{"id":13417,"date":"2016-09-27T15:00:41","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T15:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.francinebeleyi.com\/?p=13417"},"modified":"2025-04-23T19:09:06","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T19:09:06","slug":"how-to-choose-the-right-start-up-accelerator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/francinebeleyi.com\/how-to-choose-the-right-start-up-accelerator\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Choose the Right Start-up Accelerator?"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the first assignments I had to do whilst on the course \u2018Scaling Up Your Venture Without Screwing Up\u2019<\/a> from Stanford Business school, was to do a post-mortem of my company.<\/p>\n

Why such a grim way to start a course that is meant to excite you to grow and scale your business?<\/p>\n

To get to grips with the brutal reality that nine out of ten start-ups fail.<\/p>\n

However, there are two types of failures: the one that sinks the ship and the other one that steers it and is part of the learning and growing process. But how do you know which one is which to avoid your start-up premature death?<\/p>\n

You get educated, learn from others who have been where you want to go, get insights from their journey. It also pays to get to know people with deep pockets, who can give you money when you need it, people who can open doors to their networks of equally influential people to help you access further resources. Do not also forget individuals who can connect you to the marketplace for you to sell your products and meet like-minded people who are on the same journey to exchange experience and get inspired.<\/p>\n

The most fatal challenges for new ventures are the lack of financial resources, start-up experience, talented team and knowing how to seize opportunities in the marketplace.<\/p>\n

How fabulous would that be if as a start-up, you could shorten your learning curve and succeed more rapidly by failing fast and cheaply rather than late and expensively? Wouldn\u2019t life be great?<\/p>\n

Well, this is the aim of Accelerators, which\u00a0go beyond providing a co-working space or shared services like Incubators do but rather offer a much more structured program that help start-ups or ventures to increase their chance of success.<\/p>\n

But knowing that there are Accelerators out there to help companies grow is only half of the problem solved. How do you know which one will be the most beneficial to your particular venture?\u00a0How to choose the right start-up accelerator to avoid wasting time or even damper on your chances of success because you received the wrong advice?<\/p>\n

All accelerators are not created equal and do offer different types of services, business support and are backed by different stakeholders such as policymakers, private investors, universities and corporate with their own\u00a0agendas and\u00a0their pluses and minuses.<\/p>\n

In a\u00a0report published by Nesta, A look inside Accelerators<\/a>,<\/u> the authors Bart Clarysse, Mike Wright and Jonas van Hove list the characteristics of the main Accelerators in Europe and provide a useful framework to select the right acceleration based on your needs.<\/p>\n

They identify the main archetypes of Accelerator based on who fund them and their objectives. Here is a summary of their work I have gathered\u00a0in the form of an infographic.<\/p>\n

\"european-startups-accelerators<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Download a high resolution of the ‘Start-ups Accelerators in Europe’ infographic:\u00a0jpg<\/a> version or the pdf<\/a> version.<\/p>\n

Key takeaways:\u00a0\u00a0there are different acceleration programmes depending on its main funder\/archetype and their objectives:<\/p>\n