Feedback on evidence for Exceptional promise

Stage 1
1

I am aiming to apply for the Exceptional promise stage 1 soon. Could I please get some feedback on my planned evidence structure? The story I aim to communicate is this -

For my field - sports tech, I have multi-domain experience which is a combination of entrepreneurship, content & distribution, AI & sports science research - which has been applied to while co-founding SportERP & building an agentic sports operations platform. The main company has a sub-company Badmintoo (ed-tech for badminton players & coaches) where I have mainly contributed in strategy, building distribution & generating initial revenue. Trying to position myself as someone with business experience but also technical enough to work with engineers & non-technical users alike.

Education -
PhD in sports sciences from Loughborough uni (Ranked 1 globally for sports science), Mech engineering from NIT in India, GenAI education from 100xengineers.com

Reference letters - (these will back the below evidence too)

  1. CEO & Co-founder at SportERP
  2. Co-founder at Dinetiq (a sports tech startup focusing on cricket bowling) & Professor of Biomechanics at Loughborough University
  3. Co-founder & Growth engineer at Digger.io - devops & ai infrastructure

Evidence list -

Mandatory criteria -

  1. Evidence of playing AI PM role for SportERP - ideating our multi-agent system, early diagrams created based on agent expected behaviour, demo videos recorded by me

  2. Proof of in-person presentation on AI for sport organisations to 60+ leaders of all international sport federations based on invitation by ASOIF (an olympic body) - invitation letter, name in agenda, screenshot of backend showing the organisations onboarded for free trial of SportERP platform post the presentation

  3. Proof of invitation to conduct online webinar on AI in content creation to 60+ leaders of all international sport federations based on invitation by ASOIF - email screenshots of invitation & feedback from organisers, proof of a live translation prototype I built from scratch for the webinar (gitlab contributions, demo video)

(For 2 & 3 above, I am not sure if I should position that as invitations for presentations or playing the role of a co-founder building trust & relationships with future customers, because essentially they were both. Also, none were sponsored by the company but we represented the company)

  1. Co-founding agreement signed by Founder of SportERP showing significant equity for internal recognition

OC1 - Aiming to show Proof of innovation -

  1. Work building a new player profiling platform for badminton players based on badminton & sports science expertise - screenshot of notes analyzing the idea, demo of the tool, proof of early revenue of 2000 GBP from pilot, proof of work on computer vision automation for the tool to scale it

2.Work on AI LMS experimental feature for the SportERP platform - ideation proof based on notes for the feature based on content & LMS experience with Badmintoo, demo video of me showing the platform (this has no revenue attached yet as we are integrating it into the SportERP platform. Would this be okay?)

  1. Work on ideating & building LocalDictate - an open-source dictation tool for windows that works similar to WisprFlow - opensource github repo link, demo video link.
    This wasn’t meant for any revenue and shared informally with non-technical users - added screenshots of feedback from users

OC3 - Aiming to show entrepreneurial contributions & impact -

  1. Proof of leading the Badmintoo (ed-tech) distribution as a co-founder – proof of exceptional brand growth with 100k+ followers for Badmintoo & 100 million+ views through analytics screenshots, proof of GBP 12k+ early revenue for courses/subscriptions enabled by this

  2. Proof of contribution to SportERP as a co-founder - letter from Non-executive director & advisor of SportERP - who is an entrepreneurship mentor for young startups

(can add further proof in this criteria where I navigated relationship with a major badminton organisation for getting courses from our ed-tech platform)

How does my application look overall? Do you think it stands a chance for exceptional promise? Would you suggest any re-ordering or further breaking down any evidences?

Any guidance will be super helpful!

@Akash_Joshi @Raphael

2

The ASOIF presentations are your strongest MC evidence - an invitation from an Olympic body to present to 60+ federation leaders is genuine third-party recognition. Drop the co-founding agreement; equity allocation is internal recognition, and assessors distinguish between what your company thinks of you and what the sector does.

LOR issue: the SportERP CEO/co-founder is an immediate colleague. The guide says reference letters “provided by an immediate colleague, manager, or friend are not sufficient.” Replace with someone from the sports tech ecosystem who isn’t a co-founder.

OC1 is weak with ÂŁ2k pilot revenue and no traction on the other products. Consider OC4 instead - your PhD publications could carry more weight than early-stage prototypes. PhD research does qualify (unlike MSc), but needs a top-tier peer-reviewed venue.

Honestly just going back-n-forth on this forum isn’t going to be that helpful for you. You need to book some time with an adviser who can actually go through everything with you. Suggest reaching out to me or Raphael.

1 Like
3

Hi Akash, thanks for the quick and detailed response. Have sent you a DM about the individual time booking with you.

Thanks!

4

@Yash_Deshpande

Having multi domain experience may be acceptable in the industry, but it does not work well for a Tech Nation application. To avoid complicating your narrative, position yourself simply as an experienced commercial/business lead in a digital business or an experienced C‑suite leader in a digital, tech‑enabled business . These align more closly with the business skills.

You also need to clearly explain why you are applying via the Promise pathway, because your educational trajectory suggests you have been in the sector for some time, except you had some breaks, reasons, make it clear.

Your LOR authors appear fine. However, you still need to check their public profiles to ensure their career trajectory is clearly reflected, and they should know you and your work for at least one year.

On the MC your plan to position yourself as someone with business experience is strategic, so I suggest you maintain that angle as a Co‑Founder/Strategic Business Lead rather than presenting yourself as an AI Product Manager and technical person. Note that early diagrams created based on agent expected behaviour or demo videos recorded by you will not demonstrate recognition for leading the development of a product or team in a tech company.

Can you show your company organogram, evidence of leading partnership negotiations, invitations to speak about your startup, collaborations with external partners, or strategic interactions with team members via Slack, Jira, or Confluence? Did you secure funding, receive media coverage about the founders or the product, or obtain shares/stock options, audited statement of account, your earnings from third party payment gateway or channel? These are the types of evidence that demonstrate leadership as a C‑suite or business lead.

Your in person presentation on AI for sport may be useful, but it could be dismissed as not primarily focused or sector advancing. If the presentation was a result of your company’s product being recognised and you were invited to speak about it, that strengthens your case. An invitation from ASOIF (an Olympic body) can also support recognition by a credible organisation.

Your invitation to conduct an online webinar on AI content must also be tied to your expertise and recognition as a founder who led the development of a SportERP. However, being an online webinar weakens the evidence.

The other evidence listed is more descriptive. It’s good that you’ve sought guidance from an expert to help you with the grey areas.

All the best.

5

Thank you so much for the detailed response Raphael. Really useful.

Will tailor my application accordingly.

Best wishes,
Yash

6

You are welcome.

All the best