Charge.no Mentoring Program
Year: 2023-Present
Company: Charge.no (Volunteer)
Industry: Startup Accelerator
Role: Mentor / Curriculum Designer
Challenge
Accelerator programs often fail to address critical validation gaps, focusing on pitch development and fundraising rather than systematic product discovery and customer validation. Founders receive generic business advice but lack practical frameworks for testing assumptions and avoiding costly mistakes. Charge.no needed scalable mentoring curriculum that built foundational product and design literacy.
Approach
Curriculum Design
- Created training program addressing validation-first approaches over pitch-first mentality
- Developed practical frameworks for customer discovery, assumption testing, and lean validation
- Structured cohort-based delivery enabling peer learning and knowledge sharing
Founder Education
- Delivered mentoring focused on avoiding common startup failure modes
- Taught systematic discovery practices and user-centered product development
- Provided frameworks for making data-informed decisions with limited resources
Scalable Model
- Designed curriculum for repeated cohort delivery rather than one-off workshops
- Created documentation and materials enabling knowledge transfer
- Established best practices for accelerator-based founder education
Outcome
Company-wide adoption: Mentoring program adopted as standard Charge.no offering with plans for continued cohort delivery.
Validation focus: Successfully shifted founder mindset toward systematic validation over premature scaling and pitch optimization.
Scalable impact: Created reusable curriculum and frameworks building product literacy across startup ecosystem.
Methods & Deliverables
Methods: Qualitative research, Product strategy, Workshops, Mentoring, Cohort training
Deliverables: Training Curriculum, Documentation, Frameworks, Case studies
Tags: Training/Mentoring, Leadership/Org Design, Company-wide adoption, Volunteer, Norway