Growth Bootcamp is a three-day event, happening on 3-5th of June, to help accelerate the growth of promising startups, by putting them together with partners enabling the environment for startups to succeed. In this invite-only event, startups between Seed and Series A investment and with high potential joined experienced entrepreneurs, seasoned investors and growth experts to build their path to exponential growth.
Helping Startups Scale
This startups are, essentially, in a crucial phase between having a product and clients, but really needing to scale the dimension of their business. It’s an important time, when founders must make decisions that might impact their business in the short and long run.
Realising this need to support founders at this stage of their journey, Beta-i created Growth Bootcamp – to help founders at this stage while keeping their focus on the bigger picture.
The 3 day program includes:S
Panel sessions with leading international entrepreneurs and experts on product, growth, marketing, channels and strategy, that are willing to share their knowledge and experience on startups’ growth.
One-on-one sessions mentoring sessions with kickass mentors with entrepreneurial and investing experience, to get feedback and guidance on the particulars of each founders’ journey.
Networking with peers, prospect clients and investors where they can enjoy an open conversation between equals.
On the last day of the program, founders will get access to Investors’ Academy – an immersive program on smart startup investment – where they get to network and ask for feedback from experienced corporate and angel investors, and get valuable insight on investment strategy.
Building a Stronger Innovation Ecosystem
The final goal of Growth Bootcamp is to create a stronger ecosystem. By connecting founders with mentors who have lived the same experiences and can bring valuable advice to their choices, we give them the opportunity to make better choices – fail less – and create stronger companies that can lead innovation in the years to come.
The morning dawned rainy in Lisbon – the kind that makes you wanna stay on the sofa all morning, but for our Lisbon Challenge teams that was not an option – they just got to the busiest part of the challenge.
Lisbon Challenge wraps up today its Product Phase. After Validation Phase – where the teams worked on improving their understanding of the problem they are trying to solve and (re)validating their customers (how they feel, interact and behave around this problem in the) – they started Product Phase, where they went on to work through how their products deliver the benefits that solve those problems.
Turning Pains into Gains
The product phase focuses solely on the startup’s solution. Are they delivering the benefits their customers require? It’s all about taking the pains identified during validation phase and the benefits that solve them and turning them into product features that deliver what the customers want.
But more than just features (and having the right features), it’s about understanding and building a journey through the product that takes them straight to core value.
Taking a page from Andrew Chen’s Engagement Wall and “next feature fallacy”, the teams focus on understanding what is working and why, and also what they should just stop doing, instead of just building new things. So, it’s about weeding out the unnecessary stuff and getting as close as possible to the #nobullshit product that makes users fall in love with it.
A Mentorship Driven Program
As their Lisbon Challenge journey takes them closer and closer to a product-market fit, the teams are lucky to have a strong network of mentors, who have been through the same processes and similar experiences as entrepreneurs themselves. They stepped up to the challenge to give serious, honest and helpful feedback to our teams.
Rita Ribeiro da Silva, from SKOACH, detailed the challenges of the phase:
This has been, so far, the most challenging phase. The problem with creating a product is that there are many opportunities and you have to decide on what exactly do you want to choose, and where you want to focus. And the temptations are huge, and sometimes it’s hard to keep the focus on creating a product that is focused and having a focused message of what it is. It’s hard to keep it simple.
The team, who is tackling the challenge of high employee turnover with a solution that enables high-performing teams through gamified change of individual behavior, has taken full advantage of the mentors’ advice:
“I would say that the best advice has been from people who have used products that have tried to solve the same problem, and we’ve got some feedback about the pitfalls, the mistakes that they made, and that’s helpful so we don’t… do them (laughs)”, completed João Ferreira, also from Skoach.
What’s next
Next up, the teams will focus on finding the right metrics, messaging and channels for their product. But for now, we celebrate the end of the phase and the great group of mentors that imparted some of their knowledge and experience, with the incredible Beta-i community experience – this time delivered through the feature of brazilian-style-mouth-watering-BBQ.
