Bootstrapping Course: Welcome

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Featured Videos

The Startup Velocity Question: What Hinders Acceleration in VC Funded Companies?

I have been running 1Mby1M since 2010. I find myself saying to entrepreneurs ad nauseam that VCs want to invest in startups that can go from zero to $100 million in revenue in 5 to 7 years.

Startups that do not have what it takes to achieve velocity should not be venture funded.

Experienced VCs, over time, have developed heuristics to gauge what constitutes a high growth venture investment thesis. 

The Accelerator Conundrum: Navigating Your Path to Startup Success

The Accelerator Conundrum is a multipart series that challenges the prevailing wisdom of the tech startup ecosystem that entrepreneurs should Blitzscale out of the gate. Written by Sramana Mitra, the Founder and CEO of One Million by One Million (1Mby1M), the world’s first global virtual accelerator, it emphatically argues that a better strategy is to Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, focus on customers, revenues and profits. 1Mby1M’s mission is to help a Million entrepreneurs reach a million dollars in annual revenue and beyond. Sramana’s Digital Mind AI Mentor virtually mentors entrepreneurs around the world in 57 languages. Try it out!

Alright, let’s cut through the noise and get to the brutal truth of the startup accelerator world. Many entrepreneurs, starry-eyed and naive, leap headfirst into 3-month accelerator programs without truly understanding the long-term implications. It’s time for an incisive commentary, a necessary dissection.

October 22 – 746th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 746th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, October 22, 2026, at 8 a.m. PDT / 11 a.m. EDT / 5 p.m. CEST / 8:30 p.m. India IST.

If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to Pitch and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback from Sramana Mitra, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your questions. Others can register to Attend to watch and learn.

You can learn more here and REGISTER TO PITCH OR ATTEND HERE. Please share with any entrepreneurs in your circle who may be Interested.

Featured Videos

745th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable Recording

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:

Roundtable Recap: October 15 – D2C Freemium at Pre-seed is a Recipe for Instant Rejection

Adopting a Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) freemium model at the pre-seed stage is a recipe for instant rejection by institutional investors. Freemium conversion rates are notoriously abysmal, typically hovering around 1% to 3%, meaning you need a massive, hyper-engaged user base just to generate negligible revenue. Unless you can demonstrate explosive, virally acquired user growth coupled with a proven, frictionless path to monetization, no venture capitalist will touch it. Pre-seed investors are looking for clear signals of customer demand and willingness to pay, not a bloated base of free users that drains server costs while offering zero financial return.

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Video FAQs

ServiceNow’s AI Focused Cybersecurity Growth

For the last reported second quarter, ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) surpassed market expectations. Its outlook, however, failed to impress the market. The company continues to accelerate on its AI offerings as it looks to expand beyond traditional workflow solutions to establishing itself within the cybersecurity market.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Heriberto Diarte, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Catalyzer Ventures (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: And what is your assumption when you make an investment like this? What are the trends? Is there a number that you are using to calibrate how much new home building is happening now in this format?

Heriberto Diarte: We studied this for one year. I helped this company launch many years ago, and the market is huge. There’s a huge need for housing in this country, and it’s not being fulfilled. When you can contract and build a home in three months, you have something nobody else has. They have sold homes to replace homes in Southern California in the Palisades fire, where people needed to rebuild their homes and said, “I don’t want to wait one year for a permit and two years to build a home.” 

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Heriberto Diarte, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Catalyzer Ventures (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What business models are you considering in your investment thesis? Is it mostly recurring revenue, MRR, ARR type of stuff, or are you also foreseeing other types of business models?

Heriberto Diarte: We’re open. I want to take a step back because I didn’t mention this in the introduction. We focus on technologies for three industries we know really well. Energy, in particular, energy transition; industrials – industrial automation, Industry 4.0; and infrastructure that now is called PropTech or InfraTech. Those are the three areas that we know really well.

Course Coupons to Learn Entrepreneurship Essentials in the Age of AI

AI and vibe coding can help you build a product faster than ever, but building a product is not the same as building a business. Entrepreneurs still need to know how to identify opportunities, validate demand, position a product, price it, find customers, build a sales process, and make smart decisions about bootstrapping or funding.

Our Udemy courses cover these essential entrepreneurship methodologies alongside practical courses on building AI and technology startups. This month, you can save up to 85% on selected courses, including courses on startup validation, positioning, pricing, market sizing, B2B sales, bootstrapping, AI startups, and more.

Methodology:

How to Test New Startup Ideas with Sramana Mitra: TRY1MBY1MOCT2026TEST

Positioning for Tech Startups by Sramana Mitra: TRY1MBY1MOCT2026POS

Pricing for Tech Startups by Sramana Mitra: TRY1MBY1MOCT2026PRI

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Heriberto Diarte, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Catalyzer Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: In other words, you’ve structured the funds to play the small exit game as opposed to just mindless unicorn chasing.

Heriberto Diarte: Yes. We want the unicorn. Don’t get me wrong. We want the big company. So we’re going for that, but for all of our companies, we have an intermediate stay, but they are going to get the option to be acquired earlier for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Sramana Mitra: Well, I think the problem that we see is this. The difference between mindless unicorn chasing and being more judicious about how you play your cards is how much money you raise in those companies. If you raise too much money, you price yourself out of small exits. If you keep yourselves capital efficient and focused on profitability and focused on, as you said, free cash flow and all of that, then the option of going for small exits remains.