The 3rd NEXT Cologne kicked off on the evening of October 23rd and this time we have four very early-stage startup teams attending the program – Including one team traveling all the way up from France to attend in Cologne – respect!

We’re super stoked to take the NEXT program for the third run in Cologne with out GOLD sponsor denkwerk, SILVER sponsor Osrborne Clarke and VENUE PARTNER STARTPLATZ!

In the coming six weeks, the participants will be forced to go out of their comfort zone and to get out of the building, interviewing potential customers, trying to validate their assumptions about the problem they think their startups are solving and about the their proposed solutions.

Along their way, they will be expertly mentored by Dr. Robert C. Bush Jr, Puja Abbassi and Francis Dierick.

And in between their customer interviews on their six week journey, they will receive lectures on the basics of the Customer Discovery methodology, how to identify markets and evaluate opportunity sizes, what the criteria for a VC fundable startup are and how startups actually get funded, how to pitch investors and how communicate your startup idea and how to position yourself, and how to take your startup to market – all in all a pretty intensive program for the next six weeks.

NEXT Powered by Google for Entrepreneurs is the premier experiential educational program teaching early stage startups how to build the skills and tactics your startup needs to prepare for an accelerator, investor, or early product launch, accessible at a nominal fee and on a schedule allowing for your day-job or studies in parallel.

NEXT is brought to you by the non-profit organization that also brings you Startup Weekends and Startup Digests – UP Global (recently mentioned by POTUS Obama) – and our partners include Steve Blank, TechStars and GAN – Global Accelerator Network.

Stay tuned for more updates as the third NEXT Cologne program progresses!