All you need to know ahead of Startup Battlefield Africa

So It’s not quite much to be added but it’s sure an information for the ones who have not yet applied for Battlefield Africa, An Event brought together by a collaboration between Techcrunch and Facebook. The event that is set to happen in October.  Well, Today morning Techcrunch hosted an open meetup at Ihub, Kenya’s innovation hub, in preparation for the Event we had a couple of startup founders and innovators ready to learn and ask questions to the team and surely it was a great session for the Entrepreneurs.

First of all, if you haven’t applied let’s brush through what you need to know about the event. The following are the criteria you need to focus on before getting your pitch or application ready:

Productivity & Utility — The judges will pick startup with the product or service most likely to go into full commercial production and have the biggest impact on human potential and/or the largest exit.

Social Good — The judges will look for the startup with the product most likely to catalyse social and economic development through technology.

Gaming & Entertainment — The judges will pick startup with the product or service most likely to see wide consumer adoption and have either the biggest exit and/or impact on gaming and entertainment.

To Participate in the above-described categories of which 5 startups will be selected into each of them your qualified startup should:

• Be early-stage companies in “launch” stage
• Be a resident of the eligible countries
• Have a fully working product/beta, reasonably close to or in production
• Have received limited press or publicity to date
• Have no known intellectual property conflicts

Fun Fact, this is actually the first time Techcrunch is hosting an Event in Africa, yes they will have help from the local team to identify and vet the startups applying since they are new to our ecosystem despite having written articles about African Ecosystem and startups, With no certain information though, Techcrunch will have more of these events in Africa hopefully. This is going to ensure the learning curve is growing between the startups and the VC, the do’s and don’ts in the scene also will have an improvement.

Between August and October, Techcrunch will avail its resources and time to the startups that have successfully passed the application stage, they will provide assistance to the startups, coaching on how to quality pitch to the potential investors, and Interesting questions came up in this session with startups asking about what will happen if their demo fails during the pitch ?, what if you have screencasts of you demo but no live demo  ? Yes this happens don’t be shocked and when it happens don’t miss the chance to communicate the value of your startup, your idea, that’s the main important thing, Many successes come from failure and don’t let a failed demo loosen your hopes at the pitch session.

Also, a Lesson to learn, ensure or try to register your company always do, this will help your company gain a higher percentage and your potential is high to pass certain marks on the VC panel. This solidifies your ground as a startup.

Finally get your idea to launch, have a beta to prove you are on the escalator rising and progressing.  Applications Are open already and are Set to close on July 14th, 2017 at 5 pm PST and Interested Applicants, please click here to apply