Richard Busulwa (PhD, MBA, MInnov) is a researcher in the Business School at Swinburne University of Technology, home to the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship. His entrepreneurship research focuses on startup evolution, entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurial well-being, and strategy for startups. He is co-author of Strategy Execution and Complexity: Thriving in the Era of Disruption. Richard is a startup co-founder and seed investor in cloud, IoT, AI, blockchain, property, and niche professional service firms.

Naomi Birdthistle (PhD, MSc, BA) is an associate professor of entrepreneurship at Griffith University and visiting professor at Alto University. Naomi has published research on entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and high-growth firms. Her research has received numerous awards including Emerald Literati, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, and the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) and Ireland's Network of Teachers and Researchers of Entrepreneurship (INTRE) awards.

Steve Dunn (MBA, BA) is CEO and co-founder of LEAPIN Digital Keys, a startup that delivers NB IoT smart access control solutions. Since its founding, Steve has led the startup through a number of different accelerators within Asia Pacific, the United States, and Europe. He has also led the startup through several iterations and pivots with a variety of IoT technologies, to finally find product/market fit. Steve is a mentor and coach in university-based accelerators and incubators.

We are thankful to the founders, program managers, and entrepreneurship academics who took time out of their busy schedules to answer our lengthy questionnaires and interview questions in detail, and with full openness. We are also grateful to our supportive family and friends for accommodating our late nights and weekends spent researching and writing. Finally, we are grateful to Bill Falloon and the team at Wiley for providing us with the opportunity to research and write this book, as well as for being easy to work with and having author-friendly terms.

Accelerator programs have emerged as one of the most powerful vehicles for helping entrepreneurs to learn rapidly, create powerful networks, raise money, build their startups, and do this at speed and at scale. Since Y Combinator brought accelerators into the public consciousness in 2005, the number of accelerator programs have exploded around the world; spawning successes such as Airbnb, DropBox, Reddit, Stripe, Zenefits, Pillpack and Uber—many with billion-dollar valuations. But the number of accelerators, the global catchment area of accelerators, and differences in the benefits and costs of different startup ecosystems around the world make choosing the right accelerator a challenge. Choosing the wrong accelerator can be costly, as can failing to get into the right one. With the stakes so high, entrepreneurs need to consider their options carefully. Getting into the right accelerator is also no easy feat, since many of the best accelerators have very low acceptance rates. Once in an accelerator, founders need to take care to make the most of what the accelerator has to offer; and to ensure they don't neglect their business operations while in the accelerator. Written by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, this book provides entrepreneurs with an insider look into the inner workings of different accelerator programs around the world. It outlines how accelerators help startups, what the different startup accelerators around the world offer, what it takes to get into them, how to prepare accelerator applications, what to do during accelerator programs, how to raise money during accelerators, and what to do after an accelerator program ends. The book is a one-stop resource packed with insightful data and the real-life case studies and reflections of startups going through accelerator programs, program managers operating accelerator programs, entrepreneurship educators teaching entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship researchers researching entrepreneurship education. While the book is designed to efficiently provide entrepreneurs with critical information they need on accelerators, it is also an insightful read for accelerator program managers, entrepreneurship educators, entrepreneurship education researchers, and investors considering investment in a company coming out of an accelerator; as well as policy makers seeking to unpack the role of accelerators in the entrepreneurial journey and in entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Startups are usually pursuing opaque opportunities with closing time windows and fleeting entry points. Yet there is often an avalanche of work that must be done in order to seize the opportunity. Therefore, it is imperative that they limit how much time they waste on potential time vacuums such as engaging with the wrong type of startup support institution for a particular startup evolution stage, engaging with the wrong types of coaches/consultants/startup networks, spending time on trivial activities at the expense of critical ones, engaging in avoidable trial-and-error activities, reviewing unnecessary startup information, developing unnecessary startup know-how, accessing necessary startup information—but at the wrong time, and engaging in avoidable rework. Now more than ever, there is a proliferation of information and institutions offering support to startups—this trend is only expected to amplify. The startups likely to make it simply don't have the time to siphon through and decipher all the information on the different types of institutions supporting startups, the networks of those institutions, the offerings of those institutions, and the benefits and shortcomings of their offerings. Should startup founders undertake this arduous task with reliable rigor, within each institution type there is a proliferation of offerings. The aim of our book is to unpack the accelerator institution for entrepreneurs in a structured, simple, practical, yet rigorous way. In doing so, we hope to save entrepreneurs the costs of misunderstanding accelerators, using them in the wrong way, missing out on their key benefits, going through poor quality accelerators, or choosing accelerators not optimally suited to their particular startup.

