Here’s why you should attend a startup decelerator

Author: Sebastien Toupy / Source: The Next Web

With about 2,000 accelerators worldwide, it’s really hard for startups to choose which programs to attend, if any. Especially when the differences are small, but the implications can be enormous. In May last year, I attended a completely new concept, the decelerator Menorca Millennials.

Here’s what I learned.

Exponential growth, daily active users, and the number of “18 hour-days” are often the main KPIs for building a successful startup. However being faster doesn’t always mean you’re winning the race.

A small group of entrepreneurs from Menorca, a small Spanish island in the Mediterranean, believe that it’s crucial for fast-growing startups to know when to take a step back and decelerate in order to achieve long-term success. Thus they invited a group of carefully selected entrepreneurs to give it a try.

Fifteen sunny days

Marcos Martin and Xevi Fuya decided to help these entrepreneurs by creating Menorca Millennials (MM). As the world’s first decelerator, this program brings together thirty international startups with key figures from the entrepreneurial ecosystem such as advisors, industry experts, and VC’s. A fifteen-day event on the Spanish island of Menorca aimed at moving away from your classic day-to-day activities, to instead focus on long-term strategy and concrete execution plans.

The goals

MM’s founders believe that focusing on high profile entrepreneurs “mentoring in flip-flops” will not only increase creativity and innovation but will also help startups to build better strategies.

All founders joining MM are at least second-time entrepreneurs, who know what it takes to build a company. Over the past three editions, their alumni have already raised more than 50$ million in funding – 42 percent of participants raised subsequent rounds of funding – and had three successful exits.