Training Programme – Cohort 2

February to June 2023

The Training Programme is the core content provided under Accelerate İzmir. It delivers 128 hours of training (in both physical and online) over 14 weeks across three important pillars:

At the end of the programme, a Demo Day will allow participants to present their business and product / service to the İzmir ecosystem.

The training is split into two types:

Main (Hands-on) Training is delivered (usually on a Tuesday) with an expert speaker presenting some content, followed by interactive work with the participants.

Preparation Work Companies will be asked to prepare relevant work in advance of these main training sessions so the content can be applied to their own specific circumstances and not be totally theoretical.

Case-based Training is delivered (usually on a Thursday) by 1 or 2 companies who have direct experience of the topic being discussed that week. In Cohort 1 it was clear that hearing from others who have go through the process of scaling and growing was valued by the participants.

The draft programme of the Main (Hands-on) Training is presented below. The draft programme of the Case-based Training will be announced one week before each session. The topics of the Main (Hands-on) Training and the Case-based Training will be complementary. Please note that changes may be required based on expert trainer availability and feedback from the participants.

Pillar  Week  Topic  Content / Subtopics  Aim  
GL  1  Defining the Beachhead Market (in Europe and Turkey) for expansion. External Factor  Listing the options for different countries? Why do you eliminate others? What are the critical success factors for selection? What is the opportunity cost of selecting this specific market(s)?  To teach about Market concentration vs. Market diversification, to understand macro and micro trends affecting the decision, to have awareness for competitors, to utilise available tools for deciding the market(s) – like The World Factbook 
GL  2  Identifying Value Proposition for Local and Global Markets. Internal Factor  Understanding the Value Proposition Concept, Deciding which values are best fitting for the specific market? Deep dive into value prop. Canvas  To understand customers pains and gains as well as the fears, to understand which gap the value the of company / product creates and fills, to take into account VP while finding product-market fit? 
GL  3  Market Research Deep Dive. External Factor  Understand the market size, market trends, competitors, demand estimation, landscape and competitor analysis, define success KPIs  To develop understanding and have hands-on study for the size of the market (TAM, SAM, SOM analysis), Competitor Analysis, PESTEL and SWOTS, Porter 5 Forces, Success KPIs 
P  3  Pitch Practice – 1  Practice for Demo Day pitches  To develop pitching skills in terms of content and stage performance 
GL  4  Price Point and Hiring Strategy. Internal and External Factors  Define Product/Service cost, potential demand in the market, competitor pricing, any regulations limiting the price point. Hiring plan and how to attract talent to the company, the tools to be used for hiring.  To define the price point for product/service, to search for regulations in the market limiting the price point. Preparing the hiring plan for short-mid and long term. 
GL  5  Sales Strategy and Promotion – Internal and External Factors  Understand potential sales channels, methods or market entry for boosting sales. Understand customer outreach strategy. How to best describe yourself to the customers – promotion strategy. What are promotion places (events)?  To identify the sales channels, place of sales. To prepare sales one-pager and sales deck, to update website and social media channels. Defining messaging for your product or services. To Define Brand Mantra and Slogan. List events that can be participated.  
IR  6  Approaching Investors  Difference between Angel/VC/PE/CVC etc. and understand their expectations, When is the best time to approach? How to approach them. Whether you really need investment?   To understand the expectation of the investors, to understand the difference of the types of the investors, to create awareness about managing investor expectations for personal values 
P  6  Pitch Practice – 2  Practice for Demo Day pitches  To develop pitching skills in terms of content and stae performance 
IR  7  Valuation of Your Startup  Understanding the concept of ticket size, term sheet, valuation, pre and post money valuation, emission premium, releasing new stock, cap table and other related concepts. Also understanding the methods used for valuating early-stage startups.     To equip the participating companies with the basic and most important concepts in company valuation, to increase financial literacy about company valuation, to have a basic analysis of a valuation of a company 
  8  Programme Evaluation  Half-term Review  Evaluate the first half of the training and get feedback 
IR  9  Startup Metrics -1   Understanding the key metrics for Net Revenue, Profit Margin, LTV, CAC, NRR/NTD, MRR, ARR. Defining success metrics against each metric for your company.   To understand the basic and most important investment metrics.  
P  9  Pitch Practice – 3  Practice for Demo Day pitches  To develop pitching skills in terms of content and stage performance 
IR  10  Startup Metrics – 2  Understanding the key metrics for Net Revenue, Profit Margin, LTV, CAC, NRR/NTD, MRR, ARR. Defining success metrics against each metric for your company.   To understand the basic and most important investment metrics.  
IR  11  Law in the investment process, Tax Audit  Understanding the importance of Law-related topics in investment process as well as Tax audit and other.   To understand the role and place of law in the investment process. The same for Tax audit (if necessary). Negotiation for contracts and Term Sheet. 
GL  12  Customer, Partner, Event participant Outreach. Presenting Results  Based on the learnings in the first batch for Globalisation. Companies are expected to reach out to customers/partners/event participants.   To reach out X number of customers / partners / investors / event participants. 
IR  13  Investor Outreach   Based on the learnings in the batch for Investment Readiness. Companies are expected to reach out to investors.  To reach out X number of investors (List them and explain why you have selected that investor). You do not have to write to them but if you want you can be in touch. These investors will be invited for ID and DD events as well as to be used in our investor database.  
P  14  Pitch Practice – 4  Drama (posture, gesture, mimicry, voice etc.) training  To develop drama skills for stage performance 
P  14  Pitch Practice – 5  Practice for Demo Day pitches  To develop pitching skills in terms of content and stage performance 

Pillars: GL – Globalisation Pillar; IR – Investment Readiness Pillar; P – Pitching Pillar