Good question.
We're building Hotbed to be the place the best founders worldwide come to build their startups.
We don't want just the best founders who can afford it, we just want brilliant, talented people building something interesting and important.
We're exceptionally fortunate to have incredible partners who make it possible for us to provide Hotbed to founders for free. Read more about how our partnerships work below.
We have additional plans to monetise our startup support, but that's at least 12 months out. And regardless, we'll still always have free support available and easy ways to supplement costs to ensure we stay aligned with our mission.
Please note, we do require startups to offer us the right to invest in a later round. More info on this below :)
We take partnerships incredibly seriously and would never partner with a company we do not personally use and love. In fact, we regularly turn down paid partnerships where the products just aren't at the standard that we feel comfortable introducing to our community, or charge too high of fees to founders.
Our partners are really hands on, meaning you can always access them when you have questions about their products or need a bit of help.
If you have any questions or would like to learn more about our partners, reach out to us at m @ thehotbed.co
Yes! Spice Startups is our sister company.
If you've participated in programmes at with Spice, you'll have a general idea of the types of programmes to expect.
You can read more about Spice here.
Yes! More info will be provided in the coming weeks.
All workshops are led by experienced founders, domain experts and/or investors, and facilitated by members of the Hotbed Team. Often times, they are founders turned angels or VCs.
Yes. The Hotbed Team is based in London, and we may have an informal meetup from time to time, or a final event based in London, but all content is delivered virtually.
Hotbed is *free* for founders. We do not operate like a traditional accelerator (for a variety of reasons).
Over the past 18 months, we’ve worked with 1200+ founders and are now making arrangements to be able to back founders with capital as well.
Terms are outlined on the signup form. The signup form is not a legally binding agreement, we just want to make you aware. We'll send you additional information after you register, and you'll have the opportunity to opt-out.
Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: You'll miss out on the ability to ask your specific questions, and connect with fellow founders. From our experience, a significant amount of the value comes from this part, so please do your best to join in live.
You'll meet with a small group of peers to go over your wins and challenges in the week. We follow a structured format, which you'll learn more about during onboarding.
Yes. You'll receive directions on how your co-founder can sign up after you register.
Startups in our cohorts tend to be tech companies, both B2B and B2C. That said, we do have consumer brands, and have a number of DeepTech startups.
Yes, this programme is designed exactly for founders who are busy launching their growing and raising :) The time requirement is typically around 2 hrs per week, and sessions are recorded so if you need to miss the occasional workshop for a meeting, that's manageable.
Yes. You'll learn how the ins and outs of termsheets, what investor rights are normal, what isn't, how to handle valuation discussions, etc.
Each week, we'll ask you to report what progress you made across a few different categories. This is to make sure you're on track, and help you stay focused and accountable. Your Growth Tracking report should take less than 5 minutes each week.
We use the information you report for investor:founder intros at the end of the programme (where relevant) - you can opt out of the investor: founder intros if it's not right for you.
Yes. Like we said, we're building Hotbed to be the number one place founders worldwide go to build their startup, so having international founders is key! We even adjusted the time of the sessions for this cohort to accommodate international startups.
Please be sure to note this in your application. As we are expanding, we're looking at where will be the next home for our Hotbed team as we grow, so we want to know where members of our community are.
There are a few bits of content that may not be relevant to you (legal and accounting principles) but this should be quite minimal.
You choose what information you share during the peer-to-peer sessions so just refrain from sharing sensitive information if this is a concern of your's. That said, we've never had any issues with this before.
Of course. The programme is not a heavy time commitment, meaning it won't distract you from what you need to get done in order to grow your company.
The content is geared towards startups who are about to start raising their pre-seed or seed round.
We'll be running two "pathways" during the programme, based on what stage you're at to ensure you're with a group of highly relevant peers. All startups will attend the same sessions, but you'll meet with your specific group during the peer breakoff sessions.
Selection is based on the members in Path X who report the most growth in the Weekly Updates.