The Exploration Lab is the first cohort-based experience that helps you launch your startup idea in the future of learning and work, alongside a global community of idea-stage founders like yourself. From Transcend Network, a leading network of early-stage founders in the sector from 30 countries. 

Launch your startup by first validating it! Adopt the product-market fit playbook of 250+ founders building future of learning & work.

Michael Narea

Co-founder, Transcend Network

Alberto Arenaza

Validate

Zero-in on your niche customer persona, get extremely&nbsp;real about their daily pain points, and&nbsp;run weekly experiments&nbsp;to validate your startup ideas.&nbsp; Find early signs of product-market fit while learning from&nbsp;case studies of pre-seed to Series A startups.

Identify & solve real problems in edtech and become an investable founder

Pre product-market fit You are actively building your startup full-time and are struggling with early traction

Just getting started﻿You have been exploring ideas for weeks, months, or years and just took the leap to start building

Aspiring/part-time ﻿You work a full-time job to pay the bills but you are dedicated to solving a problem in the space.

Who is this course for

Key Outcomes

To solve problems in the market you must first identify who you are building for. Gain clarity and specificity of who you are serving. You will speed up your rate of learning about your customer.

Zero-in on your niche customer persona 

Run 5 experiments per week and, in 3-6 months validate specific problems in the martket! Build feedback loops that drive customer insights and use minimal resources + no-code tools to find your first customers.

Run weekly experiments that are rapid, lean & low-cost 

Dilligently communicate with prospective investors and motivate your future team members. Build a track record of your learnings using our in-house experimentation tracker adopted by 100s of Transcend founders.

Demonstrate competence as a founder

As an early-stage founder, your primary goal should be to identify PMF opportunities when building your startup. Adopt the PMF scorecard by John Danner and focus your valuable time and energy on areas of growth appropriate at your stage.

Increase odds of success with John Danner's PMF Playbook

Continue your journey to find product market fit with accountability and support from the Transcend team and a global network of founders

Build with accountability and support in the future of learning and work

Are you facing issues in building your startup? Book a 15 minute personalized founder-journey mapping session with Michael Narea, co-founder of Transcend Network:&nbsp;<a href="https://calendly.com/michaelnarea/chat-with-transcend" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Find a time here!</a>

We are 250+ Founders from 45+ Countries who have collectively raised $166M and are serving over 100k learners & workers globally

Validating ideas &amp; problems does not require you to spend resources you don't have to come up with a fully-functional product that the market may not want. Address customer pain points and build using lean no-code tools that are easy to ship and address problems effectively for your audience.

Find your users without a "product"

With the current funding slowdown in the market, it is vital for new founders to validate the presence of customer demand for their early ideas. Investors are more likely to take a bet on you if your startup is built in a well-validated market and is addressing real problems.

Bear market = New Opportunities

Receive $200K worth of free product credits along with 100+ hours of exclusive sessions &amp; webinars from SMEs The Transcend Network team has helped 250+ founders, who come from 45 countries and have collectively raised over $160m. Connect with startup leaders and industry-insiders within our network for guidance as you launch your startup.

Build under the guidance of experts & experienced founders

Why Validate?

Don't leave product market fit to chance. Validate early, validate often.

The customers, learners, and workers you are serving are at the heart of your startup. In this 15-minute asynchronous exercise, you will identify your customer persona from various perspectives. Upon submission, our team will provide tangible feedback to your submission on how to zero-in on a niche customer persona before our 1st session.

Zero-in on your niche customer persona and pain

Meet your cohort mates and learn about the problems they are solving in the future of learning &amp; work. Once you are connected to why you collectively are doing this work, you will map your startup on John Danner's product-market fit ladder to give yourself the gift of a realistic starting point for our course.

Turning your customer's pain into magic

At this point, you are now aware of the immediate prority to get started with your customers and you will run your 1st experiments. In this sesion, you will ideate and gather feedback on your 1st experiment design and leverage your cohort to unblock any challenges you are facing

Running your 1st lean, and low-cost experiment

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford Great founders don’t just listen to their customers, they learn from their actions. Track your early results to update your hypotheses, design a new experiment and plan another week in your experimentation cadence.

Actions > Talk | Integrating feedback loops

Experimentation is tough. You can get mixed results. Your intuition sometimes tells you one thing, when the data says differently. In this session, you take some time to express what may be blocking you from reaching flow in your experimentation cadence. Your cohort will be there to listen, recognize your challenge, and offer supportive vibes.

