What we do

WHAT IS 50FOLDS

We’re a team of experts who love to build startups. Drawing on experience gained in companies such as Delivery Hero, Groupon, Lazada and others. We have the network and knowledge, supported with methodologies we have developed, to help entrepreneurs fuck up less and grow more. In short, it’s a very long accelerator, designed bespoke for each startup.

INCUBATION

We build startups at two stages: ideation (Incubation) and pre-seed (acceleration).

ACCELERATION

What is 50Folds

We’re a team of experts who love to build startups. Drawing on experience gained in companies such as Delivery Hero, Groupon, Lazada and others. We have the network and knowledge, supported with methodologies we have developed, to help entrepreneurs fuck up less and grow more. In short, it’s a very long accelerator, designed bespoke for each startup.

We build startups at two stages: ideation (Incubation) and pre-seed (acceleration).

Incubation

Acceleration

Startup is a bitch (there, we said it)

Your savings are running out and the gf/bf is nagging you
You have a massive opportunity cost quitting your job to try beat the odds, right? You only have so much runway before you have to give up on the dream. Would be cool to make sure you don’t fuck up doing dumb stuff and have to save up for 2 years to try again, right?
You’re the CEO, YAY! Only it’s more lonely than the 40y/o virgin on Friday night
You need to keep up appearances, right? You feel you need to tell everyone ‘everything is awesome’ like you are in a stupid Lego movie. There is no one to talk to that understands, or finds what you do is super fascinating!
I thought investors are throwing money at everyone?
Investment is not as easy to get as you thought, right? Also you read stories such as from Box, that even if you build a freakin unicorn, you can still be driving a Honda, if you don’t get the terms right. And there are soooo many terms!
Like, I could go to an accelerator, but I need help after 3 months, dude!
There is some new program on every street corner showing what they got these days, enticing you with their wily demo day ways. You’re a scientist/artist with something that is making the establishment sweat, and think these could help… only what happens after?
There is SO MUCH I didn’t know I didn’t know!
Sure you are smart as a whip, and read ‘dumb ideas’ getting funded on TC every day, but it isn’t quite as easy as you thought. You tried raising some cash and an angel wanted 3x participating preferred liquidation preference, now you’re figuring out if your business model has a LTV greater than 4x CAC, on top of recruiting, KPIs, culture… shit.

50Folds was founded because startup shouldn’t be so frickin hard!

50Folds supports founders

We’re a team of experts who love to build startups. We know it shouldn’t be so hard, so we did something about it. Drawing on experience gained in companies such as Delivery Hero, Groupon, Lazada and others. We have the network, over 100 mentors and knowledge, supported with methodologies we have developed, to help entrepreneurs fuck up less and grow more. In short, it’s a very long accelerator, designed bespoke for each startup.

We build startups at two stages: ideation (Incubation) and pre-seed (acceleration).

Incubation

Acceleration

Join the [Anti]Accelerator
“I have a startup and it’s time to make it 50Folds”

[highlight] [Anti] Accelerator
[/highlight]

[highlight]We partner with pre-institutionally funded startups. Not like an accelerator.[/highlight]

A lifelong support structure to grow in

Founders need specialty support in areas that take a long time to learn and are hard to get access to. This is predominantly in business model strategy, scaling, processes and fundraising, not to mention network access for mentorship and recruitment.
Everyone needs someone to call at midnight to help them think through problems.

Learn more

Join the Incubator
“I’m an awesome founder looking for a team and an idea to kick ass with”

Incubation

We create a new startup together, from scratch.

Team foundation

We look to bring together a crack team of founders (Who ideally know each other) in the key roles of CEO, CTO and CMO. This depends on the business model type for the skills required. We only do incubation in specific circumstances, and the bar we hold for founders is incredibly high. Typically there are people we already know. A single founder with a deep market or technical insight can approach us, to get support in building out the founding team and scaling up.

Number of founders we look for

0

CEO

100%

CTO

100%

CMO

100%

Custom

50%

Ideation and business model validation

We work with the founders to analyse strategy and structure, ensuring the unit economics will work, there are potential channels to scale growth through marketing and there is a large enough market with a really painful problem we are best placed to solve.
This involves getting out of the office and actually talking to customers.

Business model checklist

[icon_list] [icon_list_item style=”color: green;” type=”crosshairs”]Painful, defined customer[/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item style=”color: green;” type=”plane”]$1bn market in 5 years[/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item style=”color: green;” type=”big-chart-o”]Viable unit economics, with strong margins (We don’t like on-demand market)[/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item style=”color: green;” type=”signal”]Scablable customer acquisition channels (e.g. can win in SEO)[/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item style=”color: green;” type=”key”]Defensible business model without patents (e.g. come for the software, stay for the network)[/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item style=”color: green;” type=”road”]Team & business model capable of roll-out to multiple mmarkets. We don’t do just one[/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item style=”color: green;” type=”trophy”]Can get an exit in 8 years, with depth of clearly defined potential acquirors[/icon_list_item] [/icon_list]

Beta launch

Execution is all that matters. “Don’t think, just do” is how we ‘think’ about things. We look to ship as quickly as possible and track data in detail to ensure the startup actually has legs. This phase is critical to focus on making customers super happy (even if not scalable) and learning everything possible. If things don’t work out, we do something new. If they work well, it’s time to scale.

Seed fundraising

Startups need the right amount of cash to scale effectively, as well as to balance managing milestones for Series-A and investors’ expectations. Typically we raise in the region of $1-2m. We already have an expansive network of investors, so it’s a formality of figuring out who loves this team and business model In most cases we check with investors if they want to back this idea before starting.

Scaling and team building