The two accelerators I joined had the following costs:

$2,500 admin fee. $400 a month for three months and a chance to take 7% of your company if you raise a round.

These accelerators are telling you that if you get accepted you will receive a bunch of benefits, so when you see what they have to offer the admin fees seem reasonable.

Both accelerators offered me the following:

Mentorship from investors/successful entrepreneurs.

Introduction to their so-called “investor network”.

Demo day to pitch your product to investors.

Free credits to firebase or AWS

Other free credits to other organizations

They give each cohort member sometimes $100,000 worth of credits to try and sell you so that you purchase the admin fee. That shouldn’t be the most important thing as a founder what you should be focused on is how will this accelerator get my business to the next level?

Demo Day

I participated in two demo days and here was the result.

Accelerator 1: There were about 30 people there, 25 of them were family and friends from the current cohort I was with. There were 5 people that we were pitching to, only 2 of them were investors…

The two investors didn’t invest in the consumer market, so a chance for an investment was out the door.

I was commuted back and for from Baltimore to New York from June — Septemeber for a demo day that ended up not having investors interested in my market.

Accelerator 2: There were about 50 people there and 10 investors. I pitched to the audience and saw multiple people in the stands falling asleep during the presentations (not mine thank god).

The investors in the crowd had a sheet of paper marking down the companies they wanted to invest in if any. We were supposed to network after pitching, instead, the event ended and everyone was more focused on going to the bar to grab drinks.

I flew from Baltimore to Oakland, by the way, to pitch at this demo day and the event seemed “rushed”.

To my knowledge, none of the companies that were in both my cohorts received funding from any of these accelerators, not even a small investment from an Angel investor.

Any positives?

The first accelerator I went through I actually learned a lot, being a first-time Entrepreneur you’re naive to how hard it is to raise funds and more importantly build a successful business.

The mentors I would talk to weren’t the most successful people, but they understood business and they helped me clean up my pitch deck, figure out ways to compete against my competition and most importantly find a way to make money.

The second accelerator I didn’t learn a thing, everything we talked about I already knew from the first accelerator I went through.

Final thoughts

If you’re a founder and you’re looking for funding or you’re trying to learn more about Entrepreneurship I suggest applying to accelerators that will fund you if accepted.

The reason I say this is if you do get accepted that means your product is interesting enough for them to invest in you… which is a great sign. When an accelerator invests in you, you’re not the only one taking your startup seriously… they are to.

They’re going to do everything in their power to get you off the ground and running.

The accelerators that have you pay an admin fee are the ones that don’t bring much to the table.

I hope I haven’t hurt anyone’s feelings writing this post, I’m just being honest and I felt like it was important to explain my experience. I don’t want founders to have to go through what I went through, especially when you’re strapped for cash.