Please rate my Exceptional Promise application!

Stage 1
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Hi everyone - I’ve been curating my Exceptional Promise application and am eager to get feedback and constructive criticism! Very nervous about the Tech Nation uncertainty as I was hoping to apply in June. ANY advice is welcome!!

TLDR;
I am an American (24F) working on the business side (product and product marketing) at digital technolgoy startups (first HealthTech now Crypto/Fintech). For my resume, I did go to an Ivy League (one of the only ones not on the top 50 school visa, go figure) and have won some awards in school. I only have 3 years of experience out of college but believe I’ve worked for innovative companies - still definitely worried that I’m too young to be endorsed for this visa!

Evidence and LoRs

Personal Statement: I have always been entreprenuerial and love scaling tech companies. As the UK has become very crypto friendly I know it is the best place to scale my career. My company’s main competitor is from mainnland Europe, and I believe I can have a huge impact on product growth and reception in the UK.

LoR: CEO, COO, and CMO of my current crypto company (is this overkill?! Should I ask the former CPO of my old company? Could be a weird situation since he has since left the org.)

MC

  • Company 1: Awarded as a Women in Entrepreneurship Panelist (website announcement as evidence) for work at Company 1
  • Company 2: Recommendation letter from CEO (well known) on contributions and potential in the space
  • Company 1: Equity grant (was first to receive equity aside from founders)
  • Company 2: Salary and equity grant (over 6 figures). may be promoted soon so could include that as well.
  • Company 1: Video of me presenting an extensive research white paper (on our emerging product’s machine learning) to an acredited health organization and being led by the Dean of the Yale School of Public Health
  • Company 2: Letter from Company 2 CMO (explains the exact contributions for the papers, that I applied to the awards for the company, and certifies my $$ impact)

OC2: at least 1 example of innovation as a founder of a product led digital technology company or as an employee working on a new digital field or concept

  • Company 1: Video of me presenting an extensive research white paper (on our emerging product’s machine learning) to an acredited health organization and being led by the Dean of the Yale School of Public Health
  • Company 2: Crypto backtesting research written by me and a data scientist (have many papers for this)

OC3: at least 1 example of significant technical, commercial or entrepreneurial contributions to the field as a founder or employee of a product-led digital technology company

  • Company 2: Metrics of the research paper (how many deals it led to, contacts, reads, etc)
  • Company 2: Awards won since I have joined the company
  • Company 2: Letter from current CMO (explains the exact contributions for the papers, that I applied to the awards for the company, and certifies my $$ impact)
  • Company 2: Link to my company’s crypto podcast, where I interview leading founders in the space

Writing it all out seems really stressful and I’m not sure this is enough. Please let me know what I should do to make this stronger! Thank you in advance!!

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I think overall it’s a good application for Promise. I wouldn’t worry at all about being “too young”, I was endorsed for Talent at 25 (although I have more years of experience since I worked through university).

Some thoughts:

I think it would be good to get some recommenders from other companies, previous applications have been rejected with the stated reason that all the recommenders were from a single company.

Keep in mind recommendation letters are separate from the evidence.

Same as above, the guide states that if you are going to use letters from an employer as evidence for OC3, they should be in addition to the required letters of endorsement and should be written by another individual, so it can’t be written by your recommender:

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If you can get statistics on # of downloads etc, I think that would be better just linking the podcast, in general for business applicants it’s good to show numbers for things like conference speaking / publications, etc.

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This is SO helpful - thank you!!!

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one more quick q - I’ve just seen that one person’s application was rejected for using 2 LoRs from the same company (they also had numerous other reasons for rejection). Do I need to have all 3 different?

Here’s what I have so far:

  1. COO of current company
  2. Director of Center for Digital Health (1st company)
  3. Was going to do current CEO but now I have no idea!! Would an employee at my current company who has just moved on to become a Director at another company work?

Thanks in advance if you see this!

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My application was endorsed with 2 LoR from the same company. It might have been a different situation though, some context: the recommenders were both from a large tech company (FAANG), the letters talked about different parts of my work there, and in different periods of time (I’ve worked there for 4 years).

So your mileage may vary if your experience is substantially different I suppose (e.g. if both recommenders talk about your same accomplishments maybe that would be a negative in Tech Nation’s view?)

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Totally get it! Thinking of asking different members of the leadership team to show my different roles there (COO to talk about revenue and Director of product to talk about innovation). Also asking the head of the Center for Digital Health for one as well as an old coworker from a different company with an extensive capital markets trading products background. Will then use my CMO as another rec to corroborate my other evidence. This has been so helpful - thanks a million!!

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