at Techstars, says that plenty of late-stage companies that have already generated seed funding have benefitted from accelerators.
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