Net Prophet Offers Rare Mentorship Opportunity to Budding Tech Start-ups

Net Prophet, South Africa’s premier tech start-up event, is betting big. The event is offering promising technology start-up ventures once in a lifetime opportunity to receive three free days of personal hands-on mentoring and coaching at the Startup Acceleration Workshop, which takes place prior to the conference being held on 12 May, in Cape Town.

The workshop will be facilitated by world-renowned senior Seedcamp Mentor and Angel investor, Permjot Valia (founder and CEO of Help with Sales Ltd), and backed by Old Mutual. The mentoring sessions looks to help South African start-ups to fast-track their businesses towards commercial success, and compete in the international arena.

Permjot has also been an active business angel for several years, having made over 25 investments in start-ups. He holds the Investment Management Certificate and is approved by the Financial Services Authority in the UK to carry out investment business. To date, Permjot is said to be one of the most successful Seedcamp mentors in Europe, and has a passion for seeing start-ups take their ideas “from mind to market”.

While good ideas form the foundation of innovation, it’s critical to know when and how to break into the market. That’s where the knowledge of those who have personal experience in assisting with or investing in start-ups can make a difference to whether their ideas will reach commercial success. This is an excellent opportunity for local start-ups to get the edge they need.” says Rob Gilmour, director at the RAMP Foundation, the non-profit entity behind Net Prophet.

Topics that will be covered in the workshop, to name but a few, include marketing readiness assessments, business plan writing, growth and long term strategies, as well resourcing and commercialisation.

Says Jack Kruger, head of digital, Old Mutual: “Following on from the successful and popular Net Prophet conference, we are pleased to support an extended start-up workshop programme, which affords a more pragmatic format for expert skill sharing. It’s a fantastic opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs to gain the start-up wisdom to do great things.”

To ensure that each start receives the maximum value from the experience, space is limited to just 10 start-up teams. Interested parties that would like to apply for the workshop must fill out the application form available on the Net Prophet Website. All applications will be screened to determine the most suitable candidates to attend and will be chosen by Net Prophet. The selected candidates will be announced on April 28th. All entries for applications close on 22 April.

The Startup Acceleration Workshop will run from 9 – 11 May, and takes place in Cape Town. More detailed information can be found on http://www.netprophet.org.za.