

Who Gets Into Accelerators? Persistent Men With SaaS Apps, Says Study - chiachun
http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/20/who-gets-into-accelerators-persistent-men-with-saas-apps-says-study/

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im3w1l
The money quote: "The figures were almost exactly the same for unsuccessful
applicants [as for successful ones]"

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HenryMc
A better title: "Who Applies for Accelerators? Men With SaaS Apps, Says Study"

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im3w1l
Sorry for confusing this issue, but the quote is talking only about gender and
team size.

They didn't mention how many of unsuccessful applicants did SaaS apps.
Furthermore, people who were accepted had more applications behind them then
rejects.

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jandrewrogers
Accelerators intentionally select for startups that fit within the constraints
of the accelerator model. Even assuming the founder(s) are smart, disciplined,
and competent, many startups do not meet the basic criteria that will allow
them to be successful in the accelerator environment. The people that run
these accelerators know this and filter accordingly.

Two big rejection criteria that many people misunderstand:

\- Accelerator programs require founders to do more, faster than can be
reasonably managed by a single person, hence no sole founders. There is too
much work to do without at least two people on the founding team. It is not
that you can't successfully build a startup as a sole founder (I am one) but
that you are unlikely to successfully execute an accelerator program as one,
which is an important distinction.

\- Simple Web/SaaS applications fit the program timeline of accelerator
models. They are not designed for hardcore technology or infrastructure
startups that require an enormous amount of heavy lifting on the engineering
side in order to have a Minimum Viable Product. These companies often require
closer to a year to get off the ground, which is far longer than most
accelerator programs run and often have very different customer sales cycles.
The kinds of startups that fit within typical accelerator program scope are a
small fraction of all startups you could build.

If you look at the statistics irrelevant to the constraints of an accelerator
program, such as gender balance, you see that the statistics for accepted and
rejected startups look similar, which is what you would expect if the
selection process was working well.

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gales
I've applied twice to an accelerator, both times unsuccessfully. However, it
was not due to being female, but instead because I'm a sole founder. It's a
bit of a conundrum unfortunately, because I wish to prove myself to my peers
before seeking co-founders.

As the study only took into account those applications made via the F6S
platform, I would not trust the figures. Some founders are unable to use it
for a start, as they're insistent on only allowing logins with either Facebook
or Linkedin. Not everyone uses or is willing to connect those services, like
myself.

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balls187
> As the study only took into account those applications made via the F6S
> platform, I would not trust the figures.

When we applied for both Techstars and 9MileLabs we had to go through F6s as
well.

> because I wish to prove myself to my peers before seeking co-founders.

Why is that reasoning a gating factor for finding a co-founder?

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gales
Fortunately, the accelerator that I've applied for provides both, a F6S backed
application process, and their own.

The co-founder quandary is due to repeated past experiences of having my work
being overly-criticised, so lack faith in my myself. Although, I'm now trying
to overcome those hurdles I've set myself.

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dang
This article is a paraphrase of a study it doesn't link to. It links only to
the home page of the organization. Does anybody have the url to the original
source?

HN strongly prefers original sources, as long as they're reasonably readable.

