20 launches in 4 weeks…
This Thursday 10th August 2017 is the culmination of the five-week VALIDATOR program for a group of 20 startup teams. The VALIDATOR is designed to teach the basics of entrepreneurial methodology through DOING; primarily by encouraging teams to ‘launch’. Each team will pitch what their business or project is, traction to date, unique insight and monetisation strategy to a pubic audience on Pitch Night.
Below is a conversation between Kishan Thurairasa (Entrepreneur in Residence) and Wen Xi (Digital Marketing Project Officer) three days out from the VALIDATOR Pitch Night.
Wen: So it’s the last week of the Validator. Where did the Validator come from and what has it evolved into?
Kish: The reason for the Validator was we saw a gap between having ideas and where the people were in terms of getting into an accelerator program. We saw this from last year where a more advanced program was run, funding was provided, and the teams were still at an idea stage at the end of the program. And there was a lot they could have done without any funding.
What we found in the last Validator was that everyone focused on customer interviews, and at the end of the five weeks still no one had launched because they realised their ideas weren’t worth working on. The problem with that is, while yes they understand customer interviews, they leave a five-week program not having any other skills.
We thought a better way to do that, to help them while validating their ideas, is to actually get them to launch a product or service. The by-product of that is they now have all these skills in launching a product, whether that’s building a website, acquiring users manually, acquiring users via social media, creating surveys. All these kinds of skills you will need later on in a successful startup, they are getting it right now.
Wen: Okay so what happened?
Kish: We challenged everyone to launch in the first week. 90% of the startups launched in the first week and 100% launched by the end of the second week. The part that shocked us though was that at the end of four weeks, when I asked how many of them will continue working on their projects beyond these five weeks, every single hand went up. And that’s an exciting thing, knowing that we’ve given them skills and empowered them to go on and build successful projects.
90% of the startups launched in the first week and 100% launched by the end of the second week.
Wen: Why such a heavy emphasis on launch?
Kish: We put doing above anything else.
We put doing above learning or studying in a classroom setting. Doing is the best way to learn. We realised that if we forced them to launch they will face challenges, and as they face these challenges we will then teach them how to overcome them. Let them see it, let them face it and let them help each other.
Wen: What’s an example of a challenge these participants would have faced?
Kish: Building a website. Three-quarters of the teams don’t have a technical cofounder and suddenly they have to put together a landing page. How do I do that? Well, you Google it. And now everyone that asked the question, ‘how do I do this’, has answered it either for themselves or someone in the class helped them answer it. Some of the websites, Wen, are incredible. They’re not just landing pages anymore and we didn’t teach them that, we did not teach them that. We taught them to get customers and you do whatever you need to do to get customers and users. That’s what we push them to do, and then they figured out the steps in between.
How do I do that? Well, you Google it.
Wen: What is the content you do deliver during the weekly sessions?
Kish:
There’s basically two fundamentals that we teach them: get users and build product.
First one is motivating and empowering the participants with the understanding and belief that they can do this. That’s the first step. And then we set them the challenge of launching. We don’t give them much more direction than that.
Once they’ve launched we then start talking about how to get users, how to interview users and how to refine your product. And then we teach, perhaps, a third bit that is founder mentality. So how to be a good founder, soft skills that you should be aware of, that sort of thing.
Wen: Tell us about this Thursday night, week five of the Validator, what happens?
Kish: This Thursday we’re showcasing our startups and their launches. The pitches will be about what they have achieved in the last four weeks. It’s not about where they’re going, it’s more about what they’ve done in the last four weeks and seeing the trajectory of that growth and the progress they’ve made. Many of them came into the program having thought about their idea or worked on their ideas for six months and still not having launched. Within four weeks they’ve all launched. They have customers, are engaging with users, building communities, delivering value.
Wen: What happens once the program is finished?
Kish: All have said they will continue with their projects and the Generator will support them with office hours. We’re also looking to put together a meetup for the cohort to ensure they can all keep in touch if they want to. We’ll continue to build on this community that is seeded with this class.
Come to Pitch Night on Thursday 10th August 2017
