Should we join an accelerator if we’re not necessarily looking to raise capital?
We got tired of having to deal with planning while traveling so we built a personalized day trip itinerary generator Plaan - plaanadventures.com
Because we were certain we needed something like this ourselves, I took time to develop an infrastructure which is thoroughly tested so that the technical debt wouldn’haunt us and that we could remain bootstrapped.
Now that we’ve launched, we have tons of uncertainties to tackle and are considering perhaps joining some accelerator program to gain mentorship & support during the growth process. The one we have in mind specifically is Pioneer (https://pioneer.app/) as it’d suit with our traveling lifestyle.
However, most accelerators seem to be targeted towards preparing a start-up to raise capital. Could we still profit from such a program? Or perhaps I’m too conservative towards acquiring investments & inflating our overhead?
You've done the hard work to get off the ground. What type of mentorship or support do you need? A community of bootstrapped founders to provide encourage you (I'm a part of Founderscafe.io and it is amazing for that. tech and non-tech founders so we swap best practices (e.g. on teck stack, performance marketing (SEO), zapier vs. hubspot type stuff)? Or access to very specific advisors (e.g. go-to-market advice from
someone who has built and scaled this type of product before)?
Thank you so much for reaching out! We’re not that interested in tech-related advisory. What we’d ideally like to have is someone who we could discuss our plan of action with when comes to validating our hypotheses, growing our community & marketing strategy. Naturally the advisor(s) or the mastermind group should have experience in the field as well.
Does the foundersCafe consist of bootstrapped founders only or do they involve some advisors as well? I do see the value in mutual encouragement from folks in similar situation, I’m curious about whether there are experts involved as well?
Hi @Robertmaidla ah, ok. Founders Cafe is all founders, not Experts per se but everyone has a pretty impressive background so I've found peer advice helpful.
I think you can also search your networks for contacts / friends of friends who have 0->1-ed a DTC product / community or even angel investors who can tell you the type of traction and market pull you would ideally get on your site.
Also, my company does exactly what you are asking for - buy just the right amount of time with an Expert advisor on strategic issues. Our Expert operators build and scale the best startups and can provide proven and customized advice. An Expert who has founded and 0->1 a startup selling D2C customized content (from what I can glean, Plaan is solving the pain point of hours spent on tripadvisor, travel blogs, google, and guidebooks triangulating the best trip possible) would be perfect to validate your hypotheses and focus your winning marketing and community building strategy. If interested, please reach out to heidi@arisedaily.io or www.arisedaily.io
I've used both Founders Cafe and Arise daily.. so fucking worth
Accelerators don't just help with investment but also help with improving your business overall i.e. product, distribution, team ... so yes you'd definitely benefit.
Are you proposing to turn down the initial investment they offer? If so I think that's usually part of the accelerator program or there isn't much incentive for them to provide you with access to the resources in the program. They'd need to invest so they have some upside.
However if you're planning to still be a high growth business without taking future investment that will likely be of interest. It's a great but rare place to be in where you really don't need the extra cash to be high growth. But if you're not planning to be a high-growth business you likely won't be accepted into the accelerator as that doesn't align with how they model their investments.
Thank you so much for your insights! As far as I’m concerned, our purpose is being profitable and I don’t necessarily see how diluting our ownership helps us towards that. However, maybe I’m too fond of the “Company of One” philosophy. Having some seed capital would allow us to work on the project full time.
I agree that the general mentorship, even if it comes from masterminds with other founders, would be beneficial.
From my experience, we didn't go with an accelerator because of how much stake they would have in the company. It was 5%, a friend of mine she went for it, and they didn't help her at all. Didn't understand the product and mostly just some flashy high rise in the middle of the city with amazing views and snacks.
She was able to expand her company, land funding, and they still own 5%. She was there for 6 months.
She has regretted it. When I joined as well, I didn't receive adequate mentorship for my product or designs so I dropped out of it within a month. Don't regret it either.
Thanks for reaching out! That's unfortunate, could you disclose the accelerator you mentioned?
It was an accelerator program at the Capitol Factory in Austin.