Incubator Application
Your next venture developed from idea to incorporation, in an intensive, 12 week, media and technology curriculum, experienced mentor program designed with you in mind. MediaTech Ventures operates unique programs that work with and teach founders to help you get an idea to traction and funding at the pre-seed stage. As a result, we approach admissions very differently than other startup organizations.
In a program far more advanced than many educational, bootcamp, workshop, or free programs run by governments and universities, and preceding an Accelerator, what you are getting involved with here is a curriculum distinctly designed to teach you how startups validate, operate, and succeed so that your time spent is worthwhile as you prepare to seek funding and develop a startup team.
We believe you and your team are the most important variables in the success or failure of your startup. We focus on you more than the idea in our admissions process as our expectation is that you are seeking to learn, driven to work hard, motivated to succeed, and are both receptive to feedback and willing to pivot to make it work.
An Accelerator is different?
We’re here to teach you it takes to be a successful founder while validated what you’re doing as a startup or for a new market. This is work to be done before something like an Accelerator, which is where we’ll help you get next, when we’ve developed with you that it’s clear you have a company to build and opportunity that might be worth funding.
Most programs focus on your product, company, or traction, our programs seek the people and teams with determination, skills, experience, and problem-solving skills to adapt and build a great company.
Who Should Apply
MediaTech Ventures designed for founders and teams at the pre-seed stage. You might be:
- An aspiring founder still employed full-time
- A solo-founder or already working with an early team
- Founders of an established company (generally only a few years old; before significant funding or revenue)
- Open to building an enduring business in a number of different ways
We work tech or tech-enabled businesses – those that leverage and can scale through technology. In addition to traditional “tech” businesses (software, hardware, musictech, etc), this includes businesses selling physical products or services dependent on technology to work in new ways.
Service-related businesses (ex. a marketing consultancy or web development shop) are not a good fit for our program.
Who Should Not Apply?
- If your company has significant funding, traction, or revenue, then you are probably past when our work is appropriate. We recommend join our network as your work is still very relevant to the community and investors here, and that you reach out to us to consider being a mentor.
- If you are building a service-related business, like a marketing agency
- If you are not committed and ready to learn, listen, pivot, and perform the hard work required to build an enduring company
Anxious to get started? Scroll down to the form below (or click here and we’ll take you to it) and take the few minutes it takes to apply. If you’d like to learn more or get some of the frequently asked questions answered, let’s keep going.
Application Review Process
All applications are reviewed by a program director so you will not receive an immediate answer. Program directors are based throughout the world and are typically able to provide a reply via email within a week (this timeframe will be slightly longer considering holidays or major startup conferences and events where we might be needed).
Applications are constantly accepted, and admissions are reviewed on rolling-basis.
What are the next steps if accepted?
Can I improve my application?
Since we’re seeking entrepreneurially minded, media-oriented people, here are some opportunities we’d think you already have in mind:
- Have a great profile on our network
- Connect with people on the team on LinkedIn
- Tag us on social media with a post or update about your startup
You then have the opportunity to enroll on the site where you will be added to our incubator platform where classes will operate concurrently with the scheduled class. To enroll in the program, you will need to:
- Agree to the Terms of Service
- Pay the Entrance Fee
- Acknowledge that the program fee includes a warrant allocation we’ll take care of later in the program
The Entrance Fee covers the cost of operating the sessions and administering the program. Once accepted into the program, should you decide to drop out, you are always welcome to join another cohort and class in the future when you are ready to keep up or if you have a different venture in mind.
What are warrants?
Warrants provide holders the right to purchase shares at a pre-arranged price and, upon exercise, give the holder stock in the company. This is an agreement, like a contract, to make that transaction in the future, effectively paying the service provider (in this case, us) upon your success, without you allocating equity and a shareholder position at this time. Warrants are a useful tool for coordinating incentives between a startup and its strategic partners; hence our use of them.
We’ll teach you about warrants and you’ll sign an agreement allocating 4% in warrants to MediaTech Ventures, roughly halfway through the program after you’ve had a chance to be comfortable with them and what it means to compensate us for our work in this way.
Can Co-Founders Enroll in the program?
We encourage that your entire founding team participate in the program; feel free to decide to send one Co-Founder, multiple Co-Founders, or all Co-Founders to participate in the program. Keep in mind, we’re here to teach founders how to build successful companies and that successful or failure is a matter of the team – we believe you should have the same foundational skills, consistent messaging, and shared understanding of all that you need to do.
