Stand a chance at receiving expert startup mentoring

Running a startup is tricky: you have way more work than you would in an office job without any of the safety nets offered by a big corporate. You need all the help you can get.

That help couldn’t come in a much better package than seasoned UK-based startup mentor Permjot Valia.

Startups attending the Startup Acceleration Workshop at this year’s Net Prophet conference will have the opportunity to spend time with the CEO and founder of Help with Sales and prolific Angel investor.

According to the conference organisers the course “gives technology startups the opportunity to greatly accelerate their efforts in getting their new business, product or service to market”.

The workshop will focus on a few key areas, including market readiness assessment, business plan writing and financing, sales without selling, high growth strategies, resourcing and commercialisation, and long term planning.

The workshop will take place a couple of days before the actual Net Prophet conference and interested startups will have to apply before 25 April.

The conference organisers will then choose 10 startups to participate in the workshop based on these entries.

Max Goudy, from myows.co.za reckons last year’s workshop was great for getting his young company off the ground:

Chris and I represented our young startup Myows at the 2011 Acceleration Workshop and were ecstatic to meet Permjot Valia. Thanks to his workshop and teachings with regards to dealing with investors we have refined our pitch and revised our business plan, then went to London to meet the crème of Europe’s VCs. It was a huge opportunity for us to meet Permjot – someone with a foot in the global investment networks. Attending the accelerator workshop gave us a much needed fresh perspective on running and financing an online business.

You can apply for a spot in the workshop here.

Net Prophet kicks off on 8 May in Cape Town.