Application Form Who? Please tell us about your project, team and give us your contact information. What is the name of your project? Who are the founders? Please list the main founders (with brief descriptions of specific contributions and responsibilities), add emails and URLs for Linkedin/personal pages If you have launched, or have an online demo, please enter the url How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? Give us your history, and tell us if any of the founders have not worked together in a project. What else have you achieved individually? What have you built together? Please tell us about the most impressive other thing that each founder has achieved/built. Tell us about an interesting project that you created together. Include URLs if possible. What is the problem? In this section, help us understand what problem your startup is intending to solve. What problem are you solving? What is the main use case for your product? Please describe in fewer than 7 steps. How does the solution work? Describe the salient parts of the solution. What does it do that other solutions don't do? Why this problem? We are interested in the reasons why you chose this particular problem. Who REALLY needs your solution desperately? The useful answer to this question will describe a group of people who have a problem, or an unmet need/desire. They have a private want shared by a statistically significant number of people, forming a reliable demand pattern, a customer. List the hardest problems you can solve for your user (max. 3). What evidence do you have that the user has this problem? Useful evidence here shows the user is aware of the problem, searches for a solution, spends effort/time/money to solve the problem, and hacks something together. We are looking for evidence that this problem *really* needs to be solved. How frequent/urgent is this problem for the user? Give us your understanding of the problems frequency (all the time>most times>sometimes) and urgency (must have>big inconvenience>nice to have) Why this solution? In this section, we are interested in the big truth you hold that most people are unaware of or disbelieve/disagree with. You must have a secret. Why would the user choose your product? Please tell us why the user will be attracted to your solution. Tell us one feature you think they will be most excited about, and you think will make them buy from you or switch to you. What is unique and special about your solution? What do you understand that others just don’t get? How did you come up with this idea? Please trace back the source of this idea and tell us what mundane experience sparked it. In the future, how will you turn your secret into a defendable market position? In case of success, tell us your strategies that will protect you from the upcoming competition (i.e. network effects, patents etc). Who else is currently solving this problem? We would like to better understand the market you are entering, disrupting or creating. What does the user do to currently solve this problem? Walk us through their current use case, in absence of your solution. List top 3 competitors. Why wouldn't the user choose them? Describe how is this better and different than X1, X2 and X3. Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors? Who do you fear most and why? Is the solution launched and used? We are interested in learning whether a.you launched, and b. users received value from you. We want to know whether people liked what you've made (signs of traction: i.e. repeat usage, preorder/order etc). How far along are you? Do you have a beta? If not, when will you? Are you launched? Who uses it now? How many users do you have (excluding your friends and family)? Is anybody ready to pay you? Please tell us if users are ready and willing to enter a transaction. Are they currently paying you? Do you have revenue? If so, how much? Have you tested price points? Have you met any resistance to the solution? Have you had any failed customer pitches or experienced negative retention? What is the reason? What is your growth rate? What is your monthly growth rate (in users or revenue or both)? How much capital are you planning to raise? What is your monthly burn rate? What are your low/medium/high capital targets? How will you use the funds?
