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Posted on February 22, 2019 @ 10:50:00 AM by Paul Meagher
I am a couple of chapters into the book Accelerators in Silicon Valley. Building Successful Startups (2017) by Peter Ester. Peter also wrote a book with Arnes Maas called Silicon Valley: Planet Startup. Disruptive Innovation, Passionate Entrepreneurship & Hightech Startups (2016). Peter Ester is from the Netherlands and the main reason for writing these books is to help policy makers in the Netherlands and the EU to identity best practices from the most successful startup culture in the world.
Accelerators in Silicon Valley is based upon CEO interviews, tours and startup meetings with 23 accelerators from Silicon Valley (which also includes accelerators based in San Francisco and one from Oakland). It is the author's belief that in order to replicate the Silicon Valley success story in the Netherlands and the EU, they will need to embrace a central feature of Silicon Valley, namely, the large number of accelerators located there. The 23 accelerators studied are a fraction of the accelerators one might find there. The author's access to accelerator CEO's was facilitated by his relationship with an influential VC who helped introduce him. His non-probability sample attempted to capture the range of accelerators one might encounter:
The sample I ended up with is a fair representation of the following six accelerator features: profit vs. not-for-profit, general vs. specific focus, taking equity vs. not-taking equity, large vs. small accelerators, offering workspace vs. virtual program, short vs. longer programs. ~ p. 33
This far into the book, I have three main takeaways.
Accelerator Diversity
The diversity of types of accelerators in Silicon Valley is really quite amazing. When I thought about accelerators in the past, I imagined them to be mostly similar. Perhaps if you are looking down from a high enough vantage point you mostly see the similarities, but as you get closer you start to see the large variety of accelerator types which are hinted at by the six features mentioned above. If you are looking to apply to a Silicon Valley accelerator, you would have to do your research to find the type of accelerator that would be the best fit for what you are doing. The book is a good resource for simply navigating the accelerator landscape in Silicon Valley.
The Data Is Not Yet In
Silicon Valley is the birthplace the largest internet companies around today. While that might be viewed as evidence that accelerators are having a big impact, Peter argues that the data is not yet fully in. What he know is that a huge number of startups are enrolled in accelerator programs and that some of them are successful. The accelerator industry is the most mature in the Silicon Valley industry but still is a relatively young industry and there is not alot of studies tracking how these accelerated startups are doing over the long term. Perhaps we need a cohort of non-accelerated startups to compare them against to see how many are surviving and thriving. For policy makers wondering if they need to help foster more accelerators similar to Silicon Valley accelerators the issue of tracking survivorship and success are critical to have answers to. I don't claim to be an expert on accelerators so there may be data out there since this book was published. My sense, however, is that we might see a third book from Peter in which he revisits some of the startups he encountered during his study. Given the diversity of types of accelerators, it may be a complex picture of what is considered a "success" and what types of accelerators might be producing the best results.
Accelerator Evolution
The essential difference between incubators and accelerators is difficult to identify. For some, they are two different ways of referring to the same thing. For others, they are different beasts altogether. Peter thinks the difference may be more evolutionary with the first generation incubators being more like shared work spaces, second generation adding some additional services to the mix, third generation adding some networking with funders, and the forth generation being accelerators that involve more mentoring, facilitating deals, cohort groups, and larger funding networks. One of the accelerators interviewed stopped accepting new startups and simply became an Angel startup fund. Life is not necessarily all roses for accelerators. They have problems that require them to adapt and evolve to survive.
So far, Accelerators in Silicon Valley has proven to be quite interesting and hopefully it will generate one or more blogs in the future as I get further into it.
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