SaaStock18 is fast approaching and our Startup Program, created with startups in mind, is getting better and better. You could say, we are slightly spoiling the young upstarts. However, we vehemently believe they could use a bit of spoiling. It’s why we introduced a Startup Program and a Global Pitch Competition in the first place. What we didn’t expect is how enthusiastically and generously, our partners would jump on board to help us.
As time is running out to apply for the Startup Program and enter the Global Pitch Competition, which aims to find the best SaaS Startup of 2018, we wanted to tell you a bit about every partner and what they are offering to our participants.
Zendesk – Host of our Startup Program Day
The first partner that backed our program and helped us organise our exclusive Startup ProgramDay is Zendesk. They provide a platform specialised for customer interactions across phone, chat, email, social media and any other channel you can imagine. It’s one of the greatest SaaS companies to start and scale from Europe so we are extra excited to have them on board with us
Having just moved to a new EMEA HQ in Dublin, they are our hosts for the Startup Program Day, taking place on Monday, October 15th. During the day we’ll have top-class workshops with the highlight of the day being a masterclass with SaaS superstars Dan Martell and Michael Litt.
Zendesk will bring an amazing session about the evolution of the Startup DNA delivered by Pedro Muller, Zendesk Startup Initiatives Manager and Khalida Ali, Sr. Manager Diversity & Inclusion. Other workshops will include Aaron Krall, founder of SaaS Growth Hacks Facebook Group. Executives from Slack, TravelPerk and Voxbone will have office hours with participants throughout the day. On top of all that, there will be plenty of opportunities for founders from the startups that are participating to network and bond with one another.
Zendesk has helped thousands of startups like Airbnb, Box and Instacart grow and scale their customer support and this is why they’re also giving our startups credits to join their startup program.
Voxbone
Voxbone simplifies the setup and management of global business communications with on-demand virtual numbers, voice and SMS services. A global company representing 34 nationalities, Voxbone has offices in Austin, Brussels, Dublin, Hong Kong, Lasi, London, Los Angeles, San Francisco.
Voxbone’s CEO, Itay Rosenfeld will meet startup founders in one-to-one meetings during the Startup Program Day. While they can talk to him about everything, Itay is particularly happy to chat about product strategy, growing sales, financing, raising money and exiting, building the right infrastructure and recruiting globally. These are all topics that Itay didn’t quite nail in the early days, so now wants to share some of the lessons learnt.
Aside from that invaluable opportunity to get wisdom from Itay, Voxbone is also giving the winner of the Pitch Competition a €5,000 credit for use with Voxbone’s on-demand services over a 6-month period.
Frontline
Frontline is an early stage fund with offices in Dublin and London that invests in early-stage B2B SaaS Startups. When we started planning the startup program, we were looking for VC partners to support us and we found the perfect match with Frontline.
For starters, investors from Frontline will sit on the judging panels for the Pitch Competition. They will also provide coaching to the shortlisted candidates during the Startup Programme Day and deliver a session at our Rocket Fuel Stage during SaaStock18.
As part of the prize for the Best SaaS Startup of 2018, Frontline will give the winner a myriad of perks which are only available to their portfolio companies. This prize will go to the winner of the popular vote:
- Access to tactical workshops tailored for Founders.
- Access to the annual Frontline CEO Summit.
- Access to the network of vetted Frontline Vendors.
- Fundraising Advice
Slack
Slack is the collaboration hub that brings the right people together with all the right information and tools to get work done. Launched in 2014, Slack is the fastest-growing business application in history.
The Slack team will be with us for our Startup Program Day delivering one-to-one sessions on how to integrate Slack to a SaaS product. They will be meeting our startups and showing their work.
As a prize, they are offering a dedicated full-day workshop to support the winner of the competition advising them on how to best use the Slack APIs and how to make the most of the integrations.
Exclusive Intelligence Partner – GrowthEnabler
We are happy to announce our exclusive intelligence partner GrowthEnabler, an AI-driven intelligence and insights platform. They distil global data on tech disruptors within the startup ecosystem, then map relevant digital solutions to business priorities faced by corporates, in essence acting as the matchmaker between the two. Their Personalised Intelligence Interface (Pii) platform is an unmatched resource for spotting new business models and helps identify companies to partner with, procure from and invest in. GrowthEnabler are a part of the cohort of Microsoft for Scaleups.
For SaaStock, GrowthEnabler will produce a Startup Ecosystem Report, which will showcase all participating startups. We will give the report to our partners and investors, which will provide them with valuable insights and kickstart exciting connections for both sides. We will also launch the report during SaaStock18 and make available to all attendees.
GrowthEnabler will also be helping us shortlist the top companies for our startup competition using their scoring intelligence. This is to ensure quality and transparency in the competition. They will also help us verify the judges’ votes and announce the winner.
Alongside these, we will also have prizes from Profitwell, who are giving away 1-year subscription ProfitWell Premium account and a free pricing audit from Patrick Campbell himself.
If you are still on the scales whether to join us for the Startup Program and the Global Pitch Competition, this should have really tipped it for you. In case you are wondering, which other startups will be joining us, we made you not one, but two lists already. So wonder no more, and get on the bandwagon now, you only have until September 16th.
