Customer discovery: a process of market validation whereby the participant creates a customer need hypothesis and identifies and interviews potential customers to validate or invalidate that hypotheses. Ventures that identify market need are likely to create deeper, lasting impact and survive long-term.

How the programme works?

Techcelerate provides participants with the training and resources to conduct customer discovery and market validation on their idea. It’s broken up into two stages.

Stage 1 (1 month)

Participants will be trained in entrepreneurial basics through a bootcamp,and online learning in an intensive first stage. This stage is all about learning and laying the foundations for participants to carry out targeted customer discovery in the second stage.

They’ll be expected to come up with a few deliverables, including a business model canvas, assumptions to test and a budget for customer discovery. Once all the required material is submitted, participants will then be asked to present to a panel, who will score all participants. Ten to fifteen of them will be eligible for funding as well as further support and move onto stage 2.  

Stage 2 (2 months)

The second stage will allow participants more freedom to explore their chosen market and put their learnings into practice, with support from an experienced business coach, regular check-ins with their cohort, and regular feedback sessions with a panel of experts culminating in a showcase event of your ventures to a live audience.  

Techcelerate programme features

Online Learning Experience  

Together with an online learning specialist, we developed a set of modules which will take you through the basics of finding customers, speaking to those customers and designing business experiments. 

The online modules mean that you can fit your learning and work on customer discovery around your work and take it at your own pace 

Funding 

Participants who progress to the second stage of the programme will be awarded funding to conduct customer discovery and develop their venture. They will need to have budgeted this in the first stage of the programme.  

Access to the Imperial College London ecosystem 

As part of the programme, participants are given access to Imperial Enterprise Lab’s Experts-in-Residence to provide domain-specific advice tailored to their journey. Post-programme, they gain access to other later stage entrepreneurship programmes at the Enterprise Lab.  

The Techcelerate team also work closely with our colleagues in the Enterprise Division to support commercialisation and spinning out. The team also continues to put forward alumni of the programme for new opportunities as they develop.  

Mentoring, coaching and feedback 

Throughout the programme participants will have access to experienced external coaches and industry professionals through regular check-ins.  

Schedule/timeline

Techcelerate runs over a four-month period. The programme is split into two main parts, stage 1 and stage 2, with a break in between to give participants the opportunity to balance their lab or course work with programme commitments. 

While we don’t expect that participants will work full-time on the programme, they will receive the most value when they’re motivated to learn as much as possible, work on their idea outside sessions and take full advantage of the opportunity. 

Once we have planned the next cohort, provisional session dates can be found on this webpage to give potential participants the opportunity to fit the programme in with their other commitments.  

Who are the Techcelerate team?

The Techcelerate team is here to help participants begin the development of their business and entrepreneurial skill set by passing on their knowledge and advice. Our advisors include experts in a range of industries, with years of experience in start-up investment. Our facilitators and business coaches work internationally with health & technology start-ups across a range of sectors. 

Techcelerate is an Imperial Enterprise initiative. That means that in addition to the core programme team responsible for programme management, the facilitation of skills development and business support, other parts of the Enterprise Division provide support in related areas.