At Iterative, the highest quality source of promising startups has always come from referrals by people in the Iterative Community. That’s not a surprise. Promising early-stage founders talk to other founders long before they ever talk to an investor, and there’s no better advocate for Iterative than someone who’s part of the community. Now that there are 300+ Iterative Founders, we wanted to formalize and build on this organic behavior.
We’re excited to introduce the Iterative Scout Program, a new initiative designed to streamline the process of discovering the next Iterative Founders by enabling existing Iterative Founders.
How it Works
- Email Introductions from Scouts – If you’re a startup founder who has been recommended by one of our scouts, they will introduce you directly to our team.
- Directly to Final Interview – As part of the process, you will go directly to a final interview with Brian or Hsu Ken and the scout who recommended you. The scout will be involved in the investment process to provide their perspective.
- Investment Opportunities – If Iterative decides to invest in your startup, the scout have the option to co-invest alongside us. This means you benefit from not only Iterative's support but the scouts too.
Why Founders Should Be Excited
- Accelerated Access to Iterative – Being introduced by a scout means you skip the queue and go straight to a final interview with our partners. This can significantly speed up the investment process.
- Advocate for Your Startup – Since the scout is part of the investment process, if they recommend you, that’s typically a sign they like what you’re working on and they can be your advocate in that process.
- Added Incentive to Help – If a scout decides to invest in your company alongside Iterative, they will have an incentive to help your startup.
Meet Our Scouts
We are proud to introduce the initial group of scouts.
- Aaron Yip, Co-Founder of Issa (Iterative W23)
- Charles Lee, Co-Founder of CoderSchool (Iterative W21)
- Chinmay Chauhan, Co-Founder of BukuWarung
- Eric Dadoun, Co-Founder of DeZy (Iterative W22)
- Liyen Tan, Co-Founder of Hawkr (Iterative S21)
- Prusothman Sina Raja, Co-Founder of twoplus Fertility
- Siew Kum Hong, Ex-COO of Airbnb China
- Thomas Jeng, GM at Aspire
- Tim Grassin, Co-Founder of TendoPay (Iterative S20)
They are active members of the Iterative Community and were already acting in this capacity.
Get Connected
If you’re a startup founder and know one of these scouts, I highly recommend you talk to them about what you’re doing and see if they’d be willing to refer you. If you don’t know them, you’re welcome to reach out, but almost all of them have a company to run, so they might be busy.
Regardless, everyone is encouraged to apply to Iterative via our website. The application deadline for our next batch is on Monday, 24 June, and orientation is on Wednesday, 17 July. There’s no better time to apply.
