Founder’s Journey
Welcome to the trail.
What do you need to scale your company to the next level?
Scaling calls for multi-faceted support. You may have built your business on your own till now, or have come from an incubator or an accelerator. We equip you for the next steps, provide expert guides for the journey, and give you plenty of time to reach the summit.
We offer you a long runway with a low burn rate. The Winston Starts programs allows for up to 42 months of membership based on the business progression against the tiered criteria at each stage.
Explore
Pre-Basecamp
introduction
Basecamp
Customer
validation
Ascent
Market
validation
Summit
Market
growth
Explore
Duration: 8 Weeks
Explorer companies are paired with an expert mentor and a peer guide from our resident startup cohort. You will have access to all of our program amenities ranging from office space and event attendance to mentorship and coaching. Upon completion, recommendations will be made by both the mentor and peer guide for official admittance into one of our full programs.
Basecamp
Duration: 12–18 Months
Basecamp is for earlier stage companies still refining their value proposition and still in the process of proving customer validation as well as companies with early customer validation that need to develop the core processes necessary to scale. The vast majority of companies will come into Winston Starts’ Basecamp program.
In Basecamp we will assist you in achieving clear customer validation for your product/service, implementing basic accounting and financial reporting systems, augmenting your team, developing competencies in essential functions and preparing you to pitch to potential investors.
Ascent
Duration: 12–18 Months
Ascent is for companies that have clearly demonstrated customer validation, have commenced meaningful, repeatable, and growing revenue, and are well on their way to establishing the processes, infrastructure, and team to be venture capital ready.
During Accent, you’ll work with mentors who understand your scaling needs and who will apply their extensive experience to help you be successful.
Summit
Duration: 12–18 Months
The Summit stage is for rapidly growing, sophisticated companies with fully-realized business models and financials. They have leadership maturity (generally including a board of directors), reliable revenue streams and are ready to get in front of serious investors.
Our Summit program delivers a tailored program customized to your specific development needs. We help you become financially, operationally and organizationally ready to move from market validation to market growth and expansion
