HOTBED #BETA
HOTBED #BETA is a free, 4-week programme to help founders nail their beta launch, setting startups up to track and build towards Product Market Fit and gear up for a funding round.
20 June - 15 July
A global programme created by founders, for founders.
6 workshops. Growth tracking. Peer support.
All support is delivered virtually, by experienced founders and/or investors and domain experts.
Why join Hotbed Beta?
Hyper-relevant and actionable content
HotbedBeta is designed specifically to help you get the traction you need to prove product / market fit.
All content is delivered by founders, domain experts and investors.
Build relationships with investors
Meet investors throughout the programme
Pitch at our final Demo Day (subject to selection)
Learn how to leverage the progress you make during HotbedBeta to attract investors
Community
Meet and connect with 100+ founders
Take advantage of our peer groups and buddy system to benefit from the collective knowledge of the cohort.
Accountability
Stay accountable with Week on Week growth updates
Our growth tracking tools help you benchmark your progress against peers, build a relationship with investors, and get selected to pitch to our investor audience at our final Demo Day.
Continued support post-programme
After Hotbed Beta, we'll continue to support you.
You'll get lifetime access to all future programmes and content.
We're constantly working and growing, meaning you can expect to see additional programmes as you scale.
(we're actually creating a content + programme team just for this!)
The content
Week 1: Building for Product Market Fit
20 - 24 June
How do you make sure your product is loved by users? This week's sessions will have you focused on user needs, consumer feedback and research interviews, ensuring your product is something users want to come back to time and time again.
Week 2: Winning users without big budgets
27 - 1 July
So you've got a product that fits a need...Now it's time to focus on acquiring users without big budgets. This week our domain experts will discuss how they used creative marketing to attract new users, whilst keeping the all important CAC low.
Week 3: Engagement trumps acquisition
4 - 8 July
Winning new users is one thing, but keeping them engaged is entirely different. Our workshop and peer sessions will be focused on best practice for minimising churn and increasing the LTV of a user - metrics investors love to see!
Week 4: Leveraging beta traction for investment
11 - 15 July
Now you've got your beta data, how do you use it to build investor trust? This week we'll invite along investors to tell you what they want to see from your beta metrics, and how to craft a investment-friendly, compelling narrative.
Sign up now.
Register in 5 minutes.
Speakers
Tugce Bulut
Founder, Streetbees
Tugce will share how Streetbess won over corporates like Unilever, Vodafone, Lidl and Nespresso as a startup.
Richard Howard
Angel + AWS for Startups
Richard will be sharing the best way to turn acquired users into engaged users + providing live pitch deck feedback.
Anthony Rose
Founder, SeedLegals
Anthony will be sharing what investors look for when reviewing pitch decks when it comes to traction + beta tests.
Seb Aspland
Founder, Product Lead & CTO
Seb will share top tips on building a product users love, prioritisation, customer experience & building for stickiness.
Karina Mazur
Investment Associate, Seedrs
Karina will share tips on building fans out of users, and the power of the crowd when it comes to proving traction.
Stephen Millard
Operations Partner, Notion Capital, Co-Founder, Included VC
Stephen will share the investor perspective on how to prove you've built a product that users love.
Roxane Sanguinetti
Angel & Head of Strategy at GHCO
Live pitch to Alma Angel Roxane for live feedback on how to win over angels with your beta traction.
Kirsten Gohl
Investor, Velocity Capital
Kirsten will be providing live pitch deck feedback when you're half way through the programme to keep you on track.
More speakers to be announced shortly.
Who is this programme for?
Hotbed Beta is the right programme to join if...
You're launching your Beta before August 2022
You're planning to launch before the programme ends.
You're either currently fundraising or will be raising within the next six months.
You want advice on how to leverage the metrics from your beta to help you find investors.
You're busy and need quick and accessible support./
You're just finishing your Beta
You want to learn how to craft a compelling narrative w/your Beta metrics to attract investors
You need to decide how to iterate your product, based on the results of your Beta
You're now deciding your go-to-market plan to launch to the public
You're preparing for your Beta launch
You won't be running a live Beta during the programme, but you want to know what to expect for when you launch
Pricing: Free
Sign up & build with us.
RIGHTS TO INVESTS
We want to back the founders in our community and are working to be able to financially support startups in the near future.
To participate in Hotbed Beta, founders are required to offer us an equity warrant to give Hotbed the right (but not the obligation) to subscribe in cash for shares at the same time you obtain investment in any future round, on the terms set out below.
No investment is guaranteed.Â
TL DR; We'd like the ability to back you with capital, if and when it's the best fit.Â
RAISING < £500K = We can invest up to £50k with a 10% discount*.
RAISING < £750K = We can invest up to £75k with a 10% discount*.
RAISING > £750K = We can invest up to £90k with a 10% discount*.
(The equity warrant shall apply for a period of 24 months commencing from the Hotbed Beta programme end date.)
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*this is a discount to the subscription price paid by your investors in a particular investment round.
TESTIMONIALS
"Of all the companies, VC's, advisors and mentors we have worked with on our journey growing our startup, [this] has been the most useful, inspirational, educational and provided the most relevant support. This is the most important community we've been privileged enough to be a part of!"
-Tersha Willis
founder of terrible*
'''[This] enabled us to benchmark growth in a community of startups. Alongside investors being involved, they helped us accelerate our transformation from idea into a business where healthy internal competition was a great motivator... and the dialogue with their ecosystem contributed to achieving several innovation awards and thereby financing. They're fantastic!"
-Omair Ahmed
founder of Neurometry
Time Requirement
20 June - 15 July
Monday's:
Thursday's:
11:00 - 12:00
11:00 - 12:00
Our Partners
Our partners make our programmes possible.
SeedLegals
Why we <3 SeedLegals: Founders in our community love SeedLegals for their knowledgable customer service team who is on-call even on the weekends. Most importantly, everything is incredibly affordable (perfect for early stage startups)!
Amazing for: Legal support of funding rounds, securing you SEIS/EIS advanced assurance, key employee documents, share option schemes, and much, much more...
Amazon Web Services
Why we <3 AWS: AWS offers founders in our community £10,000 worth of free credits. Plus, their team gets the challenges that come with building a startup and go the extra mile to offer support.
Amazing for: Building, iterating and scaling your product.