The 11th edition of Lisbon Challenge is advancing at full steam! The teams are in their third week of the program, and well into the validation phase. We’ve mentioned how intensive the program is, but do you want to know how much? Let’s go over the program overview!
A people-centric approach
Lisbon Challenge is Beta-i’s flagship accelerator program, and one of the most recognized programs in Europe. It’s a 10-week program designed to question the founders’ assumptions, help them find their product-market fit and prepare them for the road ahead – scaling and investment.
The program inherited Beta-i’s people-centric approach – but what does that mean?
It means that throughout the phases, founders will be challenged to take a people-centric approach:
- On customers – the people they are solving the problem for;
- The team – the people they are building the company with;
- Themselves – who they are as entrepreneurs and how they need to evolve with the business.
Program Timeline
For 10 weeks, the 6 teams on this edition will go through an intense program, filled with enriching content, workshops and mentoring sessions. The goal is for them to be in perfect shape for Investment Day, the culmination of those 10 weeks on acceleration.
These are the phases:
Validation
The founders will start by validating their value proposition and gaining a better understanding of what could be their target audience and their potential needs.
Product And Tech
A deep-dive into the startups’ solutions and the technology behind them. They must discover and define how is their project solving the clients’ needs better than any other out there, and design a roadmap for product market fit.
Growth
Here the founders will learn how to talk with customers and make sure they don’t leave after trying the product. In a nutshell, it will be all about customer retention and which metrics should be analyzed in order to figure it out.
Investment
In this phase, it’s all about preparing for investment! Startups learn to understand investors, and what they are looking for. They also learn practical stuff – what to say (and not to say!), and to tell your story and get investors to listen to them. This is an important phase as it leads to investment day!
Investment Day
The 10 weeks of the program lead up to Investment Day – a day when the startups will pitch on stage and then meet investors and possible corporate partners. This batch will have the whole ecosystem cheering on them – as they will be pitching at Lisbon Investment Summit, happening on the 6th and 7th of June.
If you, too, want to cheer them on – on shine yourself on the #LIS stage, get your 2×1 Founder tickets and apply to pitch on stage!