Describe your cohort and selection criteria. Makeform creates a structured startup accelerator application form for team, product, traction, goals, and availability details.
Route applications to Slack, Google Sheets, and Zapier.
Sample prompts for your program
Choose a prompt, adapt the criteria, or send it to the Makeform builder. The preview shows a suggested structure.
Audience
First-time and repeat founders building an early product
Format
Multi-section application with deck upload
Prompt size
296 chars
Suggested application structure
Multi-section application with deck upload
Primary founder and cofounder profiles
Problem, customer, and product
Traction metric and reporting period
Pitch deck
Can a founder attend all required sessions?
Suggested review tags
Needs review
Interview shortlist
Not this cohort
Ask for one primary contact and separate cofounder profiles so reviewers can see team coverage.
Step 1
Apply
founders submit one structured venture profile
Step 2
Triage
eligibility and completeness route the application
Step 3
Review
selectors compare consistent evidence and notes
Step 4
Interview
shortlisted teams move to the next stage
A cleaner selection cycle
A structured application keeps selection context together.
Place stage, geography, industry, and commitment criteria first. Conditional paths can reveal the relevant questions.
Pair every metric with a definition and period so reviewers can distinguish monthly from cumulative figures.
Collect each founder's role, commitment, experience, and contact to reveal how responsibilities are covered.
Adapt it to your thesis
Replace sample eligibility, evidence, dates, and routing with your own.
Prioritize problem evidence, prototypes, founder commitment, and the next test.
Branch by solution area, buyer, maturity, pilot readiness, and support needs.
Route affiliations while collecting availability, university resources, and team goals.
Capture location, local impact, interview windows, and event availability.
Build the application
Turn the rubric into questions, then test both experiences.
State the audience, eligibility rules, review themes, dates, and evidence needed. The generator turns that brief into ordered fields.
Remove unused questions. Add conditional follow-ups and explain the expected period beside quantitative fields.
Submit a realistic application. Check required fields, uploads, confirmation copy, notifications, and response readability.
Share or embed one link and route entries to the selection inbox or review sheet. Close it when applications end.
Choose a collection method
A deck rarely presents eligibility, traction, and availability consistently.
Field guide
These sections balance founder context with selection signals.
Founders
Collect a primary contact and one profile per cofounder. Separate role, working status, location, and experience.
Problem
Ask who has the problem, how they handle it now, and what founders learned directly from them.
Product
Distinguish an idea, prototype, launched product, and repeatable offering. Include a demo URL and optional upload.
Traction
Ask founders for the metric, value, unit, definition, and reporting period, plus the learning behind it.
Company
Collect only company facts used in selection. Mark optional questions clearly and use ranges when exact figures are unnecessary.
Program fit
Ask what the team will accomplish, what blocks it now, and which program resource helps. Confirm availability.
Related tools
Use focused forms for mentors, partners, sponsors, and founder stories.
Start from a flexible application pattern when your program does not need accelerator-specific questions.
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Open toolPrompt teams to map customers, value, channels, resources, costs, and revenue before a workshop.
Open toolCollect founder topics, experience, audience value, links, and recording availability.
Open toolFAQ
Practical answers for program managers preparing the next application window.
Cover the team, customer problem, product, stage, traction and reporting period, business model, funding context, program fit, goals, and availability. Add only eligibility questions your team uses. A deck can support, but not replace, comparable fields.
Make it long enough for the first selection decision. Put eligibility first, limit narrative answers, and reserve deeper questions for shortlisted teams. Test whether founders can complete it without repeating themselves.
Let applicants choose a traction type, then request its name, value, unit, definition, and period. Early teams might report interviews or design partners; launched companies might report customers, usage, or revenue.
Yes. Reveal follow-ups based on stage, industry, geography, revenue, funding, or affiliation. Keep eligibility criteria near the beginning and test every branch before publishing.
A deck is useful supporting material, but core selection information belongs in structured fields. State accepted formats and whether a demo link works instead. Do not make founders repeat the deck.
Send submissions to one inbox or sheet, assign an application identifier, and agree on a scoring rubric. Keep internal notes separate. Define review, interview, and decision stages with an owner for each handoff.
Yes. Makeform provides unlimited free forms and responses. Generate, edit, publish, and collect applications without a form or response cap. The paid tier only removes the Makeform badge.
Confirm receipt and explain your review sequence and communication dates. Notify the selection owner, preserve one record per startup, and route incomplete entries consistently. Do not promise acceptance or an interview.
Open the cohort with a clearer application.
