From Forbes by Ryan Frankel

Technology, access to capital and tremendous desire to start a business has made launching a new venture easier than ever. The growth in new businesses has been met by a proliferation in business accelerator programs designed to help entrepreneurs launch and scale their pursuits through carefully designed programs and access to mentors, talent and capital.

Not all businesses and entrepreneurs are a good fit for accelerators and not all accelerators are of equal caliber. With this in mind, here are three reasons to apply to a high-quality business accelerator:

Acceleration: It’s not called an accelerator for nothing. Incubator programs are structured to help entrepreneurs succeed and fail faster. Fail, you say? Yes. Far better it is to fail quickly, realize your mistakes and then iterate quickly than it is to putter in ambiguity for months or years without realizing that you’re headed down the wrong path. This was a tough pill for me to swallow. I’m a perfectionist and initially I was reluctant to put a half-baked product in the marketplace to be critiqued. And yet, by taking the minimum viable product (“MVP”) approach, I was able to garner amazing feedback in a short period of time that allowed me to improve our business in days, rather than months or years. To parlay a phrase used by David Cohen, cofounder of TechStars, “Do More Faster.”

Talent: Taking part in an accelerator gives entrepreneurs access to three types of talent:

• Team-members: The elite nature of accelerators enables entrepreneurs to surround themselves with other driven individuals, including prospective teammates. When we arrived at TechStars, we were a two-person team. We left as a team of six with far stronger prospects for our future
• Mentors: The best accelerators provide entrepreneurs with access to mentors with tremendous experience in an array of fields, including: product development, customer development, sales, finance and operations. Not all mentor advice is right for you, but holding dozens, if not hundreds of meetings with mentors allows entrepreneurs to receive a plethora of feedback and parse the good from the bad
• Fellow Incubator Companies: One of the most unexpected benefits of TechStars was the relationships we developed with other incubated companies, including the community of companies from previous programs. To this day, we still engage with and benefit from the amazingly talented individuals that took part in the program

Access to Capital: Most incubators culminate with a “demo day”, an intensive day of company presentations to an audience of hundreds of well-respected investors. Demo day is an entrepreneur’s day to show off what his or her team has accomplished over a short period of time and make the case for raising investment capital. Raising capital isn’t for everyone, but demo day affords entrepreneurs and investors the opportunity to connect and explore collaborative opportunities worth millions of dollars of capital and invaluable advice and expertise.

What do you think – is an accelerator program right for you?

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Are you ready to work on your business instead of always working in your business?  Call the CBI today 931-456-4910 to claim your seat in the Get Your Business to Work cohort.  Even if you have been in business for years…..you’ll learn something that will help you take your business to the next level.

Looking forward to seeing you soon –