Sw7

 For Tech Founders & CEOs,

CTOs and Product Owners

in B2B Startups, Scaleups and ISVs

Sw7 is a network of Founders and CEOs looking to accelerate their go to market and sales strategies as they build, launch, grow and scale their B2B technology business.

When you join Sw7 you can

Work the way you want, at the speed that works for you
in our customised private workshops based on best-practise playbooks, complimented by a library of curated resources that can be accessed anytime, from anywhere.

Meet experienced Founders and CEOs
in bespoke workgroups and short webinars with Mentors and Investors designed to accelerate knowledge sharing and insights, discuss and solve common problems and crowdsource recommendations to products, service providers, content and information. Whether you are at the build stage or scaling and expanding offshore, you can save time and money by tapping into the knowledge and experience of those that have been there and done it before.

Reduce costs with the Sw7 Partner Benefits Programmes
giving you the opportunity to apply for credits from
AWS Activate, HubSpot, Intercom and Miró.

You can join Sw7 for free here.

Then schedule your complimentary Go To Market & Scale Readiness Workshop as soon as you are ready.

Get To Market

Create your path to predictable revenue.

In just a few one-to-one virtual workshops, we quickly take you through a structured framework to build out your Sales strategy, ensuring your B2B technology business is fast-tracked to viability, predictable revenue and sustainable growth.

After the workshops and in your own time, you can work through various scenarios in the Playbooks, with thought provoking questions to guide your thinking, supported by resources that include best-practice overviews, methodologies, articles, books, videos and recorded webinars.

Get started here to create your Scale Readiness Roadmap (it’s free!)

and join Sw7 Scale when you’re ready.

Your roadmap to scale.

Find out where to allocate and prioritise your resources, what you need to do to fast-track your B2B technology business on the path to viability, sustainability, predictable revenue and scale.

To create your Go To Market and Scale Readiness Roadmap, get started here.

Expand Your Network.

Connect with experienced B2B Tech Founder CEOs.

Sw7 is a network that exists to connect Founders of B2B product-led technology businesses, share insights and experience, complimented by a library of curated resources that can be accessed anytime, from anywhere. Founders can tap into the collective intelligence, knowledge, guidance and support of an experienced business network that includes CEOs, technology partners and investors and benefit from the crowdsourced recommendations to the best products, services and content organised around business problems.

To join the network, get started here.

Get Funded

Find your match.

From Pre-Seed to Series B, Sw7 Dealflow matches your business with funders. The aim of Sw7 Dealflow is to curate deals, shorten deal cycles and ultimately, save everyone time. We provide tailored guidance as you build your storyline, prepare your data room and navigate the fundraising journey. Post funding, we partner with founders to ensure that you make your sales goals and deploy capital effectively to meet your stakeholder obligations and prepare for follow-on investment rounds.

Craft a credible and compelling storyline for your pitch-perfect deck which you can build with the Funding Deck Playbook. Don’t miss the key evidence and data points that funders and investors look for to build and support an optimal valuation whether it is your first or a follow-on funding round. Our Playbook resources include thought provoking questions to guide your thinking, supported by resources that include best-practice overviews, methodologies, articles, books, videos and recorded webinars.

The Sw7 Funder Dashboard tracks outreach and funders responses so that you have oversight of where you are on the funding journey. We also provide you with opportunities to raise your business profile with Sw7 Spotlight.

If you are looking to raise your first or your next round, get started here and join Sw7 Scale when you are ready.

Scale

Create a high growth business.

We work directly with the founders of SaaS and SwaS (Software with a Service) B2B technology businesses to provide tailored business support through our one-to-one mentoring, board advisory, private round tables and group webinars with founders, mentors, technology partners and investors.

Membership of the Sw7 Scale Network is by invitation and includes:

• Building Your Sales Strategy - whether you are selling directly to your customer or looking to build and activate a partner channel, we work with you and your team to create strategies that support the transition from a product-assisted sale towards a product-led sale. As a result of streamlining and optimising your sales and marketing funnels and supporting processes, you acquire more “good” customers, shorten sales cycles and create predictable revenue ensuring you scale your B2B technology business at an accelerated rate.

• Structuring for Growth, Expansion and Scale - when you are looking to set up or transition IP to an offshore location or expand to new markets in the US, UK, EU and Africa, we share the options and also connect you to founders who have done it, so that you can learn from their experience and make more informed decisions.

• Sw7 Spotlight - prepares you for opportunities to raise your business profile ensuring that you craft a compelling story.

• Sw7 Dealflow - the aim of Sw7 Dealflow is to curate deals, shorten deal cycles and ultimately, save everyone time. When you are ready for commercial engagements or considering funding from Pre-Seed to Series B rounds, our bespoke introductions can help boost your pipeline. Pre-raise we prepare you for introductions where there is a mandate match and post-fundraise, we partner with you to ensure you make your sales goals, deploy capital effectively, meet your stakeholder obligations and prepare for a follow-on investment round. Sw7 work one-to-one with founders to ensure that your deck is succinct and on point with evidence-based content. Sw7 Dealflow also matches businesses with Corporate and Enterprise challenges.

