As director of Techstars startup pipeline, Saba Karim spends much of his time touting the ways entrepreneurs can benefit by joining an accelerator.
But is it the right choice for any founder?
After he posted a thread on Twitter with various reasons explaining why some should definitely avoid them, I invited him to edit it for a TC+ guest post we published yesterday.
“Keep in mind that financing will solve your money problems, but it won’t solve everything else,” he writes.
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“You’ll still have to figure out how to recruit customers, find the best talent, build an incredible product, build a great advisory board, and get to a product-market fit.”
His article confirms a suspicion I’ve had for a long time: Many entrepreneurs hunt for accelerators to gain access to investors, score free publicity, or gain positive reinforcement for their idea.
But none of those factors determine success. “If you don’t live and breathe your startup, you’re going to struggle anyway,” says Karim.
If you’d like to share information, knowledge, or experience that can help early stage founders, investors, and employees make better decisions, read our submission guidelines and get in touch.
Thank you very much for reading,
Walter Thompson
Editorial Manager, londonbusinessblog.com+
@yourprotagonist
(LR) Connie Loizos, Silicon Valley Editor, londonbusinessblog.com, Nik Milanović, Founder, This Week in Fintech; General Partner, The Fintech Fund, Joshua Ogundu, CEO, Campfire and Gefen Skolnick, Founder, Couplet Coffee. Image Credits: Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images for londonbusinessblog.com
Is there a connection between being extremely online and a founder’s ability to raise money?
According to three entrepreneurs Connie Loizos spoke to on londonbusinessblog.com Disrupt, having a social media presence that combines aspects of your business and personal life can “make it easier to connect with investors and customers.”
Nik Milanović (Founder, This Week in Fintech), Gefen Skolnick (Founder, Couplet Coffee) and Josh Ogundu (CEO, Campfire) talked about the pros and cons of using TikTok, Twitter and other platforms to create authentic personal and business brands. build.
“I even tweeted yesterday that it wasn’t a bit of a good day as a founder, and it was really fun and people were into that,” Skolnick said. “I don’t believe in constantly showing that things are going well. Some days it just doesn’t go well.”
How to effectively manage a remote team in wartime
Image Credits: Anna Fedorenko / Getty Images
“There are many crisis management studies on the internet, but none of them tell us how to run a business in times of war,” said Alex Fedorov, CEO and founder of Ukrainian startup OBRIO.
Prior to the Russian invasion, “our company had never experienced a real crisis,” he writes in a post presenting the six methods his company used to maintain continuity while protecting employees.
“Training to manage stress, anxiety and personal finances will help your employees build the necessary knowledge and respond to difficult situations.”
Image Credits: Kelly Sullivan / Getty Images
Founders who have raised money for early stage startups in the past year have generally had an easier time than people seeking Series A money (or later). On the other hand, ‘easy’ is such a relative term.
During londonbusinessblog.com Disrupt, Rebecca Szkutak spoke with three entrepreneurs to learn more about how they adjusted their expectations and tactics when approaching investors during a recession:
- Amanda DoAmaral, Co-Founder and CEO, Fiveable
- Arman Hezarkhani, Founder, Parthean
- Sarah Du, Co-Founder, Alloy Automation
Prepare to write off: Inflation could be the downfall of R&D tax spending
Image Credits: Fancy/Feather/Corbis (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images
The US federal government has been making R&D tax credits available for decades, but this year will see a major change that will affect startups across the board.
Previously, R&D expenses could be amortized up front, but now “that expenditure has to be amortized over 5 years for domestic research and 15 years for foreign research,” said tax attorney Andrew Leahey.
Because so many startups “make the majority of their R&D costs in their first year of operation,” many could wait “the equivalent of a lifetime” to recoup those costs.
High inflation has stalled efforts to repeal the write-off requirement, so Leahey shares several tactics companies can use “to prepare for the possibility of the rule taking effect.”
Remote working is here to stay. This is how you manage your staff remotely
Image Credits: Kelly Sullivan / Getty Images
Before the pandemic, most entry-level workers had the same experience on their first day: setting up a new laptop, filling out some onboarding paperwork, and then gathering information about the best places to have lunch near the office.
With so many teams being hybrid or completely remote, companies are learning from day one the importance of fostering corporate culture and community, a topic Rebecca Bellan delved into during londonbusinessblog.com Disrupt with three experienced executives:
- Adriana Roche, Chief People Officer, Mural
- Deidre Paknad, CEO and Co-Founder, WorkBoard
- Allison Barr Allen, Angel Investor, Trail Run Capital
“The biggest learning point for us over the past three years has been that it is very difficult to really build expertise in a domain or subject through Zoom,” says Paknad.
How our startup survived 2 recessions without relying on layoffs
Image Credits: Aaron Black (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images
About 45,000 technicians have been laid off so far this year. If that’s hard to imagine, imagine a sold-out Mets game at New York City’s Citi Field.
Cutting staff is standard procedure during a recession, but Sachin Gupta, who leads sales, marketing and general operations for HackerEarth, says his company has weathered two recessions without taking massive layoffs.
“Our workforce is operating at about 90% of what we consider ideal at any given time,” he says. “Think about the distance you have to keep between you and the car in front of you when you’re driving on the highway.”
“If we staff our teams to 100% meet our needs (follow too closely), there is a knock-on effect when the market changes quickly, causing internal ‘accidents’.”
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