Research for This Book

The research for this book was undertaken in five stages. In stage 1, we undertook a review of the relevant and seminal academic research on startup accelerators, incubators, and other entrepreneurial ecosystem institutions. The purpose of this stage was to understand the unique role startup accelerators play in entrepreneurial ecosystems, their unique value to entrepreneurs, and the stages of the startup evolution process at which accelerators are of most value. In stage 2, we reviewed key practitioner literature on startup accelerators—focusing on the value offerings of different accelerators, their functioning, and achievements. The aim of this stage was to understand the unpacked value offering, functioning, and effectiveness of different types of startup accelerators. In stage 3, we undertook a comprehensive review of primary and secondary data on accelerator programs in general, and the different startup accelerators around the world in particular. In this review, we focused on the prevalence and verifiable effectiveness of accelerator programs. In stage 4, we drew on our experience, personally applying for and entering a number of different accelerators, incubators, and government startup support programs in different parts of the world. Through this fourth stage, we drew on first-hand experience of what it takes to get into accelerators, and to make the most of them—both during and after the program. Finally, in stage 5, we collected primary and secondary data on the experiences and reflections of founders going through different accelerator programs, around the world, program managers operating different accelerators programs and university entrepreneurship educators teaching entrepreneurship and researching entrepreneurship education (in particular, regarding the latter, we focused on educators at universities teaching entrepreneurship programs and operating accelerator programs).

How to Use This Book

This book is made up of nine chapters which can be viewed as six parts. Part 1 (Introduction and Chapter 1) explores the driving need, emergence, and ascendance of the accelerator phenomenon. This part will be of value to founders and aspiring founders, as it unpacks the key startup evolution stages and the challenges faced by founders along those stages. Part 1 will be of value to entrepreneurship educators, entrepreneurship ecosystem researchers, and policy makers as it unpacks the value of accelerators to startup journeys and therefore the role of accelerators in entrepreneurial ecosystems. Part 2 (Chapters 2–4) discusses what happens in an accelerator, how to know if a startup is ready for an accelerator, and how to prepare the accelerator application. Part 3 (Chapters 5–7) discusses how to choose an accelerator, how to handle the accelerator interview, and whether to give up equity to get into an accelerator. Part 4 (Chapters 8−9) discusses how to get the most out of an accelerator, what to expect after the accelerator, and what to do after the accelerator ends. Part 5 (Appendices) is a resource directory organized into three subparts. The first subpart provides case study reflections of the experiences of founders who have been through accelerator programs. Subpart 2 provides case study reflections of accelerator program managers who operate accelerator programs and university entrepreneurship educators who teach entrepreneurship and research entrepreneurship education. We hope these three very different reflections offer insight into the thinking and challenges faced by these accelerator institution and entrepreneurship education stakeholders. We chose to make these reflections anonymous, so participants could be fully honest, without risking their reputations or those of their organizations. Finally, in subpart 3 we have curated key resources that founders can draw on for different aspects of the accelerator experience. For example, they can find curated information for evaluating accelerators, for navigating different aspects of the accelerator process (e.g., preparing accelerator applications, preparing for interviews, starting the accelerator, networking, preparing for demo day, etc.). They can also find curated tips and advice from a range of founders who have gone through accelerators on how to approach almost all aspects of the accelerator experience. Finally, for each region of the world (Asia, North America, Europe, Africa/Middle East, South America, Oceania), we list some of the most popular accelerators, their focus, and their notable alumni startups.

The book is organized to enable efficient access to relevant information as and when needed. Thus, for example, a reader attempting to prepare an accelerator application can scan the table of contents to find Chapter 4 and go straight to that chapter. Or, for example again, a reader can scan the table of contents to locate where in the book they can find the top accelerators in their country, or the mentors in a particular accelerator. Each chapter is written to stand on its own and does not require a reader to first read the preceding chapters—although readers may benefit more from a cover-to-cover reading. At the end of most chapters, we provide a real-world case study of the chapter content in practice by a range of different founders in different accelerators around the world. For example, Chapter 4 on how to prepare the accelerator application provides case studies of the real-world applications of startups to different accelerators, and identifies those that got in and those that did not get in. Thus, a reader that finds reading theory difficult can go straight to the case study for that chapter to learn from the real-world case study. And if they have a query about a particular part of the case study, they can visit the specific theory section within that chapter. We have used endnotes to corroborate key assertions made in the book, and we encourage entrepreneurs to go to those sources for even deeper insights.