What is ELEVATE?
ELEVATE is an acceleration program for startups in the process of building digital products, including but not limited to conversational interfaces, such as bots. The goal is to take your product from prototype to product-market-fit in 6 months by offering intensive hands-on coaching, and programming & growth hacking support.
Don’t hesitate to ask!
Are you interested in applying to be a part of ELEVATE? That’s great! Please read through the following Program Details carefully and then continue to the application form. If you still have any unanswered questions, don’t forget to check the FAQs or contact us for more.
- Anybody who is building or planning to build a digital product using conversational interfaces, machine learning or AI.
- Anyone interested in using artificial intelligence, machine learning or conversational interfaces to push their service/product to the next level.
- Existing Startups who want to use a bot, artificial intelligence or machine learning as a crucial growth factor.
ELEVATE has a strong focus on developing an early-stage-prototype to product-market-fit and there are a few requirements:
- you have at least a first prototype
- your team consists at least of one developer and one marketing-oriented team member (However, if you are a single-founder and wow us, of course we’ll take a chance on you!)
- you don’t have to be an incorporated company yet (during the time of the program the formation of a company is necessary, support will be provided)
- If you are a single-founder and able to wow us, do not hesitate to apply
- it is mandatory that at least one of the founders can attend the bootcamps in Vienna physically
- you can also apply if you are an already established startup that wants to use a bot or associated technologies to grow.
Our Offer
350 hours of real hands-on work by experts
- that's 58 hours of hands-on coding and marketing execution & mentoring per month
- that's about 7 full workdays per month of senior experts working for YOUR business
You get hands-on time from experts:
140 hours of internal & external coaching in the fields of:
- Business Modelling & Product development
- Coding
- Marketing/growth
- Legal advice
- Funding advice
- Financial Planning
- UX
- Lean Canvas
105 hours hands-on growth hacking support by an expert
105 hours hands-on coding time by a senior developer
And resources
€5,000 for travel expenses, first purchases, formation of company etc.
Possibility to use office space @weXelerate, CEE’s biggest startup hub
Support in building your pitch deck, coaching and pitch training
All teams accepted to ELEVATE will be part of FBStart from Facebook, Amazon Activate & f6s Alpha Card
And more
Support by University research teams
Contacts to investors in relevant field
Contacts to corporates in your relevant field
Goodies from sponsors (free tools and credits)
Dates Batch #3
*Dates and Timings are subject to change
KICKOFF Bootcamp: 9. – 12. October 2018
- Validation as a science
- Applying lean
- Hackathon
Bootcamp #1: 13. – 15. November 2018
- Product development
- Growth Hacking / Pirate Metrics / AAARRR
- User Experience & Legal
Bootcamp #2: 12. – 14. December 2018
- Pitch Training & Storytelling
- Financials
- Fundraising
Bootcamp #3: 17. – 18. January 2019
- Pitching & HR
- Testing & Analytics
Bootcamp #4 & Demo Day: 21. – 22. February 2019
- Pitch Training & Fine-Tuning
- Demo Day
The Deal
We take 8% equity in return for all the services above.
This guarantees our interest and commitment to your startup and your success.
If you want to participate, but your circumstances don’t allow for an equity deal, well you can just pay for the program too.
Need more info?
