A programme like Launchpad is focused on early stage startups, taking them from MVP (minimum viable product) to the next stages of growth. Either by gaining your first paying customers, getting to your next 100 customers, getting investors and making your business more scalable.

What is the difference between an incubator and Launchpad?
Incubators aren’t usually designed to rapidly boost growth. Instead, incubators nurture and mentor startups over longer periods of time – over a year.

Each cohort takes place over a 12-week period.

How we meet:
The Kick-off day, Expert days, Investor Network day and Demo day are physical events in Amsterdam.

These days are scheduled as bi-weekly meeting days on Thursday (morning till afternoon unless indicated otherwise).

All other sessions will be done through video conferencing calls.

Program
For the duration of 12 - weeks we will support you hands-on to develop your early stage business into a viable and scalable business.

Ongoing Support
After the 12-weeks, we continue to provide support and resources for founders who went through our program (investor negotiations, go to market execution, team building etc).

If you recognise yourself in (most) of the below, you should definitely consider applying for the program:

• It is important that you are currently working on your startup preferably full-time but at least 30+ hours a week.

• You are building a solution with a more-than-profit model, looking to create positive social or environmental returns.

• You are experienced or very knowledgeable on your subject matter/ industry.

• You can further develop your product or service yourself or have the right team at hand.

Criteria
+ Able to physically join Live days in Amsterdam
+ Already building or operating your startup with a clear proposition
+ Have a more-than-profit focus
+ Ideally with early validation
+ Some traction (sales, pilots, waiting list)
+ A unique founder journey (because of your why, where you come from or your capabilities)
+ If you have a team, real diversity matters

Exploration Stage: Founders who are trying to develop an idea for a business but are not sure which one.

Non-Scale: Founders who are not interested in scaling their business.

Non-Profit: We love non-profits! However, we are not the best resource to serve this type of organisation at this time.

Yes, absolutely! Though we understand not every startup will be at the same stage. Luckily we are a founder focused programme meaning that we will adjust the topics to work on with each founder individually to make sure you get the most out of the programme.

Click here to view the topics we can cover.

You will receive a more detailed overview once you are admitted into the program.

We aim to make the program as practical as possible for you, making sure you can immediately implement and use the resources and knowledge gained.

That said, this is an intensive, fast paced program intended to equip you for growth in a short period of time.

Between expert days, mentoring sessions, peer sessions & business development assignments you are looking at approximately 8-10 hours per week.

We are accepting and admitting founders on a rolling basis throughout August and September. The sooner you apply, the sooner you hear back from us.

However, everyone should learn if they got in latest by September 29th, 2023.

Though we currently do not invest capital into the startups in our co-hort ourselves we do intend to do this in the near future as we set up our fund.

In the mean time, we make it a point to equip and support our founders in securing capital from external investors such as Regional Development Agencies, private investors and public resources.

No, participation is free of charge.

We do however work with a kickback agreement.

You will be asked for a one-time kickback fee of 5K only when you reach 250K in annual revenue and a fee of 20K only when you reach 1M in annual revenue.

We believe that participating in the Launchpad programme will set you up on a strong trajectory towards sales & revenue which is why we don’t charge upfront, but only after you reach these revenue milestones.

Another way to show that We are confident that our founders will do well and see the returns of their time investment multi-fold!

We’re happy to answer!

Shoot us a message at info@dnnl.org