What Is A Startup Accelerator?
What is an incubator?
By Danny Holtschke from StartupGeist
Startupbootcamp is a global accelerator in more than 12 countries/cities. It was founded in 2010 by Alex Farcet in Copenhagen. An Accelerator ‘accelerates’ a business idea through intense mentoring with local experts, mentors and investors.
The first and most successful accelerator is YCombinator based in Silicon Valley. It started in 2006 and helped startups like AirBnB, Dropbox and Stripe to reach a Billion Dollar status. Many more to come for sure!
The opposite of an accelerator is an incubator. Both terms get mixed up a lot. An incubator is an infinite program where startups receive office space and other services for free. They are not being ‘accelerated’ actively though. That’s the main difference to an accelerator.
Some consider accelerators as the new business school.
Most select their startups based on the intense application process. Startupbootcamp, for example, accepts 10 startups per class. Y Combinator, for instance, does two classes a year — winter and summer program — accepting more than 50+ startups per class. Accelerators provide seed capital. Startupbootcamp gives €15,000 for 6–8% of the company. It’s considered ‘pizza money’ — a term coined by Alex to highlight the scrappy, bootstrapping approach of startups at the beginning. YC gives $120,000 for 7% of the company.
In many cases, accelerators are the first investors — sometimes alongside families and friends. Accelerators turn a project into something more serious. They force startup founders to get their legal stuff together and ‘officially’ found a company. Most teams don’t bother up until this point because they consider their thing a side project.
Most accelerator programs take three months. At the end, startups present their progress at the so-called ‘Demo Day’.
Share your ❤ below — and respond with your thoughts.
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
I am Danny and started StartupGeist to help students and recent graduates build a business — and have a good life. Why? To be free, financially independent and healthy. How? Build a growth mindset and deliberately practice skills that turn your ideas into something bigger.
