Accelerator and demo days

Hey you! I’m working on making navigation more of a pleasure for you. These pages are going to look a little ghetto; I’m focused on helping you get the content for now.

1. Step 1 is just spreading out all my blogs by categories for you. I can also more easily see where I need to add more content to fill in the gaps for you.
2. Then I’ll add in filler and fancy shite to make it all look pretty.

If you’re an expert on any topics and want to teach others from your hard-won experience, message me as I’d love the help to make more quality blogs.

Accelerator and demo days

Accelerators are support structures for startups. They give you some money, free office, and varying levels of help in exchange for 4-10% of your equity.

Some are good, some are total BS. The most famous one is Y-Combinator.

Blogs to read

I’ve split this into three sections which makes sense. I haven’t blogged much on this topic. If you ping me in the comments to write more I’ll get some up quickly.

There are some pretty good blogs here to get going with though.

Accelerators

The chat about accelerators isn’t as much as it was in the mid-2010s but they are still a consideration for early-stage founders and might be of a lot of value to some. I’ve mainly written about Y-Com because of their fame.

• YCombinator startup school– Here are really great videos they have provided for free to teach about startups.
• How many startups from Y Combinator became unicorns?– Stats on the success of Y-Combinator
• Monster list of YC Application Video– To get into Y-Combinator you have to make an application that involves a short video. Here are examples from really famous companies
• The Ultimate Y-Combinator Guide of resources– Learn how to get into Y-Combinator

Demo days

At the end of the accelerator, there is a “demo day”. This is your opportunity to pitch investors and raise money which is the core goal for most startups joining an accelerator.

• DTAC demo day pitching guide for startup founders looking for investment– This is a presentation I gave to an accelerator in Thailand which will cover some useful basics for you on what you should care about

Startup competitions

There are all sorts of competitions that go on for startups. You basically get up on stage and chat for 5-10 minutes with a PowerPoint behind you.

What do you get out of these?

1. Cash prizes. Large ones like TechCrunch disrupt can be tasty, others might be a thousand which is still nice cash
2. Social proof for your deck. You get to write “we won x competition”. It means feck all, but it’s better than nothing!
3. Networking. There “might” be investors or connected people there. I don’t go to these anymore, but you never know. I have met cool people at these (but I was normally a judge)

If you’re an early-stage startup, I recommend doing these. If you’re later stage and making money these are a huge waste of time.

• How to actually win the award in a startup competition– I’ve been a judge a lot. Here is actually how to win from the PoV of a judge
• Want to know how to win at a startup pitch event? Watch this – I love this Willie dude. I was meant to do a video with him but I think I forgot to respond to him. His energy is amazing. Watch it.