Introducing Unusual Spark

The recent pandemic has shifted major parts of our lives—from the way we work to how we attend school and connect with the people we care about—triggering a new wave of insights and creating a flurry of opportunities for new companies to meet those needs. Furthermore, it has never been easier to start a new company. There are more resources and experienced people than ever before. And yet, entrepreneurs still need help to acquire initial capital, find relevant guidance, and support to make the leap and get started. 

With that goal in mind, we are thrilled to announce the launch of our Unusual Spark program. Unusual Spark is a pre-seed program for Consumer and Enterprise product builders that provides the starter capital, hands-on support, and a network that founders need to go from 0 to 1. Unusual Spark is designed to provide pre-seed founders with the support and capital they need to get started building—all without the cookie-cutter fellowship experience. 

Selected participants in Unusual Spark will get support in the following ways: 

1. Starter capital. Unusual will make an investment of at least $100k up to $2M to help teams get started. The money invested should be enough to get a small team of 1-5 people going for less than a year to conduct customer development research and build prototypes to test their hypotheses. The deals will allow for other angels or even friends and family to participate. The funding should enable the team to gain conviction to fully commit to the company idea. 
2. Hands-on support. Support from Unusual’s team of investors and operators to help the company navigate the early stages of company building with a focus on customer development insights and early product design validation. 
3. Founder community. Access to a high-quality network of early-stage product builders with whom to share ideas, challenges, and best practices. This community will be available through an online channel, in-person workshops, and access to our full lineup of Unusual content and programming.

We see the Unusual Spark program as a natural extension of the Unusual Method and all the programs we have already developed to help founders build their companies, including the Academy, Product Leaders Network, and Insights Series. 

We are open to hearing from any pre-seed product builders for Unusual Spark. We only ask that you have a strong vision and product capabilities to bring your product to life. We know your time is valuable so we promise a lightweight, quick investment decision so you can ramp up fast and hit the ground running. We look forward to hearing from you.

Onward!

John, Jyoti, and Sarah

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