The Co-Founders Programme
Build your next start-up.
The Core Programme
Co-Founders is designed for anyone who wants to have a go at building a start-up and is open to learning from others in an inclusive environment. To help them establish a founder team, and with that team – validate their idea, test it in the real world, develop their business know-how and ultimately understand if they have a viable start-up idea.
Our Core Programme runs Monday nights 6-8.30pm and each session is delivered as an interactive workshop by experienced professionals. Practical breakouts with your team will allow you to take the concepts being discussed and put them into practice with your idea. As you progress, you will also get access to weekly coaching from subject matter experts.
We will equip you with training in Design Thinking and take you through a number of key stages in developing your start-up – Customer Research, Problem Framing, Journey Mapping, and Testing, as well as get into the nitty-gritty of some of the less tactile subjects - like how to put a strong team together.
You will pitch your business idea multiple times throughout the Co-Founders Core Programme – but as it reaches its conclusion, we will host a final Pitch Night as an in-person event. The programme is competitive and not all teams will reach the final sprint but regardless of how far you get you will come away with new skills and a new community of supportive peers.
Four Stages
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Co-Founders begins with forming a team. You might be someone with an idea looking for talent. You might be talented and looking for an idea to pursue. Or maybe you have a problem space you want to tackle but need co-founders to help with the actual solution! All are welcome – and at our Hot House weekend we will bring the full cohort together to facilitate that teambuilding process.
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So you have a team – and your team has an idea. Now begins the process of validation. Working alongside subject-matter experts, and through direct contact with our leadership team, you will begin to learn how to assess your own idea, how to make sure it tackles a real-world problem and verify that the demand is there to create scalable business.
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Once your idea has been validated – it’s time to start building a solution to tackle the problem. If you make it to the final stage of Co-Founders you’ll likely be ready to start getting your MVP together.
Programme Breakdown
The key things you need to know about Co-Founders.
The Hot House is held over Friday 22nd – Saturday 23rd November, (Friday evening and all day Saturday). The Bootcamp is held all day Saturday 7th December.
During the Core Programme, we run workshops on Monday evenings from 6pm – 8:30pm online from Monday 13th January – 24th March 2025 with industry experts introducing you to core topics.
Outside of the Monday nights, you will need to commit to, on average, 3-5 hours to work on your start-up.*
Time commitment
A major benefit of Co-Founders is upskilling. Feedback we’ve received from our alumni and partner organisations show that completing Co-Founders has a noticeable impact on the way people think and solve problems in the workplace.
Skills development
We’ll help prepare you for funding opportunities at the end of the programme and put you in touch with relevant contacts to progress conversations around funding.
Prepare for funding
*Please note: These dates can be subject to change. There will be work outside of the core programme hours to progress your start-up.
We connect people together from diverse backgrounds who are passionate about making a difference.
“Catalyst is a large part of our success - we may never have progressed without Co-Founders.”
Co-Founders Participant
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Applications open on the 2nd September and close on the 6th October 2024.
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All applications will be reviewed after the deadline and we will contact you via email to let you know the outcome of your application on the 10th October 2024.
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22nd and 23rd November 2024
In person event, Belfast location.
Mandatory to attend.
Please note: These dates can be subject to change.
The Co-Founders kickoff event - you’ll have a chance to meet your cohort, take part in some activities together to see how people work and think and begin the process of creating a team together.
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7th December 2024
In person event, Belfast location.
Mandatory to attend.
Please note: These dates can be subject to change.
By this stage in the programme you’ll have formed the team that you want to take into the Core Programme.
In this workshop you’ll have the opportunity to use the diverse perspectives within your team to supercharge and stress test the idea you will take forward into the programme, consider its commercial potential and possible customers.
This will be an exciting and creative session where you’ll make some best guest assumptions to make a quick assessment of the direction of your idea. As your idea and insight develops you’ll need to return to these exercises with clearer insight. You’ll also have a chance to make any team reconfigurations if necessary after the bootcamp.
Find out more here.
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The Core Programme consists of weekly workshops, every Monday nights, 6pm-8:30pm, January – March 2025.
Please note: These dates can be subject to change.
More information can be found here.
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In order to graduate from Sprint 1 into Sprint 2 and from Sprint 2 into the Pitch Night, you’ll be required to pitch your idea for a place. It’s how you demonstrate your progress, show your learnings and begin to learn to talk about your problem in a competitive context.
Pitching doesn’t come naturally to everyone. It’s a learned skill. And we’ll take time to show you how to do it effectively – and the criteria we’ll be marking your pitch on.
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24th March 2025
A celebration of your achievements throughout the programme and a chance to meet people within the ecosystem.
Programme Timeline
You might be wondering how we form teams on Co-Founders. We have a unique process that will enable you to find the right co-founders to grow your start-up. Here’s how we do it.
Competitive Pitching
In order to graduate to the next stage of the programme, you’ll be required to pitch your idea for a place. It’s how you demonstrate your progress, show your learnings and begin to learn to talk about your problem in a competitive context.
Pitching doesn’t come naturally to everyone. It’s a learned skill. So we’ll take time to show you how to do it effectively – and the criteria we’ll be marking your pitch on.
Pitch Night is the big finale to celebrate all your achievements and where the teams that make it through to the end of the programme will pitch to a live audience.
Weekly Workshops
As part of our programme we run a weekly workshop on Monday nights from 6pm-8.30pm.
This is separated into two sprints, with each sprint ending in a pitching event. Each sprint is just a small burst of activities designed to validate your product and engage with your customer.
Our workshops will begin with a firm foundation before moving on to more complex topics. We have a team of experienced staff, mentors and coaches on hand to assist you. You will also be given a range of Design Thinking tools you can use and be shown how to utilise them effectively.
The workshops are designed to include large amounts of practical working time; you will regularly be sent to breakout rooms to work with your team, so it’s vital your team attend each session.
Our aim is that these expert-led workshops should not only help you advance the problem you are working on as a team, but will also provide you with new critical thinking tools and problem-solving techniques that can benefit your career.
