Goals: aligning expectations, meeting the partners and launching a community.
In a nutshell
Maze X first cohort was launched on Monday, May 13, at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The first week of a startup accelerator program is crucial to align expectations towards the program. Thus, the goals were set, and they were accomplished:
- Founders got to know one another
- Founders got to meet the Maze X team and its partners
- Together, they diagnosed their business challenges and started to draft their acceleration goals
- Everyone aligned expectations for the next three months
First impressions
After meeting one another, the founders made their pitch to an audience of partners and friends at the one and only Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, a founding partner of Maze X along with the Edmond the Rothschild Foundations. MyPolis and Chatterbox engaged with PLMJ and BNP Paribas, the corporate partners with whom they will be designing a pilot project throughout the acceleration period.
Rolling up our sleeves
The next three months will take place at Casa do Impacto. Maze X acceleration program will follow a customised approach based on weekly sprints to provide ventures what they need to achieve their vision. The founders will have weekly checkpoints depending on their goals with a product and tech experts, Nikita Savitsky and John Chang, an investor in residence, Orson Stadler, and the entrepreneur-in-residence Valérie Konde.
Michael Parkes, from Urban Food Box said ‘It’s refreshing to be part of a program which is taking the time to understand the real workings of our start-ups. Maze X is practising what they are communicating: real tailored support focused on impact and with openness to share’.
A little party never …
The first week was intense and rewarding. We hosted the first Maze X Sunset, where the founders got to connect with new people in the ecosystem at the rooftop of Casa do Impacto. Maze X sunsets will happen fortnightly. Dance Dance Dance (DDD) will provide groovy music. DDD is an international party family throwing ‘house parties that outgrew their houses’ in Lisboa and London. MAZE and the DDD crew are bound together by the common belief that Impact is imagining radical ways to reshape society and DOING IT!
Maze X was conceived and initiated by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Edmond de Rothschild Foundations and MAZE, with the law firm PLMJ joining as a founding corporate member and BNP Paribas and Casa do Impacto as partners.
