Hello,
I hope you are well. I want to apply for the exceptional talent category this week. I have the following documents and evidences but I’m confused regarding especially the Mandatory Criteria or whether some of them should be in the Optional Criteria.
Reference letters:
1- Former CEO of a VC I was on startup due diligence committee and he was my advisor when I was CEO at the FinTech company
2- CEO of the VC who invested in my FinTech company confirming all the details and the amount of investment
3- VP of engineering of a well-known FinTech company who was the co-founder of the EdTech startup I worked as EIR
4- Head of Business Development of another VC who was my mentor
5- CEO of the ride-hailing company
6- CEO of a fintech company recommending me for the time I was in FinTech and he was our partner and later my advisor
My Mandatory documents:
1- Founding the tourism startup along with Looker Google Studio report, Google Analytics and other info for about plus 2 million users in one product and plus 470K users in another along with a letter from my co-founder
2- Co-founding and Managing Director of the FinTech startup along with Google Analytics, Letter from Board member of the VC who invested in my FinTech company confirming all the details and the amount of investment, and also my the notary changes certified translation stating my board member position and managing Director
3- Speaking at a high profile event in the startup ecosystem with all the top 20 startup founders and executives over 500 live viewers and plus 5000 online viewers with photos and video of me speaking (it’s a national event like Ted)
4- Expert role assessing work of others as a Peer Reviewer of a Digital Journal in Elsevier (well-known publication in the academic world) with over 14 reviews and all the details
Optional Criteria:
1- OC1: All the details, Looker Google Studio Report, and other info regarding my position as Lead Product Manager in this Ride-hailing startup with innovative products along with a letter from the CEO confirming my role in 10X business and also an employment letter stating my high salary, also a letter from the CMO of the company detailing my contributions and technical and commercial impact in this startup
2- OC3: All the details, Looker Google Studio Report, and other info regarding my position as Entrepreneur in Residence at the EdTech company along with a letter from the CEO confirming this and also an employment letter stating my high salary
3- OC 2: Personal Recognition and public speaking containing news snippets and coverage, two public speakings with photo and video, being a member of the national ICT Guild and recognized as the top 10 E-commerce and FinTech executives, Certificate of attendance in a workshop after being selected by UNIDO as top 36 Entrepreneurs in my how country
4- OC 4: Article published in a well-known business journal called Digital business with a high impact factor along with my previous published articles and Google Scholar (My previous ones weren’t that speical)
5- OC ?: Recognised for my work outside of my immediate: I have been the co-organizer of ProductTank in one of the cities in the UK for the past several months, mentorship letter from a startup studio in my home country with 38 mentorship and 6000 minutes, also mentorship screen and profile on ADPList with over 1500 minutes during the last year, and also 2nd rank in an international hackathon with my team in e-tourism (I don’t know which OC category this is)
6- I have included a cover letter as a map for my documents and their relevance to the criteria. However, I do know there is a specific page we can do this but wanted to elaborate. I have also provided additional resources as a table in the cover letter
Questions:
1- What I am confused, is whether I have categorized these correctly or not? For example, should the Founder documents be transferred to the Optional Criteria instead? I don’t know how I can arrange these. I have also about 11 recommendation letters received from my seniors or top level executives in the companies I have worked with. One is also from a professor in Toronto University who I mentored them for their startup.
2- Is there anything that I am missing or have misunderstood that you can help me with since I want to send the application this week.
3- Regarding the tourism startup or the FinTech startup, I don’t have access to any financial data because I exited them and it has been transferred to another companies during the years. Also, the first exit was with a lower market valuation due to economic downturns back in 2019. Is this okay that I don’t have financial data? However the Looker Studio is live and they can see the data up until when I was leading these startups.
More information regarding me:
I have founded one startup in tourism (from 2016 to 2019) and co-founded another one in FinTech (2020 to 2022 as founder and Managing Director and Interim CEO from January 2022 until July 2023). I also have a year experience as Lead Product Manager in a leading ride-hailing company (2019 to 2020) in my home country which is local to the country similar to Uber. I also have a year of Entrepreneur in Residence experience in an EdTech startup (January 2022 to Feb 2023). Generally about 10 years of experience in the startup ecosystem in my home country. All my references have worked with me closely during the last 5 years. I am currently in the UK as a dependent of my wife who is a student. I am working on a micro-learning platfrom currently and builidng the mvp. Also, meanwhile I am helping university graduates and early stage founders to get their way around 