Unblocking yourself

Being a founder has its moments of imposter syndrome, and product market fit is impossible to fake. By building a track record of your learnings using our in-house experimentation tracker used by 100s of Transcend founders, you will be empowered to motivate your future team members and dilligently communicate with prospective investors.

Building your track record

In our last session together, you will reflect and celebrate your progress to date and make small but mighty commitments to strengthen your weekly experimentation frequency going forward.

Strengthening your accountability structures

Program Syllabus

See what our founders are saying

You will meet your cohort mates and learn about the problems they are solving. You will also identify your customer persona, list out their pain points, receive tangible feedback, and be introduced to Transcend's product-market fit playbook.

Session 1: Intro to PMF & 'Magic' (Mon, March 20)

In this session, we answer the question, how can early founders run lean, low-cost &amp; rapid experiments. You will ideate &amp; design your 1st experiment, leverage your cohort to gather feedback, unblock any challenges and access case studies of different experiments run by startups.

Session 2: Running experiments (Wed, March 22)

Once a week you have the option to join for a 60-minute engaging session for additoinal support to ensure you are successful in launching your weekly experiments

Friday - Office Hours (Optional)

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford Great founders don’t just listen to their customers, they learn from their actions. Track your early results to update your hypotheses, design new experiments and receive feedback on them!

Session 3 - Actions > Talk | Integrating feedback loops (Mon, March 27)

By now you will have run at least 1 experiment and have enough data to evaluate if you have or have not validated your initial hypotheses. You will get to share your challenges with the cohort &amp; the Transcend team and unblock any areas where you require support.

Session 4: Unblocking yourself (Wed, March 29)

As we enter the last week, you will learn how to build a track record of your learnings + how to demonstrate confidence in the market and among investors. You will use our in-house experimentation tracker adopted by 100s of Transcend founders

Session 5: Building your track record (Mon, April 3)

In our last session together, you will reflect &amp; celebrate your progress to date, and make small but mighty commitments to strengthen your weekly experiments as you continue to test ideas. You will also learn what Transcend has in store for you once you do validate successfully!

Session 6: Next steps + Accountability (Wed, April 5)

Friday- Office Hours

Course schedule

Meet your instructors

Frequently Asked Questions

Invest in understanding your users,Experiment using lean solutions,Increase your odds of startup success!

<ul><li>Get insights from successful founders and investors.</li><li>Articulate your vision for the impact you want to achieve.</li><li>Assess yourself on the core competencies required to achieve product-market fit</li><li>Connect with other folks in the same boat</li></ul>

Startup as a Movement

<ul><li>Narrow to a proven problem for a well-defined customer.</li><li>Structure your initial experiments, build out your value proposition.</li><li>Learn from case studies with Transcend Network fellows who have gained traction across audiences.</li><li>Build your first product assets.</li></ul>

Understanding your Customers

<ul><li>Execute your solutions &amp; evaluate your initial results.</li><li>Learn to build using no-code tools &amp; lean solutions.</li><li>Check in with your founder accountability group.</li><li>Deepen your intuition about what great experiments look like with support from veterans across the Transcend Network.</li></ul>

Experimentation Week

<ul><li>Learn the fundamentals of PMF and how you can find its early indicators through experiments.</li><li>Build the skills calibrate your experimentation focus on the right customer and right problem.</li><li>Revise your self-assessment on the PMF competencies</li></ul>

Product-Market-Fit 101

<ul><li>Deepen your understanding of what makes for effective experimentation through execution.</li><li>Share your results with John Danner for targeted &amp; constructive feedback.</li></ul>

Feedback & Insights from Experiments

Syllabus

Solve problems with explorers as passionate as you

Receive guidance and support from experienced founders &amp; operators. Be a part of an exclusive early-stage founder community in the space.

Every Monday, you will receive an itinerary of all the assignments and readings for the week. On Wednesdays, we host AMAs for you to asynchronously ask questions and get feedback from the instructors.

Weekly Kickoff + Explorer AMAs

Weekly Live Session with Dafni and the Transcend Team

Live Sessions

Building an experimentation cadence through daily consistency is one of the primary learning outcomes we hope to impart during this bootcamp. These asynchronous practices are designed to help you treat your startup as a research lab in its initial days.

Experimentation Days

Every week you get to collaborate and review your work with your assigned peer group

Peer Group Sync

Schedule

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