Empowering Startups with Live Programming

Across the pond, Perdie Alder and Margaret Anne Coyle, co-founders of Hotbed, work with startup founders from around the world to facilitate growth and networking. To get straight to the point, their website calls Hotbed a founder's "new BFF." The Zendesk for Startups team's very own BFF (technical title: Partner Manager) Jeremy Ambrose supports Hotbed startups with our Zendesk partnership to offer our CX tools to Hotbed companies.?

With a three part plan of live programming, developing a global ecosystem, and growth accountability, Perdie and Margaret Anne provide 100+ investor connections to 2,000+ pre-seed/seed founders, 75% of whom are underrepresented. Hotbed focuses their efforts on four-to-eight week programs for founders to pitch, connect, and share their learnings. Their upcoming Hotbed SaaS program begins in June, and boasts nine speakers from the VC community as well as current co-founders and founders, and the opportunity to join an IRL Demo Day in London at the end of the six weeks.

Read on to learn more about how these multi-week programs are game changers not only for a startup’s business, but also for how founders approach raising money and how they develop their confidence in this space.

?? Our Conversation with Perdie and Margaret Anne:

Hi Hotbed! Let’s start off with a little bit of background about your organization, the size of your community, and your role within the organization.?

Hotbed is the place where ambitious startups go to grow. We’re a virtual accelerator for founders worldwide and since our launch in May 2022, we’ve supported 400+ fundraising pre-seed and seed stage startups via three programmes. We also host events throughout the year. Our programmes provide six-to-ten weeks of support for pre-seed and seed stage founders as they prepare for and progress through their funding round. By the end of the programme, founders have learned first hand from 20 or so "been there, done that" founders, targeted investors, and industry experts.?

Founders are then encouraged to spend time outside workshops speaking to their target users, so they’re focused on building towards product-market fit. To keep founders accountable, they identify a North Star Metric (i.e. revenue, daily active users, or acquisition), and they report on the growth of this metric weekly. The startups that demonstrate the most growth then go on to pitch at our Demo Day and Investor Intro events.?

Myself ( Perdie Alder ) and M Coyle are the co-founders of Hotbed, and alongside building out programmes and curating the right speakers, we also mentor founders and provide additional support and introductions.

Underrepresented founders in particular have a propensity for under-selling themselves, which historically has translated to them raising less money, or setting lower valuations.

With Hotbed’s focus on live programming for founders, what have been some successful elements of previous programs that you’ve hosted, and what are some aspects of your events that you’re looking to enhance as you continue to run these quarterly engagements?

The three highlights we always get from founders are,

1. The daily OKR discipline
2. The quality and transparency of our speakers
3. The community within the cohort

Part of what we do at Hotbed is help founders understand more about the ecosystem they’re operating in, so they know where to position themselves to have the strongest chance of success. We do this by interviewing successful founders, investors, and domain experts about the importance of growth metrics, what to measure, and best practice for achieving growth targets.

Underrepresented founders in particular have a propensity for under-selling themselves, which historically has translated to them raising less money, or setting lower valuations. We provide data and support to founders so they can be more confident in where their strengths are, and how they’re positioned against peers.?

As we continue running programmes, we’re going to focus even more on making our benchmark growth data available to cohort members to keep them on track.

You have a great breakdown of your upcoming six-week Hotbed SaaS program that starts at the beginning of June on your website. With a packed schedule, opportunities to meet with founders and investors, access to resources, and then your IRL Demo Day, what, in your opinion, is a learning that you’d hope SaaS startup founders will take away from their time spent with Hotbed??

During our Hotbed SaaS programme, we’re honing in on the specifics of growth and fundraising for SaaS startups.?

With SaaS business models, customers are long-term stakeholders who play a critical role in growth. Proving you’ve got the customer experience right will make the difference between being ‘investable’ or not. The learnings founders will walk away with include

1. How to win customers, which will come down to the right pricing, go-to-market and sales strategies
2. How to get customers to stay, pay, and refer
3. What metrics startups should be measuring to prove customer engagement to investors.

Applications are still open, and founders can check out the programme and join here.

We know founders’ most important resource is time, and we're focused on ensuring every minute of the programme will offer a high ROI for members.

The biggest regret we hear from founders is ‘I wish I would have volunteered to pitch’.

What advice would you give a SaaS founder to ensure that they get the most out of their six weeks?

The advice we give to all founders who join our programmes is

1. Come prepared with questions. We bring together incredible speakers, and they don’t simply lead workshops to a passive audience. We encourage all founders to be active contributors to sessions.
2. Seize the opportunity to pitch. We bring in relevant investors weekly, and we always have opportunities for founders to pitch. The biggest regret we hear from founders is ‘I wish I would have volunteered to pitch’.
3. Be ready to speak to users. The programme is as much about action as it is about learning. Sessions are there to inspire founders, and give them a level of understanding of what to focus on, and the rest is down to them. We ask founders to speak to users every week and report on their learnings from these conversations.

Founders in our cohort are incredibly supportive of each other, and we’ve seen many startups use each other’s services, offer introductions to their personal networks and go above and beyond when a founder asks for help.

After running three programs previously and having a total of now 400 program alumni, can you speak to your community efforts and how you continue connecting with founders from across the world? Do you see a solid rate of alums maintaining their relationship with Hotbed after finishing a program?

We often hear from founders that they join the programme for the content and access to investors, then stay for the community. Founders in our cohort are incredibly supportive of each other, and we’ve seen many startups use each other’s services, offer introductions to their personal networks and go above and beyond when a founder asks for help. We love this unique part of Hotbed, and it’s really a testament to the types of people who join our community.

Our alumni are especially important as we make arrangements to support founders financially. All of our cohort members sign a Warrant that gives us an option to invest in them in the future, and we’ve invested in 2 community members so far. Due to this relationship, founders stay in close contact with us, sending us monthly updates on their growth, attending our in-person summits, joining our ad hoc investor pitch events, and sometimes joining a second or third programme of ours. We also keep cohort WhatsApp groups open indefinitely, which founders use almost daily to ask the advice of peers or our team.

Beyond Hotbed SaaS and Demo Days, what other Hotbed initiatives are you looking forward to either during this quarter or into the summer??

Our focus alongside running quarterly cohorts is making support available for founders outside of live programmes.?

We’re building a productised version of our programme offering, where founders can track and benchmark their growth to unlock investment, whilst accessing content designed to support them on a personal learning track amongst a community of fellow founders who they can chat to 1:1 or via forums and discussion boards.?

We’re also adding more content onto our YouTube channel, and have recently launched shorts so founders can get 60 second tips from investors including Playfair , Balderton Capital , TriplePoint Capital and founders including Mark Gainey (founder, Strava ), Rand Fishkin (founder, SparkToro ) and Anthony Rose (founder, SeedLegals ).??

?? Note from Zendesk : If you want to partner with Zendesk for Startups to offer startups in your community Zendesk perks and benefits, please sign-up here.