HYDERABAD: With the number of startup companies in the city increasing by the day, the need for accelerators has almost become inevitable. Lack of proper guidance and mentorship is preventing many from transforming their ideas into commercial ventures and, with just five accelerators in the city, the startups are facing some serious problem in finding the right kind of mentors.
Proving it and stating that there is an absolute need for more accelerators in the city, Arshad Azad, co-founder of LocalJao, a startup, said, “I have been in this startup world for more than five months now and what I have realised is that there are too many people who want to give inputs, irrespective of whether they know the subject or not. One individual gave me advice that our work can be done easily by following a particular procedure. When we researched more on his suggestion, we found out that the worst thing we ever could do. So, it is very important to get in touch with right kind of people.
“Also, in our country the technologies and tools that we use are not that advanced and the mortality rate of startups is pretty high. So, in order to convert more startups into successful ones, more and more accelerators should come up in the city. That’s the reason why we have applied for an accelerator programme, for us all that matters at this point is getting right kind of mentorship,” Azad added.
Tom Thomas, chief operating officer of IIIT Hyderabad Foundation (incubator), said, “For startups to move from an incubator to an accelerator is like graduating. Accelerators are believed to have vast vendor network and more investors, and any startup which becomes part of an accelerator gets more valuation. So, we need more accelerators and, more than the number, we need to get accelerators in various domains and that would definitely do more good to the ecosystem.”
Agreeing with him, Srinivas Kollipara, Chief operating officer and one of the founders of T-Hub, said the city should get more good accelerators. “A startup needs to think about everything in a short span of time. So when they move to next level it is good to get into a clearly defined accelerator. It would help them speed up their growth process,” he said.
“I agree that there is need for more good accelerators in the city. That is the reason why we, at T-Hub, are planning to come up with our own accelerator in the health domain,” Kollipara added.
Ravi Warrier, head of operations of Spark10, said, "Imagine a scenario where an accelerator programme gets over 200 applications. Even if we assume that just 20 per cent of them are very good, there will be some 40 startups. But, a programme like ours could accommodate just 10 startups. Therefore, even if we consider this small number we would, at least, need four more accelerators.”
What are Accelerators?
Accelerators are fixed-term, cohort-based programs that include mentorship and educational components and culminate in a public pitch event or demo day. They help startups speed up their growth process.