FoundersDoor 3.0 — Prototyping
FoundersDoor is a six week pre-accelerator for early stage tech founders from underrepresented backgrounds in London. The programme is delivered by YSYS in partnership with One Tech as part of the Mayor of London’s Digital Talent initiative.
FoundersDoor has now hit the half-way mark! This week, our cohort began the process of developing prototypes of their product solutions, with expert-support led by Zaisha Smith, founder of Pitchsmiths.
Following on from Week 2, startup teams had a lot of actions to move ahead with. The reality hit that an element of customer validation will be present throughout the programme, on top of any new modules and activities that come up on a weekly basis. In particular, this has meant juggling the on-going process of data collection and analysis, with a switch to product design too.
Zaisha’s video lecture was super useful because it illustrated both the design-thinking element of prototyping, together with the practical steps to actually bring these ideas into life. Like myself, Zaisha is a huge proponent of using no-code tools as a quick and inexpensive way to build prototypes; and we were surprised by just how many applications there were out there that enabled you to do this in a really user-friendly way. Zaisha also highlighted the three types of prototypes a founder could develop:
- Low Fidelity
- Medium Fidelity
- High Fidelity
First Iteration Prototype Drafts
Our cohort made their initial low and medium fidelity prototypes in the form of YouTube videos, landing pages, clickable front-end app prototypes and even some functional prototypes using coding! See below for a few sneaky screenshots I took as teams presented.
Founders Panel Talk
Education is the cornerstone of FoundersDoor as a programme, however, there is so much more that can be offered to aspiring founders than just this. Below, in my opinion, are the top 4 essentials of any kind of entrepreneurial support:
- Education
- Experience
- Mentorship
- Network
For FoundersDoor, experience comes in the form of practical homework activities that force the cohort to use what they learn. It is totally dependent on the founders themselves getting their “hands dirty”. However, experience is also something that can be leveraged from others.
“Experience is a master teacher, even when it’s not our own.”
The above quote illustrates why we decided to host a roundtable discussion with founders from the YSYS community who are further along their journeys. Two of them were graduates of FoundersDoor 2.0, whilst another two had launched or were raising seed funding.
What came out of this was an inspiring conversation in which our cohort heard about the ups and downs of the life of a founder from individuals with skin in the game; who like themselves are from diverse backgrounds and creating solutions to interesting but vastly different problems.
Thank you to Nii Cleland (Flair Football), Bella Trang Ngo (Brarista), Paris Reveira (That Good Hair) and Gideon Ebose (Klen)
Community Asks — How can you support?
Email me at kwaku@thisisysys.com.
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