This kick off post was written by startup mentor Marcel Ekkel and was first published on Medium.

RISE @ CoCoon, a five-day program powered by the lean startup materials used by Startup Weekend, is looking to add 2-3 more teams. If interested, please fill in this registration form ASAP.

As this is a pilot edition we are happy to get going with (just) four teams. Compared to a Startup Weekend the format and the dynamics are very different. SWNEXT has a focus on a team that has started already. The mentorship will be exploring more width and more depth and in line with that be able to spend more time with teams.

This is possible as the program is spread out over 5 weeks, with 1 contact evening every week. During the evening we start with covering work to be done from last week, followed by a mentor introduction into the new topic and ending with some FaceTime with respective mentors.

The topic of the first session was CUSTOMER DISCOVERY and we found 2 mentors willing to share their experiences and insights into the matter. Though before getting to that, the evening was kicked off with a first attempt to a 1 minute pitch followed by their discussion of the preparatory work for this week.

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