Audacious Accelerator Program Begins with Six-Month 'Gamified' Startup Competition Rewarding Sales Numbers over Pitching Skills
EDINBURGH, UK, May 26, 2022Accelerator announced today its 48-hour Online Hackathon opens at 5pm on Friday, May 27 2022, as preparation for its £10,000 Startup Race, which begins June 14, 2022.
More than 350 fast-growth entrepreneurs have so far registered for the Pre-Hackathon programme on Leanstack, and this enables them to learn startup secrets from Ash Maurya and check out the other participants in order to find potential CoFounders. The online hackathon will enable them to build their team (if necessary) and create a Minimum Revenue Product (MVP) to win the following cash prizes: 1st - £2,333, 2nd - £12,667 & 3rd - £1,000. These funds can then be used to prime their growth hacking efforts in order to go on and win the £10,000 cash prize.
"This Hackathon is the beginning of something exciting for both The Startup Race brand, and the UK entrepreneurship community," said James Shoemark, a veteran in the UK startup space, and the co-founder of The Startup Race. "The old standard, known as a 'Pony Pitch Parade,' is obsolete and doesn't necessarily prove that a startup is worthy of investment. We are disrupting this model for the benefit of all stakeholders by rewarding the behaviour we want to encourage: entrepreneurs generating revenue."
The Hackathon is the preamble to a meritorious process for startups to achieve scalability. The method, first developed by Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Steve Blank in 2013, is both attractive to Angel Investors and startups with Problem/Solution Fit and go-to-market strategy. Throughout the £10,000 Startup Race, a number of Investors and high net-worth Individuals will be able to observe how the teams perform over the 6-months, and be introduced to those they may be interested in supporting as the competition wraps up at the end of the year.
Upon entry to the pre-Hackathon programme, participants will gain access to the world's best leanstart startup resources in order to validate their thinking, develop their business model and personal profile in order to attract co-founders. Other world-class resources that will be provided for free on Leanstack include the Foundations and Business Model Design Playbooks and Lean Canvas & Traction Roadmap tools. The £10,000 Startup Race process will also help entrepreneurs incorporate their UK company and open a UK business bank account to enable them to start generating sales as soon as the competition starts.
The 48-hour Hackathon will run 27-29 May 2022, and is designed to establish the creation of startup teams by giving entrepreneurs an opportunity to demo their business model to the other Hackathon participants and either recruit them to join their team or forgo their idea and join somebody else's team. There will be 1st, 2nd & 3rd prizes for the best MRP Demo. The Startup Teams will then have two weeks until June 14th to create a Minimum Revenue Product (MRP) for the commencement of the £10,000 Startup Race. The competitors will also be given free access to LivePlan, the world's fastest and easiest way to write a business plan, created by Palo Alto Entrepreneur, Tim Berry. Racers will be benchmarked based on the Prime Metric of Revenue to rank top performers each week. Only the Premier League will be made public but all Racers will be able to access a private dashboard that reveals their current position and suggestions on how they could improve their ranking.
"This highly competitive opportunity allows for entrepreneurs to learn while doing, and then succeed with true proof of what they've created," said Michael Clouser, co-founder and CEO of The Startup Race. "While the competition is short, it's focused and concentrated, and will culminate with data that will benefit both entrepreneurs and investors as they enter the next chapter of their startups growth, possibly together."
The Startup Race idea began in 2014 when Mr. Shoemark was asked by a young entrepreneur for advice during a League of Entrepreneurs Meetup event: "Could the startup process be gamified?" Mr. Shoemark decided that a business competition using the Pirate Metrics (AARRR as popularised by Dave McLure) could be the answer. He soon teamed up with Michael Clouser, a former Silicon Valley VC and other Edinburgh based Entrepreneurs and Investors to partner with him on this new venture in order to support Fast Growth startups in the UK and around the world.
Winners of The Startup Race will be announced during a ceremony in the Winter of 2022. The 10,000 prize is non-dilutive and will be provided in the form of a cash grant from the Startup Race to the winning team.
For more information on The Startup Race, please visit: WWW.TheStartupRace.com.
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ABOUT THE STARTUP RACE
The Startup Race, based in the UK, is a hackathon and accelerator dedicated to proving that sales and revenue are the true benchmark of a successful startup, rather than the initial pitch. The event and company itself is the product of a young entrepreneur asking Mr. James Shoemark in 2014, how the startup process could be gamified. Shoemark decided that a business competition using the Pirate Metrics
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Attachments
- The Startup Race Launches Hackathon to Kick-Off its 2022 £10,000 UK Startup Race (https://ml.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/2863eb11-1cc8-42ae-ba45-d3db5a9c709e)
- The Startup Race Launches Hackathon to Kick-Off its 2022 £10,000 UK Startup Race (https://ml.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/fb751a79-87e9-4068-bde9-204d311e9f54)
