The end of the road #FoundersDoor

On the 21st of August, we had our FoundersDoor celebration night to celebrate our 6-week journey as the first cohort of the YSYS FoundersDoor pre-accelerator.

It’s been a blast. From me sat at work applying to attend the free event hosted by one tech, to pitching to win a place on the pre-accelerator, to meeting some amazing people that motivate you, to expanding my network. There’s so much I’ve learnt in 7 weeks that it would be tiring to type it out (but check out my previous posts if you want to learn) but the most important thing I’ve learnt is how important it is to validate, plan, execute, gathering learnings and improve.

Thanks to Arun, Merlie, Jenny, Nana, Funke, VJ, Deb, Lois, Dama, Kwaku, Gen, Yemi, Rowan, Alice, Ed, Amanda, Taz, Mark, Sonya, Kay, Muhammad, Abiola, Reetu and the whole YSYS community

All of this came from one decision one day to step out of my comfort zone and try something I knew I didn’t like. That’s something I want to deep dive on… saying “fuck it, why not” and trying something.

The FoundersDoors journey hasn’t come to an end, it’s just started. The next cohort will be here in October, if you’re 18–24 years old you should apply. You have nothing to lose. For myself and the Spiela team, it’s been fun and it’s time to step it up a gear. After having a member of the audience corner me and tell me how attached you felt to the what we are doing and how there needs to be more done for people like her so they ‘fall through the cracks’ to audience members coming from Manchester to hear little ole me talk I feel more motivated than ever. One step closer to our BHAG

Talk to you soon ✌🏿
-aj