Problems Startups Experience
Startups are often:
- Unsure about how to progress their idea,
- Unsure about how to get funding (if appropriate),
- Unsure about what resources and services can help, and
- Have difficulty finding appropriate co-founders and investors.
A startup accelerator can help with a lot of these problems. However, traditional startup accelerators tend to:
- Focus on starting, running, and growing a new business before there is strong validation of the problem, solution and business model, most often leading to unsuccessful outcomes,
- Pick a cohort from a usually very large number of applicants, often with limited real data, and so possibly miss out on the applicants that could be the most successful,
- Have a set start and finish date and limited duration, which may not fit the schedule of applicants or provide enough time to achieve success, especially given the need to pivot,
- Have a linear program with a specific sequence of activities and tasks, which doesn’t easily allow for major pivots, teams that are at different stages, or the need to start again, and
- Provide investment upfront, when little progress has been made, and investors / funding panels often have little say in how the funds will be used (outside of certain exclusions).
Problems with Traditional Startup Accelerators