
Why you shouldnt join an accelerator - prostoalex
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gumby
Where are the successful accelerators? I count "success" as "have nurtured a
number of companies that went on to be successful".

I think YC counts as one. But I think it counts as _the_ one. Accelerators
(AKA incubators) go back a long way (e.g. techfarm back in the 1990s) and yc
is neither the first or last. But I've looked at the proliferation of
accelerators and have not seen a lot of success. There is idealab, but that's
more a bill gross shop (like Kamens' operation) than a true accelerator IMHO.

My sole metric here is successful companies: those that went on to have
significant impact.

Not to pick on anyone, but lets look at techstars's own report since to their
credit they publish one:
[http://www.techstars.com/companies/](http://www.techstars.com/companies/) .
Two things jump out: they _did_ nurture a significant company: digital ocean.
They list Sphero, who is doing great with BB-8, but who already had $40M
invested and were willing to pay techstars' large fee basically for an
introduction (that was hugely valuable). The rest of the companies, well,
apart from sendgrid I haven't really heard of them (or the couple I have heard
of are struggling). Worse, TS's published metric is funds raised by alumnus
companies. It's hard to find a better metric but funds raised don't
necessarily predict success, and after all these years you'd think they'd have
more than 28 companies on their list.

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HugoDaniel
Stating the obvious: it is better to learn with the mistakes of others than
with your own mistakes.

I enjoyed the reference to [http://autopsy.io/](http://autopsy.io/) this is a
good resource to have. Reading this text was worth it as a bootstrapper even
though i dont intend to join an accelerator.

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CalChris
You can look at the graduates of an accelerator to get an idea of that
accelerator's judgment. Then ask whether 7% for some cash is worth it.

