Saba Karim
As the head of startup pipeline at Techstars, I’ve been getting on calls with founders, attending events, speaking on stages like TechCrunch’s Disrupt and hosting countless Twitter Spaces. Each time, I’ve been telling founders why they should join an accelerator.
Now, I am changing things up and going to lay out six reasons you shouldn’t join an accelerator.
If you only need funding
You’re better off going to VCs, angel investors, crowdfunding, applying for grants or seeking venture debt. Accelerators usually take more (equity), because they provide more than just money. They give you funding and fundraising opportunities, mentorship and networks, workshops and usually a place to work. If you don’t need any of that, then you don’t need an accelerator.
Keep in mind that funding will solve your money problems, but it won’t solve everything else. You’ll still need to figure out how to acquire customers, find the best talent, build an incredible product, assemble a great advisory board and get to product-market fit.
Do you just need funding? Lucky you. For crowdfunding, you can’t go wrong with Republic or WeFunder. For venture debt options, check out SVB or Mercury, and OpenGrants for, well, grants.
To do customer development
Customer development, also known as customer discovery or idea validation, is the notion of validating your startup idea. You don’t need an accelerator to tell you to talk to your customers. You should be doing it anyway. Otherwise, why are you building the thing you want to build?
Yes, many accelerators accept companies at the idea stage, but it’s usually on the premise that primary or secondary research has been conducted to show you’re building something people have said they would use and/or pay for.
As Steve Blank says, “There are no facts inside the building, so get the hell outside.” Check out “The Mom Test” by Rob Fitzpatrick, or “Running Lean” by Ash Maurya to to learn how to interview target customers. If you’re looking for tools, Idea Validator will guide you through the entire idea validation journey; Kernal is great for sharing your ideas and getting feedback from people; Customer Discovery is useful if you are struggling to find people to talk to; and OpinionX will help you figure out which customer problems are worth solving.
To get a list of investors
You can already get that in a number of places I crowdsourced on Twitter. TL;DR: The thread has Signal, PitchBook, Foundersuite, FounderNest, OpenVC and many others that are vertical specific.
Crunchbase has always been my go-to for finding investors: For a small investment of less than $400 a year, you’ll get thousands of potential investors you can reach out to. First Round also has a directory of angel investors.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying getting a list of investors is the key to fundraising. In fact, it’s the easiest part. The harder part is narrowing it down, figuring out which investors are the best fit, strategizing your approach and getting them excited about what you’re building. If you know what you’re doing and FOMO is your middle name, then proceed. Otherwise, participating in an accelerator may make sense for you.
Fundraising is a step, not a goal, and it takes experience and practice. No amount of blogs, podcasts and workshops on fundraising will help you like just getting in and doing it will.
You need motivation
If you’re not living and breathing your startup, you’re going to struggle anyway. Accelerators are great because they are a forcing mechanism to reach your most desired outcome by the end of the program, but no one is going to drag you out of bed every morning.
At Techstars, we are proud that we basically fit two years of work into 13 weeks of programming. So sure, you’ll get inspiration, listen to founders who have done it all before, see what mistakes others have made, and build the road as you drive on it. But you have to bring your own motivation.
The other way I look at it is that building a startup isn’t something you wake up in the morning and decide to do. It’s something that keeps you up at night thinking about how to solve this big problem. Bring that passion, if not the paranoia, when deciding whether you join an accelerator.
To get a badge of honor
More startups are being accepted into accelerators than ever before. I didn’t think much if this was a good or bad thing. But now, I know it actually is a great thing. Accelerators provide funding earlier than most funds, invest earlier in the product-development stage and in a more diverse group of people. However, you should only join an accelerator because you think programming can help you.
Don’t do it for the logo you can place on your website or the clout you think you’ll get. You’ve probably come across dozens of companies that have the badge, but you’ve still wondered how they got in. My point is: The best badge of honor is creating an incredible startup, solving an important problem, having delighted customers, making revenue and scaling. The best badge of honor is seeing the world use your creation.
Someone told you to do it
It’s funny how much subjective and contradictory advice we have out there:
- Slow down — Speed up.
- Don’t quit — Know when to quit.
- 80% is fine — Make sure it’s 100%.
- You can do it alone — You need a team.
- Do things that scale — Do things that don’t scale.
- You should be embarrassed of your MVP — You should be proud of your MVP.
So in that vein, if people are telling you to join an accelerator, I’m telling you not to join an accelerator.
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