What we covered in Batch #2
23.11.2017
Introduction
Meet the other Startup Teams
Meet your Experts
Business Model & Validation with Valentin Ascherman, INiTS
Work on your Business Model
Evening Event @Business Agency Vienna
24.11.2017
Present your Business Model
Roadmap Set-Up with Experts
Wrap-Up
– 1 Month of Work and execution by your experts –
14.12.2017
Show & Tell – Your progress
Pitch Workshop with Juan Guerra, Skills of Life
One on One Sessions
KEYNOTE 1 Bot Development – Life Cycle Mode, Continuous Integration: Jakob Reiter, TheVentury
KEYNOTE 2 Bot Development – Tipps & Tricks, Learnings: Emanuele Capparelli, Heroes.ai
Evening Event: Facebook AI Masterclass by Facebook Developer Circle Vienna
15.12.2017
Pitching & Roasting
KEYNOTE 1 Machine Learning & NLP: Joey Faulkner, rasa.ai
One on One Sessions
KEYNOTE 2 Strategic Roadmap: Thomas Walbert, INiTS
KEYNOTE 3 Technical Roadmap: Markus Krainz, indoors
One on One Sessions
Wrap-Up
– 1 Month of Work and execution by your experts –
24.01.2018
Show & Tell – Your progress
INTRO: Facebook & Messenger Team: Susann Fischer, Facebook & Markus Brunner, Messenger
One on One Sessions
KEYNOTE 1 Experience Sharing: Prashant Pitti, nearGroup
KEYNOTE 2 Experience Sharing: Greg Leuch, Poncho
One on One Sessions
Evening Event: World of Chatbots – The Grand Meetup
25.01.2018
KEYNOTE 1 Character Development: Greg Leuch, Poncho
KEYNOTE 2 Chatbot UX: Natalie Korotaeva, craftworks
KEYNOTE 3 Storytelling: Juan Guerra, Skills of Life
KEYNOTE 4 Conversational Design: Lauren Golembiewski, voxable
One on One Sessions
Wrap-Up
– 1 Month of Work and execution by your experts –
15.02.2018
Show & Tell – Your progress
Work on your Pitches
Pitching & Roasting
KEYNOTE 1 Analytics: Klemens Zleptnig, Toni.ai
KEYNOTE 2 Analytics: Tuba Tezer, botanalytics
Working Session Analytics
Evening Event
16.02.2018
KEYNOTE 1 Growth Marketing: Adrian Zettl-Singh, TheVentury
KEYNOTE 2 Growth Marketing: Tamir Israely, hackabu
KEYNOTE 3 International Marketing: Nick Stein, Electric Railway
KEYNOTE 4 Growth Hacking: Ben Sufiani, Pirate Skills
One on One Sessions
Wrap-Up
– 1 Month of Work and execution by your experts –
15.03.2018
Show & Tell – Your progress
KEYNOTE 1 Financial Planning: Eva Arh, capital300
Working Session Financials with Eva
Evening Event: Karaoke Night
16.03.2018
Pitching & Roasting
KEYNOTE 1 Financials: Patrick Prokesch, i5invest
Intro Financial KPIs: Laurenz Simbruner, PushVentures
Practice your Investor Pitch with Laurenz Simbruner
Wrap-Up
– 1 Month of Work and execution by your experts –
23.04.2018
Show & Tell – Your progress
KEYNOTE 1 Investment Startup Perspective: Markus Krainz, indoors
KEYNOTE 2 Investment Startup Perspective: Artem Goldman, Visabot
One on One Sessions
Wrap-Up
Evening Event
24.04.2018
KEYNOTE 1: Investment Investor Perspective: Lisa Fassl, AAIA
KEYNOTE 2: Investment Investor Perspective: TBA
Q&A with KEYNOTE-holders
Working Session Investment & Funding with your Mentors
PITCHES: Show us what you learned!
Wrap-Up
– 1 Month of Work and execution by your experts –
22.05.2018
PITCH PREP
Final roasting session
Show & Tell – Your progress
Working Session with your Experts
Dinner
23.05.2018
PREP TIME PITCH
Get your funding: DEMO DAY with VC involvement
Closing Remarks
GRADUATION PARTY! 🙂
– 1 Month of Work and execution by your experts –
You can either chose to further collaborate with TheVentury as your accelerator of choice and be part of a follow-up program with further services, a strong alumni community and a sympathetic ear whenever you need it, or take the gained experiences and a lot of know-how with you to kickstart your bot business on your own!
Applications for Batch #4 open January 17th, 2019.
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