We’re at the midway point of SPEEDRUN 3 and SPEEDRUN 4 applications just opened up. Lots of friends have asked about SPEEDRUN so this is a great time to share my review of the program and lessons learned so far.
Review
Bottom line up front – I’m sure you’ve heard the chatter, are accelerators worth it? I can’t speak about other programs, but SPEEDRUN is absolutely worth it. Here are my top three reasons why:
Brand. As a defense tech startup, being new is a disadvantage when you’re being evaluated for contracts. Having a16z on your cap table mitigates that. Getting meetings with partners becomes infinitely easier.
Resources. As an AI startup, we get a LOT of credits through SPEEDRUN, which helps us prototype faster, makes us less precious about soft launching products to get customer feedback, and makes my CTO happier. Tired of messing around with the starter $2-$4K credits package from AWS Activate, Google for Startups, or Microsoft for Startups? Apply to SPEEDRUN 4 now.
Team. The a16z SPEEDRUN team is really a Who’s Who list of exceptional functional leaders in the gaming industry. I don’t think all of my fellow SPEEDRUN founders are taking full advantage of them. More importantly, this team really got our backs, so my team can focus 100% on what we need to do.
TL;DR, if you’re working in games or a gaming adjacent space, you’d be an idiot to not apply.
Lessons Learned
Get a co-founder. I don’t know how the solo founders do it. I personally wouldn’t want to do it alone. I love my co-founder, I respect my co-founder, I’ve known him for 10 years, and it’s still hard! If you’re trying to find a co-founder just to meet some application deadline, good luck….
Go get traction. What ultimately matters is traction. If you have traction, you can be bad at everything else and still raise money. So don’t over optimize for the everything else.
Have some empathy for yourself. It's going to be OK, whether you get into SPEEDRUN or YC or AI Grant, or insert X. You don’t need an accelerator to get funded. Nobody knows anything. No one knows if your idea will work or not before you actually try it. So just start it, as a side gig while you have a day job, or if you need to quit and do it. The experts are usually wrong. Just don't be that guy who complains on X all day about why you didn’t get into some program and that’s why you suck.