Ideation Program
By RWTH Innovation Entrepreneurship Center
From idea to pre-seed readiness:
The ideation program is a 3-month program which enables you and your team to get your first idea off the ground! With a dedicated coach, you will sharpen your idea, develop a business plan, pitch deck and present your idea in several pitch sessions!
If you have a cool idea that you want to take to the next level you came to the right place - read more below!
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What can you expect from the program?
Advantages of the ideation program
The ideation program provides a variety of advantages for you. Several success cases have taken part in the ideation program - will you be the next one?
1-on-1 support from our
experienced ideation coaches during all 3 months of the program
Pitch practice sessions with other teams incl. opportunity to pitch in front of VCs at Ideation Days
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Workshops on several topics incl. access to valuable working materials
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Support with potential grant application (e.g., EXIST Förderprogramm)
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How is the program structured?
The ideation program in detail
The program is structured along three milestones: Kick-off, Half-time Pitch and Final Pitch. Within 3 months you will work out essential elements for your future company in continuous 1:1 coaching.
During the program you will develop a pitch deck, a short idea paper and a business plan. You will be supported by a designated coach throughout the entire period, who will help challenge your ideas and outputs.
If funding is needed, your team can also apply for grants (e.g., EXIST Förderprogramm). We are happy to help you prepare the relevant documents for the application.
----------------------------- 3-month schedule (incl. weekly touchpoints with coach) -----------------------------
• Get to know the batch and your personal coach
• Present a short elevator pitch of your idea
• Familiarize yourself with the Aachen startup environment
Location: Collective Incubator
• Present your idea in a dedicated practice pitch exercise to receive feedback from peers and further sharpen your idea
• Continue developing your pitch deck, idea paper and business plan with input from your coach
• Optional: Start gathering materials for grant application (e.g., EXIST Förderprogramm)
Location: Zoom
• Present your results in the final pitch and receive constructive, well-founded feedback
• Hand in finalized documents: pitch deck, idea paper (2-pager) and business plan
• Optional: Finalize grant application in coordination with the ideation team
Location: Collective Incubator
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Who is the ideation program for?
Target Group
Everyone with an innovative idea can participate in the ideation program! Whether you have a very early-stage or a more refined idea, we want to help you validate your idea during the 3-month program. We choose teams for the ideation program that show strong performance on the following four dimensions.
For solo founders, we offer support in finding co-founders. for idea generation, we recommend participation in the Founders' Bootcamp.
Strong Team
Show us that you have complementary skill profiles and may already have a mentoring circle. We want to see that you are motivated and have a great interest in the program.
Innovative idea
Do you have an innovative idea that fills a gap in the market? Show us that you are competitive thanks to your research-led edge and possibly already existing IP.
Solid business model
We want to see that your business model is well thought through. Ideally, you even have your first pilot customers.
Feasible implementation
Convince us that your idea can be transformed into a fully comprehensive business plan within the framework of our program and then quickly brought to market.
Once your team has been accepted to the ideation program, we need full commitment from you and your team - at least 10h per week for 3 months. The entire program is part of the Excellence Start-up Center.NRW funding project and does not include an IP or participation task.
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What are additional benefits?
Additional elements of the Ideation program
On top of 1-on-1 coaching, pitches and grant application support, the ideation program can connect your team with relevant experts and provides you with workshops on a variety of founder-related topics.
Expert Hubs
Connect with leading research experts, access RWTH infrastructure, co-working spaces and stay on top of trends through networking events.
Founder-related workshops
Deep dive into specific founder-related topics through the workshop offering from the ideation program.
Expert Hubs - additional information
The RWTH Expert Hubs complement our coaching programs by offering topic-specific platforms for startups:
• Bring you together with (research) experts from the RWTH environment and other startups to discuss technical or operational topics
• Provide you with access to our RWTH infrastructure , so that you can further develop your prototype (amongst others)
• Enable you to use our Collective Incubator as a co-working/office space, event location and maker space
• Inform you about current trends and topics at regular networking events and network with other founders
Founder-related workshops -
additional information
During the ideation program you will be able to attend the following workshops and elevate your idea to the next level:
• Financial Model Workshop: This self-paced workshop will cover the basic financial modeling principles, best practices
in financial modeling and excel functions frequently used in models. Users will
also find out how to use financial model auditing tools to find out for errors in
the model. Learning is achieved via practical examples and group discussions
that reinforce the theory; case studies and Excel-based exercises allow
participants to have hands-on experience with financial models
• EXIST consultation hour: Every month we offer a consultation hour for public funding options, especially the EXIST funding program.
Become a part of the ideation program and click below to apply!
