6 Tips to Make Your Startup Accelerator Application Standout
We receive a lot of applications at StartupYard for our startup accelerator but more than half of all applications don’t make it past the first screening.
Here are 6 tips you can follow to give yourself a better chance of reaching the final rounds of selection.
Complete Your Application
Yes… Our first screening disqualifies any applications that are disorganised, incoherent, or incomplete. One would be surprised to see how many applications of those we receive. The process is not that complicated. A disciplined person can fill our application in a few minutes. There are no trick questions.
Aim Global
If your solution is only for the local market, it will not pass our first screening. We are looking for founders who can solve global problems or at least at a continent level (Europe for example). Of course we love small and traditional businesses but our startup accelerator is designed to benefit startups that have a global potential, and are scalable on the world market.
Build a Platform
We like platforms that enable new businesses to thrive. What does it means? If the solution you are building for the market you have chosen is flexible enough to offer API access or be reused for other markets, we will pay more attention to it.
Platforms have the potential to grow into new, as yet undeveloped markets- providing technologies that people don’t know they need yet. And platforms also have more potential to adapt and grow in parallel with new markets.
Be a Deep Tech Visionary
We are looking for ambitious founders who see the potential in new ideas, and instinctively see how to take advantage of them.
When we say we focus on “deep tech,” we mean that we look for companies that are interested not just in being in a hot market, but in doing more with their technology than anyone has done before. The more science backs your project the more attention we will pay to your application.
We are interested in businesses that use technology as their unfair advantage, and can outwit bigger competitors with their technical advance, their mobility and flexibility, and their willingness to risk it all with a new approach.
Demonstrate Your Expertise
There are reasons why you decided to build this company. Tell us what makes you uniquely positioned to be both relevant and successful. Have you published some scientific papers? Have you spent years in a specific industry? What makes you unique to tackle the problem your startup is working on? What is YOUR unfair advantage?
Have a Subscription Business Model
It’s called Software As a Service and that’s what we like. There is nothing more reassuring and rewarding than having (almost) guaranteed revenue from one month to the other. If your business is based only on one-off transactions it is very unlikely that it will pass our first screening. Maybe you do not know yet how to turn your technology into a money machine and that’s ok. We have a lot of experience in monetising technology by turning it into services. Be open to change your business model.