• Sw7 Technology Partner Benefits - access support from our curated cloud platform partners which include AWS, Hubspot, Intercom, Miró and Twilio Sendgrid (subject to eligibility criteria and partner approval).

You can get started here for free and join Scale when you are ready.

FAQ

All sessions are held virtually supported by our online platform with access to resources whenever you have the time and the headspace.  There is no need to travel or to take time off from your business.  You can join from anywhere, at any time.

Yes.  You can start for free by creating your Go To Market & Scale-Readiness Roadmap which will be ready to view in your workspace within seconds of completion. This shows you what is working and what needs more attention or where more resources are required in your business.  When you are ready to join Sw7 Scale, we agree your key themes for the seven workshops and you can start applications for the Sw7 Partner Benefits Programmes.

Click Join.

1. Create your free Go To Market & Scale-Readiness Roadmap which will be ready to view in your workspace within seconds of completion. As soon as the Roadmap is generated, you will be invited to a complimentary Go To Market & Scale-Readiness Workshop.

The Go To Market & Scale-Readiness Roadmap provides an overview of where your business is at, what to focus on next, what to prioritise and why. This takes between thirty and forty minutes depending on your business life stage and provides a sound foundation to make better data-driven decisions, essentially business intelligence for product-led B2B Technology Businesses and ISVs.  When you complete the initial registration form, your workspace will be set up and you can complete the Scale-Readiness Scorecard in your workspace.  To Compare Your Scores and view your Team Alignment, we recommend that you invite other members of your founding team to complete the Scale-Readiness Roadmap.

In the initial complimentary one-to-one workshop, we provide an overview and insights on where your business is at, what to focus on next, what to prioritise and why. When you engage, we agree the themes and can work on any of the following, customising support solutions relevant for you and your founding team to ensure that you have a clear path to predictable revenue.

Go To Market Plan - Understanding your market opportunity, your ideal customer profile and your customer buying journey, your business model, pricing and customer activation

Product Roadmap - Design and build features that shorten time to onboard, speed up time to value and make your offering easy to sell

Sales Strategy From Growth To Scale - Build an effective B2B sales funnel from acquisition to activation, engagement and retention

Channel Partner Strategy - Identify and activate the most appropriate distribution partners for your business

Funding - Develop your funding strategy, increase your business valuation, prepare for your first or next funding round and connect with appropriate funders

Build Operational Capacity - Align your team with your strategy for growth and scale

International Expansion - Optimal IP set up, launch and scale off-shore

Acquisition, merger or exit transaction - Sw7 have been engaged by founders as an independent trusted advisor as they navigate complex contract negotiations with a partner, supplier or VC which are often time and headspace-consuming opportunities.

In addition to the above, Founders at the Build stage, testing Product Market Fit or scaling offshore, have used the workshops where they were

• looking for an accountability and growth partner

• requiring more support or one-to-one mentoring

Founders and CEOs regularly re-engage when they are

• testing Product Market Fit and running a couple of experiments

• looking for an accountability and growth partner

• requiring more support or one-to-one mentoring for themselves or for team members

• preparing for their first or next funding round

• engaging in complex contract negotiations with a partner, supplier or VC

• in discussions around an acquisition, merger or exit transaction.
  In these cases, you can start an additional package whenever the time is right for you.  

  
  For Funders and CEOs looking for introductions to Funds and VCs with a mandate match, Sw7 Dealflow charges a very small % upon success for introductions where there is a 2-way mandate match.  Reach out if you are looking to raise from Seed to Series B.If you need more, we can customize a solution for you. Are there additional fees?

The group workshops and webinars facilitate the sharing of information and insights within the Sw7 Network of Founders, CEOs, Mentors and VCs based on topics that are relevant to product-led B2B technology businesses and ISVs to help them unpack what they need to do next.

No. There is no obligation to attend group workshops or webinars.  We know our founders have a lot on the go, so do whatever works best for you and your team - join our webinars live or listen to recordings whenever you have the time and the headspace.

The platform brings a cloud-based approach to sharing information and insights on business problems and topics that are relevant to product-led B2B technology businesses and ISVs.  Work through the action-oriented playbooks with guided thought provoking questions and immediately apply the outcomes and knowledge to your business, customer and market in your own time, whenever you have the headspace or when you come up against a similar issue or problem to solve. 

