How to win?
To become a finalist and get through to the accelerator phase you need to have more than just a nice idea. You also need to explain why the idea is great and you need to be prepared to work for it. A jury will help us select the best ideas for the accelerator phase. Below are some of the selection criteria we will be using:
- Solve (a part of) a problem for Witteveen+Bos or our clients (extra points: have a launching client ready)
- Generate new business (clients and/or business models)
- Have a clear sponsor for your project
- Partner selection, can we do it ourselves or do we need an extra hand?
The jury will assess your submitted idea from the point of view of a potential client, so you need to pitch it convincingly. You will need to explain the value of the idea for our clients but also the value of it for Witteveen+Bos. In short: why is your idea the best? You do not need to fill all this information in at once, you can already get started with just a short introduction of your idea on the Plus+ innovation platform and fill in the gaps later on. We have prepared two phases for this, which will be explained later on.
Moving from an idea to a service/product requires a lot of hard work. You are responsible, with your team, to make it happen. The accelerator program is not meant to provide you with lots of time and resources to develop the technical aspects of your specific idea. Instead it focusses on the business side of your idea. It helps you answer questions such as ‘how do I sell it?’, ‘what business models exist?’, ‘who is my client?’ and ‘what problem am I trying to solve?’.
The whole accelerator program will remain a competition. A selection will be made of the best ideas from the Plus+ innovation platform to go into the bootcamp phase of the program. At the end of the first bootcamp day a further selection will be made for the teams that have best demonstrated their likelihood to succeed. By the time the accelerator phase begins in November we expect to have around 8 teams remaining in the program. So keep this in mind to ensure your idea becomes a success: it is you who needs to do the heavy lifting together with your team. Therefore it is important to have a sponsor who will give you time and space (budget/time) required to achieve your goals. He/she can be your group leader, PMC or sector manager or someone else within but also outside of Witteveen+Bos
What is there to win?
- ‘The White Cube’: your ticket to the accelerator
- ‘The Blue Cube’: your reward winning the campaign finals
What is in the cubes?
There is only one way to find out.
