Lesson: App Prototyping with Erin Parker

Step #3 Accelerators: An accelerator does not necessarily increase the likelihood of your success

Here's my perspective on accelerators in general. Oftentimes you'll hear beginner entrepreneurs say, "If only I get into Y Combinator, my start-up is going to be successful", and they think that by going through an established program that has a schedule that they're going to have a successful venture at the end. What actually happens is your start-up is a bundle of guesses and no program is going to really help you take each of those guesses and check if they're correct.

That's why start-ups are actually really hard because, you think something's correct and then you build a product around this entire assumption and then you put the product out in the real world and nobody uses it and then you're like, "Oh my gosh, no one's using it. My assumption was wrong."

I have yet to see an accelerator that really takes the entrepreneurs and pushes them to check all their assumptions. I know that Steve Blank, the famous entrepreneurship professor at Stanford, does this, and I've read his book and I'm a huge fan of his work. He will not let you pass his class if you don't come . . . Where the homework is you've checked all your assumptions and you've really validated it with your customers.

I think that increases the likelihood of your success, especially for enterprise companies. But going through an accelerator just to finish it and check it off your list and say, "Oh, it's done. I did it", that doesn't really increase the likelihood of your success.