1. Rock Accelerator Application TEMPLATE
Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship
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2. Instructions (Delete this slide before submitting)
Review the Rock Accelerator Rubric (available on website) to understand the scoring criteria and weighting.
Complete the enclosed slides to the best of your ability. Be sure to keep a slide for each section and maintain the order. You can make the slides your own.
Slides contain examples of what you might be testing for and how you might plan to test. Please replace with your specific tests/plans and funding needs.
Please be aware that teams who have already raised/receive $100,000 (US or equivalent) or more in funding are eligible for the accelerator, but ineligible for Rock Accelerator funding.
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3. Application Deck
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4. Title Slide: Startup Name
Team Lead Name

5. Value Proposition Template
For [target customer segments] who must [problem to be solved], our product is a new [category name] that provides [solution to the problem]. Unlike [current solutions], we offer [key differentiating factor].
Identifies validation points for startup
Sets the target customer
Is your key statement to generate interest by investors and employees
Keeps you focused on the solution to a problem.
Isolates the problem you are trying to solve
Outlines the unique solution you have
Forms the basis for your customer value proposition

6. Who is your target customer(s)?
What are their personas?
How do they make decisions?
Is there more than 1 decision maker?
Are there key influencers?
What partnerships will be needed, if any?
Is there a two-sided platform and if so which side is most important?

7. Why is this a problem? How is the customer solving it now?
What are the switching costs or hurdles to switching?

8. How big of a problem is this?
Total Addressable Market (TAM)
Serviceable Addressable Market
(SAM)
Target Market
This is the market you will address initially

9. What key benefit do you offer your target customer and how?
Saves time?
Saves costs?
Access?
Convenience?

10. How are you different?

11. What are your competitive advantagesIP
Industry Expert
Team
First Mover Advantage

12. How will you make money?
Describe Business Model

13. Why now?
New technology
Regulatory changes
Cost declines
Demand

14. Why You? Introduce us to your team
What do you uniquely bring to the ventures?
Skills
Experience
Passion- What was your aha moment?
What are the different skill sets of the founders and who will do what?

15. Team- Please provide all team members, their critical expertise, and their role in the venture
Company Name:
Team Member
Affiliation (list school & yr or org/company)
Role
addresses
Cell phone #

16. Assumptions/Hypotheses
Key Questions/Tests to Validate Value Proposition/Business Model

17. Validated Learning to Date (if applicable)
Describe the research you have done to validate parts of your business model.
Please include testing and learning completed.

18. Funds raised/won
Please list all funding raised to date and/or contests won
Funding Type
Amount
Total

19. Funding needs
On the next several slides please list what you plan to validate (including metrics behind assumptions (slide contains examples of what you might be doing).
Include how you will test these assumptions and the estimated cost of any tests, product builds or mvp.
On the last slide please include any other activities not associated with validating assumptions and why they are critical to fund right now.

20. Total Funding Requested
Mention the total estimated cost of any tests, product builds or mvp.
Test Plans
Cost
(all anticipated costs for a test plan)
Test Plan 1 $
Test Plan 2
Test Plan3
Total

21. Test Plans- Use 1 slide per plan
Assumption- Target market is x, sales cycle is y, key features are a,b,c, packaging, sales cycle time, willingness to switch, marketing messages, etc
How will you test it? (survey, kickstarter campaign, product samples, custoemr interviews, buy it now button, google campaign etc)
Cost- Please list all anticipated costs
Metrics (be specific) – 5% click through, 25% buy it now,3-4 Letters of intent, 1 beta etc
Timing- Estimate how long will this take to complete

22. Test Plans- Use 1 slide per test
Assumption-
How will you test it?
Cost-
Metrics (be specific)
Timing to complete

23. Test Plans- Use 1 slide per test
Assumption-
How will you test it?
Cost-
Metrics (be specific)
Timing to complete

24. Test Plans- Use 1 slide per test
Assumption-
How will you test it?
Cost-
Metrics (be specific)
Timing to complete