Applications open for Founder Catalyst™ Programme – New Zealand

Deadline: 31 August 2023

Take your startup to the next level. Founder Catalyst™ will help you create and execute strategy, hold yourself accountable to your own goals, and become the best founder you can be.

The Founder Catalyst™ programme is designed to help you gain the skills that founders need to sustain the decade-long journey of running through walls and building a globally successful company.

Founder Catalyst is made possible by a partnership between Ministry of Awesome, Ara Institute of Canterbury (now part of Te Pūkenga), and ChristchurchNZ with sponsorship from Callaghan Innovation and support from many local, regional, and national organisations.

Founder Catalyst™ is a founder-first capability-building programme focussed on three broad areas: Market, Globalisation, and Fundraising.

Why You Should Apply

Prioritise outcomes to move quickly
- Keep focused and results-oriented with a personalised plan that aligns their resources to your startup’s specific needs.
Build your core competencies
- Participate in workshops, peer mentoring, and expert coaching designed to strengthen capabilities as a founder.
Create a culturally intelligent business
- Learn to build a human-centred, meaningful company culture that includes the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Get strategic help with domain expertise
- Tap into the knowledge and experience of their global Startup Mentor network as you navigate your goals and challenges.
Unlock partner resources & benefits
- Get free and discounted resources on software products and platforms as well as legal, financial, and advisory professional services.
Maximise your chances to fund your venture
- Get frequent exposure to leading VC and angel investors that help you build a compelling story to pitch for your next round of funding.

Criteria of Participate

The criteria for a company to be considered for eventual participation is listed below:

Has ambition to solve a globally relevant problem with a globally relevant solution
Is unafraid of and willing to experience failure many times as a path to eventual success
Is committed to working on the problem for the better part of ten years
Has a founding team who possesses the technical or “hard” skills to tackle this particular problem
Has a founding team who will (a) be open to learning; (b) collaborate with their cohort, MoA, and the Startup Mentors; (c) hold themselves accountable to goals, metrics, and the programme schedule and requirements; (d) strive for world-class excellence
Has a founding team that will agree to MoA’s Code of Conduct
Has an innovative, scalable solution and/or business model
Has potential for solution to be scalable on a global stage
Has a working minimum viable product (MVP)
Has early signs of market validation in at least one market
Has a draft plan of expanding into a second market
Preferably has at least two founding team members with at least one full-time
Preferably has not raised more than NZ$1M
Preferably has not achieved more than NZ$500k in annual revenue.