Ravi Belani is Fenwick & West Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Stanford University, and Managing Director of the Alchemist Accelerator, an enterprise seed accelerator backed by Cisco, DFJ, KhoslaVentures, Salesforce, SAP Ventures, and USVP. Alchemist also operates an Enterprise IoT Accelerator Program. Ravi formerly spent six years as part of the investment team at Draper Fisher Jurvetson’s Menlo Park global headquarters, where he led investments and served on the boards as the first institutional investor in companies such as Vizu (acquired by Nielsen), Yield Software (acquired byAutonomy), Justin.TV/Socialcam, Pubmatic, and Komli. Ravi formerly worked in product management at two Kleiner Perkins enterprise startups, and as a consultant in McKinsey and Company’s San Francisco office. Ravi is a Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi graduate of Stanford University, holding a BS with Distinction and MS in Industrial Engineering. Ravi also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

1. #STARTUPADDVENTURE
RAVI BELANI
ALCHEMIST ACCELERATOR
UNLOCKING THE VALUE
OF ACCELERATORS

2. Ravi Belani
6 years as a Venture Capitalist
Skype, Baidu, Hotmail, Tesla
My investments: Justin.TV / Twitch, Pubmatic
Entrepreneruship Lecturer at Stanford
ETL.Stanford.EDU
Director, Alchemist, a B2B Accelerator
AlchemistAccelerator.com

3. Alchemist: Gold Rated Accelerator
Enterprise Accelerator
Superstar of the Year
Honorable Mentions

4. Moore’s Law: $10K today is the
equivalent of $1M in 2005

5. Growth of the Internet: Exponential Axis
1

6. Growth of Internet: Linear Axis
How we experience the world

7. $1m ofTechnology Freely
AvailableVia Phones

8. The cost of capital of starting a business is
dropping asymptotically (to founder
salaries)
$50k today does what $5m did 10 years ago
48
• Open Source Stacks
• Infrastructure / Hosting as a
Service (Amazon)
• Customer Acquisition through
Social Networks (Facebook,
Instagram, Pinterest)
• Mobile Appstores (Android,
Apple)
2002: Short Levers,
Heavy Force / Cash
2012: Long Levers,
Little Force / Cash
• Proprietary Software
Licenses
• Private Server
Operations
• Marketing Spend
• Business Development /
Sales Teams

9. Number of Startups Accelerating

10. ANDWinners breaking out earlier

11. Top Revenue Ramps are 5x
Steeper than they were 10 years

12. Harder to be aVenture Capitalist

13. Time is of the essence

14. Why Accelerators

15. Curated Access to Investors

16. Accelerators Can Increase the
Odds of Funding
0 10 20 30 40
Graduates of Top 10 US Accelerators
Non-Accelerator Startups
Source: SeedRankings Project, 80,000 Hours Website
35%
4%

17. Access to Customers and Partners
Alchemist Go-To-Market Customer members

18. Build Mentor, Investor, Press
Networks
Leah Busque
CEO, TaskRabbit
Marissa Mayer
CEO, Yahoo
Gil Elbaz
CEO, Factual
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy
CEO, Joyus
David Kelley
Founder, IDEO, Stanford d.school
Prof. Robert Sutton
Stanford, Author "Good Boss, Bad Boss"
Mike Maples, Jr.
Managing Partner, Floodgate
Maynard Webb
Chairman, former CEO, LiveOps
Jim McKelvey
Co-Founder, Square
Joe Lonsdale
Co-Founder, Palantir
Tim Chou
Stanford Faculty, Former CEO,
Oracle-on-Demand
Adam Pisoni
Co-Founder, Yammer (MSFT)

19. Catalyzes Co-Founders to Make a
Decision re: Commitment
Source: Elaine Wherry

20. Drives Focus, starting with the
application
Source: Elaine Wherry

21. Assessing & Getting Into an
Accelerator

22. Number of Startup Accelerators
Increasing Significantly
0
75
150
225
300
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

23. AssessWhatYou Need an
Accelerator
Customers)/)
Trac.on)
Investors) Peers)
Mentors)

24. Filter Accelerators by Brand and
Individuals
http://www.seed-db.com/accelerators

25. Acceptance Rates forTop Accelerators are
Tougher than Ivy League Schools
0
75
150
225
300
Applications Interviews Admittance
Alchemist Class X Stats (March 2015)
Less than 5%
Acceptance
Rates at Top
Accelerators

26. Get Referenced In via former
founders or connected Investors

27. Deciding which is right

28. Accelerators Don’t Substitute for
HardWork
Source: Elaine Wherry

29. Bigger Isn’t Always Better
Source: Elaine Wherry

30. Talk to Founders

31. Negotiate

32. Build Lasting Relationships

33. Ravi Belani
RaviB@Stanford.EDU
@RBelani
www.alchemistaccelerator.com