Should startups go in accelerators?
Most startups’ dream is to be accepted into a world-class mentorship program and grasp the opportunity to pitch their business idea to famous investors. One of the ways of doing it as a newly established company is by joining startup accelerators.
Startup accelerators help companies to provide 3 key resources: Fundraising, operational knowledge, and sales & market expansion. Those tools can accelerate growth opportunities, in addition, it is always an excellent opportunity to learn from other entrepreneurs who have been through those stages. But the majority of startups don’t know how to choose the ‘right’ startup accelerator for their business.
Accelerators might not be suitable for every founder worldwide. That’s why before committing to those kinds of accelerator programmes, you should be aware of several key challenges in the market.
Here are some of the challenges that you might face:
- Not all startup accelerators are created equal: Even if accelerators often inject a renewed sense of excitement into local startup scenes, very few accelerators are actually worth participating in. As a startup founder, you need to consider if the accelerator you want to join has strong relationships with investors or not.
- Accelerators are most helpful during fundraising season: The impact of an accelerator on your business increments dramatically when you plan to conduct fundraising for your startup. This is a golden opportunity to kickstart your seed funding round, and it will be helpful to work with the accelerators which have profound relationships with a wide investor network.
- Accelerators can have a negative impact on your company: Even if participating in an accelerator program has many advantages, it also has various pitfalls to evaluate. If your company is not ready to fundraise yet, you may still find yourself under social pressure to pitch to investors and try to fundraise at the wrong time.
To sum up, participating in a startup accelerator has good opportunities but with some challenges, so as an entrepreneur, you should still be aware of those points and think carefully about them.
Now it’s time to listen to the whole discussion with our expert, Janos Barberis, who deep dive into the astonishing world of startup accelerators and many other valuable insights for Fintech startups. The course is currently free, so don’t hesitate to enrol now!
