I just got endorsed for promise as a technical founder of my tech company.
This forum has been really helpful, so I’m hoping my experience can also be of use.
I’ll try to answer follow-up comments, but my feeling is that they really look at the overall application and body of evidence. Crafting a good story and tying it all together with your evidence is crucual.
Beyond the obvious stuff that they list in the guidelines, it’s not a tick-box exercise.
Some context
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I was an assistant professor up to 2020, and then joined Entrepreneur First in Singapore, which is how I started my company;
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I’m already in the UK on an innovator VISA—I got it for my startup in 2022;
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I decided to switch to GTV because of the greater freedom and uncertainty around startups in general, even your own;
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I’m 38 and applied for promise as I’ve been in a tech role since 2020, and was in academia prior—so age really isn’t a factor for promise endorsement.
Timeline
It took me 6 months (on and off) to compile everything and get the reference letters, and then:
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Submitted 7 Jan 2024
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First edit 10 Jan 2024
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Second edit 21 Jan 2024
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Third edit 22 Jan 2024
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Endorsement received 22 Jan 2024
I did NOT apply under the fast-track option.
Other useful posts
Perhaps I didn’t look properly, but I couldn’t find that many examples on here from technical founders. I know there are many first or early employees and CTOs.
This post, from another founder, really helped and encouraged me to apply:
Evidence strategy
My submission was mainly based on my startup and its achievements. Its achievements are moderate, but the way I packaged it was still good enough for promise:
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Raised $550k pre-seed
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Around $300k in revenue over three years with global clients
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We peaked at 7 employees in 2021 (the good-old-days for startups)
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Industry is AI planning tools for waste and recycling companies.
In my submission, I clearly and often highlighted that as the founder of the company, its achievements are inseparable from my own.
The other evidence I submitted was of my publications prior to starting the company. My research was on the AI that formed the basis of my company’s tech, so there was still a link to my company.
The way that I compiled and wrote my evidence documents was similar to how I would write a journal article (for those with a similar academic background to mine). For all my evidence, I tried to keep it as professional as possible, with a heading, intro paragraphs, figure numbers and titles for screenshots, and then write in the evidence document what the figures and screenshots represent.
Personal statement
I don’t think I can specify too much here as it really is supposed to be personal. I did try and keep it as positive as possible and made reference to my evidence and the people that gave recommendation letters. I figured that this is the place to create a storyline, and the evidence is there to back up the story, so I wrote this last.
CV
I used the full three pages, and made sure that it was consistent with my overall story. I also relisted all the media mentions, key stats for my company, company awards, etc. from my evidence documents.
Reference letters
For reference letters, I created a list of every person that I’ve engaged with since starting the company that met the Tech Nation guidelines, ranked them, and then reached out to the top three and asked for reference letters. I ended up asking a fourth person, and not using one of the others, as I felt my application lacked some highly tech-focused reference letters.
Given the rather unique requirements for the letters, I recommend coordinating with them on the context and give comments on their drafts.
Mandatory evidence
This was my mandatory criteria evidence, with five in total:
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Evidence 1: introduce my company, when it was formed, and include screenshots of its Crunchbase profile, and formal Singapore company profile showing the type of business, total shares and my shares.
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Evidence 2: fundraising, including my role in the fundraising, with screenshots of our round being featured in local news articles in Singapore, plus then how the funding is shown in the company’s annual reports, as well as one of our term sheets showing the valuation.
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Evidence 3: company revenue from global clients. It was just a breakdown of revenue per client and region, and then our revenue captured in our annual reports.
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Evidence 4: personal media mentions, with screenshots of some interviews of me and a podcast, as well as quotes from me in a local trade magazine
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Evidence 5: company media mentions and awards, with screenshots of news articles that featured our company as well as an award that the company won.
With 5, I made it clear that I am the majority shareholder and founder of the company, so these mentions and awards are relevant. All the media mentions were in Singapore news outlets, so nothing major.
Optional evidence, criteria 3
I was unsure whether to apply for OC1 or OC3, but ultimately went for OC3. I decided it was easier to show contribution and impact since I wrote 80% of all the company’s code. I wasn’t sure how to prove innovation in OC1. I could potentially have used some of the company media mentions, but they weren’t in high-profile publications.
I submitted three pieces of evidence.
Evidence 1: introduced our tech platform, a tech architect diagram, highlighting the pieces that I developed as well as screenshots of our video walkthroughs of the tech.
Evidence 2: product impact, with screenshots of one of our clients mentioning our tech in a media article, and a written letter from one of our clients, quantifying in $ the impact that we made. I asked the customer for a letter.
Evidence 3: github code contributions, with screenshots of my github profile and commit history, and then per repository commit graphs.
Optional evidence, criteria 4
This was probably the only one I felt confident in, as I had 3 peer-reviewed publications within the last five years, and it was based on the AI that became the core product of the company. I submitted two pieces of evidence.
Evidence 1: published journal articles, including a screenshot of my Google Scholar profile. I also discussed the most relevant publications and my contributions where there were multiple authors.
Evidence 2: reference letter from my PhD supervisor, and research collaborator since.
I decided on another reference letter to really focus on the technical aspects of my work, as I felt some of the mandatory evidence was commercially focused, and I’m applying as technical.
General thoughts
Reading the many shared success stories and rejections on this forum, beyond the obvious and listed stuff, I strongly feel that there isn’t a checklist that the reviewers go through. They have guidelines, they review ALL the submitted documents, and based on that, decide if it meets MC and OCs.
In some of the rejection letters, reviewers would question something seemingly specific, and then everyone here would panic (me included!). But often, if you look at the rejection letter again, you see that they list it with a bunch of other reasons why it was rejected.
I feel that it’s similar to journal reviewers. They would look over the application, and then form an opinion. If they feel it doesn’t meet the requirements, they would look for things to pick on.
