Who Gets Into Accelerators? Persistent Men With SaaS Apps, Says Study

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/20/who-gets-into-accelerators-persistent-men-with-saas-apps-says-study/

by chiachun • 12 years ago

37 20 12 years ago

techcrunch.com

im3w1l2• 12 years ago

The money quote: "The figures were almost exactly the same for unsuccessful applicants [as for successful ones]"

thefreeman• 12 years ago

Thanks for saving me the trouble of reading this.

untilHellbanned• 12 years ago

"Either low numbers of women founders are applying for accelerators, or the gate-keepers for accelerators are somewhat closed-minded — or a combination of both."

14.8% of rejected applicants were female vs. 13.2% accepted... So close-minded!

Pretty sick of journalists flagrantly stretching the truth to make sexisms suggestions.

asaddhamani3• 12 years ago

So almost all female founders are accepted, whereas barely 2% of male founders are. Yes, extremely close-minded and sexist.

Edit : Ok, I understood the math incorrectly here.

HenryMc• 12 years ago

A better title: "Who Applies for Accelerators? Men With SaaS Apps, Says Study"

im3w1l2• 12 years ago

Sorry for confusing this issue, but the quote is talking only about gender and team size.

They didn't mention how many of unsuccessful applicants did SaaS apps. Furthermore, people who were accepted had more applications behind them then rejects.

gales3• 12 years ago

I've applied twice to an accelerator, both times unsuccessfully. However, it was not due to being female, but instead because I'm a sole founder. It's a bit of a conundrum unfortunately, because I wish to prove myself to my peers before seeking co-founders.

As the study only took into account those applications made via the F6S platform, I would not trust the figures. Some founders are unable to use it for a start, as they're insistent on only allowing logins with either Facebook or Linkedin. Not everyone uses or is willing to connect those services, like myself.

balls187• 12 years ago

As the study only took into account those applications made via the F6S platform, I would not trust the figures.

When we applied for both Techstars and 9MileLabs we had to go through F6s as well.

because I wish to prove myself to my peers before seeking co-founders.

Why is that reasoning a gating factor for finding a co-founder?

gales3• 12 years ago

Fortunately, the accelerator that I've applied for provides both, a F6S backed application process, and their own.

The co-founder quandary is due to repeated past experiences of having my work being overly-criticised, so lack faith in my myself. Although, I'm now trying to overcome those hurdles I've set myself.

sumedh• 12 years ago

because I wish to prove myself to my peers before seeking co-founders.

Do you have little traction or are you just applying based on the idea?

gales3• 12 years ago

Applying based on idea, though I have a prototype that's on its way to becoming a fully-working MVP.

dang• 12 years ago

This article is a paraphrase of a study it doesn't link to. It links only to the home page of the organization. Does anybody have the url to the original source?

HN strongly prefers original sources, as long as they're reasonably readable.

jandrewrogers• 12 years ago

Accelerators intentionally select for startups that fit within the constraints of the accelerator model. Even assuming the founder(s) are smart, disciplined, and competent, many startups do not meet the basic criteria that will allow them to be successful in the accelerator environment. The people that run these accelerators know this and filter accordingly.

Two big rejection criteria that many people misunderstand:

- Accelerator programs require founders to do more, faster than can be reasonably managed by a single person, hence no sole founders. There is too much work to do without at least two people on the founding team. It is not that you can't successfully build a startup as a sole founder (I am one) but that you are unlikely to successfully execute an accelerator program as one, which is an important distinction.

- Simple Web/SaaS applications fit the program timeline of accelerator models. They are not designed for hardcore technology or infrastructure startups that require an enormous amount of heavy lifting on the engineering side in order to have a Minimum Viable Product. These companies often require closer to a year to get off the ground, which is far longer than most accelerator programs run and often have very different customer sales cycles. The kinds of startups that fit within typical accelerator program scope are a small fraction of all startups you could build.

If you look at the statistics irrelevant to the constraints of an accelerator program, such as gender balance, you see that the statistics for accepted and rejected startups look similar, which is what you would expect if the selection process was working well.

Who Gets Into Accelerators? Persistent Men With SaaS Apps, Says Study

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