Hi Everyone,
I am Michał Bartler, founder of Subreal, a predictive technology for Substance Use Disorders (still in Stealth). I am an EWOR Fellow and went through EWOR Pre-idea Fellowship Batch 5 (currently Ideation Fellowship). I will tell you how to get into EWOR, and why applying is the best decision you could make.
What is EWOR?
EWOR is an accelerator, talent investor, venture capital fund…. they don’t like putting themselves into a single bracket. But if you want to give them a single label, EWOR is a community.
And to me, it is an amazing community. Community of founders, creators, builders, and visionaries: people who underwent a selection process allowing in less than 0.1%.
They run two 6-month programmes for founders:
Ideation Fellowship, designed for people at a pre-validation stage, to accelerate their ideation and development.
Traction Fellowship, for startups ready for investment (note, they can support you with investment anytime).
Why is it the best programme for founders?
I have gone through the previous version of the Ideation Fellowship. Those are the things I love about EWOR:
Structure. Out of all the startup programmes, EWOR is very effective in nudging you into the right development path. Going through Customer Discovery & Synthesis, Ideation and Idea Selection, Pretotyping and Prototyping, and getting ready for Investment. If you are a person, who needs some form of initial structure or needs additional accountability and support from other peers, Ideation Fellowship is for you.
Intros. I cannot emphasise how valuable EWOR’s network is. I am building in healthcare. Whenever I needed an intro to anyone, I got it. I can guarantee you, that people in EWOR can connect you to anyone there is. You only need to ask (and reciprocate - no one likes people who only take from others).
Philosophy. EWOR is a small community. They are small because that is the only way they can support everyone. Everyone who went through their programmes. You see, EWOR's philosophy is quite different from that of other startup programmes. They don’t play the numbers game like Entrepreneur First or Antler and let in hundreds of people a batch hoping for a unicorn. They focus on quality applicants and play a long game. Their resources are put on those few quality people they have in the community. They might not invest into you immediately after finishing a programme, but their support continues with hopes that they will invest into you at some point. But to be able to do that, they have to let less and less people in. Otherwise, the support would get too diluted. In the last batch, they invited around 10 people for Ideation and some more for Traction Fellowship. Quality over quantity.
Very personal and personalized support. Support from EWOR is support from founders. You can get regular, even weekly feedback from EWOR partners, all of them founders, including unicorn founders (the average value of companies created by the EWOR partner is €2 billion, which is >2x than YC partners). Each partner works with only 5 companies a year, making the support very personal. Because you get to know them well, and they can understand your case much better, they are able to help you more effectively, both in terms of feedback and intros. But you also get a lot of value from other peers, people who are at a similar stage of venture development as you do. Whether you are struggling with a founder’s life, or need support at any stage of venture creation, there are people who will help you.
Online. EWOR hosts physical sessions every half a year, an awesome EWOR House and EWOR Connect. But besides these events, and fellow-hosted city-based physical events, everything is online. All sessions, pitches, feedback. Online, also means that you get fellows from all over the world. Yes, originally they were from Germany. But their programme expanded globally and now includes fellows from every part of the world, from Singapore to Brazil, from Poland to India, and from the US to Australia. That allows you to get a unique entrepreneurial perspective whenever you need to. You also don’t become closed in a bubble.
How to get into EWOR?
Okay, Michał, you have said enough. I am convinced. How do I get in?
First of all, you have to realize that EWOR is extremely competitive in terms of applications. They receive thousands of them every batch, but let in only tens of them. The last batch had an acceptance rate of around 0.1%.
Second of all, you have to realize that their admission framework is quite different to all other programmes, and you might be a perfect fit for them without realizing it.
I would say that EWOR’s candidate profile includes people who fit into one of three categories:
Nerds. Math, programming, and science whiz. Are you a person whose GitHub profile always shines with contributions, have you published in Nature, are you doing a PhD at Cambridge? They would love to see how you excel with a SaaS or a deep tech venture. PS. They like the big shiny names, but they also like underdog stories. You can be a perfect academic from Oxford without other contributions, but you have to really be perfect in the academic world if you have not excelled in other fields.
Sportsman. European racing champion, parkour enthusiast, extreme long-distance ice swimmer, climbing Elbrus for fun? I would say that EWOR very much enjoys people coming from sports. Why? Because you are either crazy, which fits their motto “For the crazy ones”, or you are extremely disciplined. Both of these features allow you to excel greatly as a founder. The bigger the championship level, or the crazier the stunt you are doing, the better.
Repeat founders. Sold the first startup at 23, ran an NGO and raised $5 mln, helped with an IPO? That is the most solid thing you can do to get into EWOR. Everyone would love to invest in serial entrepreneurs. They already showed that they are able to build a successful venture, and now it’s just a matter of letting them be and putting the cash in.
Please, don’t get scared. Yes, people in EWOR are amazing. Yes, it’s difficult to get in. But take everything here with a pinch of salt. What I wanted to convey is that with applications like that, you want to frame yourself as 'too good to ignore’. If you think that after talking to others their final thought is ‘I want this guy’ then you have succeded. You don’t have to fit the above profiles. They are just what I found with the most prominent fellows.
And please, don’t compare yourself to anyone, especially as a young person. EWOR looks at your achievements as compared to your age and background. It is obviously more impressive if a teenager does something, as compared to a PhD student. And I am telling you that, as the youngest EWOR Fellow there was (got into an older EWOR Academy programme at 18 yo, applied again and got into Pre-idea Fellowship at 19 yo).
What does the application process look like?
I have gone through the full application process two times and went through the assessment centre four times in total (two times as a tester). So I can tell you a bit about what it looks like (without spilling too much tea).
You start by applying through the website. EWOR runs programmes two times a year and recruits people at the beginning of Autumn, and the end of Winter.
You either just apply, and your application just gets prescreened. Or you get nominated to apply by some of the Fellows or Venture Partners, and your application gets through prescreening ‘more smoothly’.
If the application is good, you are invited to the assessment day. EWOR looks at your application jointly, both as the application and as your performance during the assessment day. If both of those look exceptional, then congratulations! You got into EWOR.
Note: the process for the Traction Fellowship is different. Much more emphasis is put on the startup itself. Think of the Traction Fellowship as a VC investment with a lot of added value through the community and the programme.
What does the assessment day look like?
Assessment day comprises a mix of one-on-one interviews, group tasks, logical thinking tasks, entrepreneurship predictability tests, and other predictors, which are added from batch to batch. Overall, your performance is graded using a lot of different metrics, and you should try to excel during the whole of it. But don’t try to game the system. Not because there are too many things they are looking at (they have profiling experts and are doing research with the University of Cambridge on predicting entrepreneurial success. I believe that after this is published there will be people trying to find all the metrics - they are not public). Don’t game the system, as you might have no idea what they are currently looking for in their candidates. I have outlined above that EWOR has quite a specific fellow profile, and even I as an assessment tester don’t know all the metrics.
How can I help you?
I am writing about all of this, as I genuinely think this is the best startup programme there is. If you think EWOR is for you, reach out here or on LinkedIn, and I will see if I can help. I will not share anything more about the assessment than outlined here, but I can help you with the application, and potentially nominate you as another fellow.
And if you want to hear more about my startup journey: Subscribe. A lot of announcements going on soon!