Startup Accelerators

CHAPTER 4How to Prepare the Accelerator Application

Whatever you have to say, give it to us right in the first sentence, in the simplest possible terms. If there's a simple one-sentence description of what you're doing that only conveys half your potential, that's actually pretty good. You're halfway to your destination in just the first sentence.

Paul Graham, co-founder, Y Combinator; co-founder, Viaweb

Accelerator Acceptance Criteria versus the Accelerator Application

In the previous chapter, we discussed the common elements of accelerator acceptance criteria. In particular, we identified elements such as the founding team, the product/idea, the market, and progress as important common elements of accelerator acceptance criteria. We also identified common accelerator turnoffs such as incomplete/error-laden/inconcise or vague applications, being too early, having no product/no market or a bad product/bad market, being a solo founder or being a lead entrepreneur who is unable to lead, having a prohibitive location, lying and/or having questionable values, having a prohibitive cap table, lacking persistence, getting distracted, putting in halfhearted effort, and poor past decisions. We bring these up again because they have an important relationship with the accelerator application questionnaire (the initial questionnaire you fill in to apply for entry into an accelerator). Essentially, the accelerator application is a set of questions an accelerator asks applicants to ...