You enter the program and advance from stage to stage through a series of reviews and pitches where you demonstrate that you meet the requirements for that stage. Before you pitch, you meet with either a founder-in-residence (FiR) or your expert coach (if you're in the Run stage) and they can help assess your readiness to advance. You'll receive feedback after the pitch along with the team's recommendation for whether you should advance to the next stage, or if you need to do additional work to be ready. The pitch presentation can be up to 10 minutes, with up to 15 minutes for Q&A with the reviewer or investment panelists.
<aside> ⚠️
Note, all ventures start in Walk and advance sequentially to Run and then Fly. How long one spends in each stage varies from team to team.
</aside>
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nog1SqqfzG07niKB1YcH6I78DV3-Bttw/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=116126432715774805469&rtpof=true&sd=true
<aside> 💡 Before applying to the stage… You have developed an “innovative insight” that led you to an initial understanding of a sizable/large, important problem or opportunity that has been validated by primary market research (talking to people). We call this “a validated opportunity.”
Once in the stage… You are exploring potential solutions to the problem, and experimenting with stakeholders to find which is most effective.
</aside>
(before you click apply, complete the self-checklist to make sure you’re ready!)
About your validated opportunity
Well articulated problem - You can clearly explain the stakeholder, an action or goal the stakeholder is trying to achieve, a pain point or hinderance to accomplishing it, the cause, and the ramifications (a feeling or an emotion, a business outcome like increased risk, higher costs, or lower profits). You have your own innovative insight to illustrate how you arrived at the opportunity and why you care.
Initial Alternatives Assessment - You have a good initial understanding of how stakeholders attempt to solve the problem today, and why those approaches aren't sufficient to help the stakeholders achieve the outcome they desire. What frustrates them? What workarounds have they tried?
Opportunity Size Hypothesis - You have done initial research to form a hypothesis of the potential size of the opportunity - estimating how many people (or organizations) experience the problem, how frequently it's experienced, how severe the problem is, and whether they’re open to seeking better solutions.
Evidence of Demand - You have talked to, observed, and interacted with stakeholders with first-hand experience with the problem. You can tell us the activities you’ve done to assess their needs; e.g. discovery interviews and problem validation interviews. We want direct evidence.