Acceleration is about making better decisions and executing as fast as you are able.  Increasing the pace of getting things done means creating systems and processes that help business founders do more with less.  Sw7 is a founder first platform with a network of product-led technology business founders and funders. Through a blend of group webinars, workshops, and one-to-one mentoring, support is provided focused on increasing sales and doing better funding deals with a foundation of a business intelligence process and performance management approach.  The outcome is that Sw7 helps business founders make better decisions and execute their Go To Market strategy supported by curated content focused exclusively on and crowdsourced with the Sw7 founders, CEOs, mentors, and VCs in our B2B & ISV network.

Sw7 started as we saw many founders bootstrapping and struggling to find a way to get the support they needed when they needed it. They were constantly being pushed into intense three or six-month programs that only took a small number of businesses and for that, they usually had to give away equity and take time out from their business. From personal experience, we know that building a B2B product-led technology business takes anywhere from nine months to three years. B2B sales cycles also take time, selling to Corporates and enterprises takes more time. The larger the organization, the more stakeholders need to be involved and Procurement alone can be three to nine months depending on the size of the organization. If you are lucky, your deal can close in three months however, it can take up to three years and many meetings, especially if your offering is “strategic”. By the time you get to market and get those sales funnels working, the reality is that it can take up to seven years before you break even, start making a profit, and ready yourself for true scale. Our founder first approach means we want founders to hold onto as much equity as possible so that they have a better chance of a better fundraising deal when and if they decide to raise. We want to be inclusive so that founders can get access to acceleration and one-to-one mentoring and support they need when they need it. Our experience in the market showed that founders and CEOs needed something to support them on the long journey that often requires personal money, time, a huge investment of effort, and where founders make many sacrifices along the way. We started Sw7 to provide a space where founders and CEOs of B2B product-led technology businesses, from wherever they are, can get the support they need when they need it.

Sw7 is the longest running Go To Market & B2B Sales accelerator in Africa having mentored over 350+ technology founders and CEOs with arguably the most experienced Mentor pool of over 100 Technology Founders & CEOs, Founders & VCs.

Sw7 launched the first virtual accelerator in 2019 with AWS Activate and prior to that ran 9 structured programmes sponsored by Microsoft, Standard Bank and RMB including the first Fintech Accelerator in Africa and grew the largest technology LinkedIn Tech Startups Group in Africa.  The Sw7 approach combines years of experience in business intelligence, performance management and acceleration of product-led B2B technology businesses and ISVs.  Sw7 started technology acceleration in 2013 and launched Sw7 in 2014 and continue to meet between two and four founders and CEOs of B2B technology businesses, mentors and investors every day.

Keith Jones, Sw7 Cofounder has been through the business journey of launching, growing, fundraising, acquiring other businesses, listing on the London AIM and exiting his technology business. Keith built up and ran the largest business intelligence and performance management business on the Microsoft stack in Africa listing in London in 2010.  Odette Jones, Sw7 Cofounder, brings years of human capital and performance management experience in high-growth listed businesses with a specific focus on launching and scaling those businesses in emerging markets.

Funds & Investors

Sw7 is a virtual acceleration platform for founders of B2B product-led technology businesses. We work with founders to build their sales and marketing strategy and processes that generate predictable revenue.

We blend private one-to-one workshops, board advisory and mentoring sessions on priority areas of focus with peer-to-peer learning and sharing of know-how which happens in our curated private round tables, group webinars and on our platform.

The Sw7 network is comprised of experienced founder CEOs, COOs, CROs, CTOs, mentors, technology platform partners and investors. an experienced B2B network with guided structured resources curated for and co-created with Founders, CEOs, COOs, CROs and CTOs of B2B SaaS businesses.

Members can join anytime from anywhere.

Sw7 Dealflow curates tailored connections between Investors, Funds, and product-led technology businesses when there is a mandate match. The aim of Sw7 Dealflow is to curate deals, shorten deal cycles and ultimately, save everyone time. Sw7 work one-to-one with the founder CEOs to ensure that their deck is succinct and on point with evidence-based content before any introductions are made. Sw7 Dealflow also matches businesses with Corporate and Enterprise challenges.

Sw7 Portfolio supports Investors, Funds, Portfolios and Programme Managers looking to offer pre and post investment support to their businesses helping them to do due diligence as well as plan, allocate and manage multiple resources more effectively with insights on where to focus cash, time, internal business team support as well as mentors and other service providers.

Sw7 Design, Build, Grow and Scale Playbooks provide additional guided content complemented by one-on-one mentoring support for Entrepreneurial Support Organisations with product-led businesses in their portfolios.

The Sw7 Network with a community of Founder CEOs, CTOs, COOs and CROs, Mentors, Cloud Platform Partners and Investors share their learnings with members who are navigating the business journey to predictable revenue and scale.

The Sw7 Scale-Readiness Roadmap provides insights for businesses both pre- and post- investment, helping to optimise where to put your resources, reduce risk, provide direction and improve the likelihood of success.

Our cloud technology partners Amazon Web Services, HubSpot, Intercom and Miró offer a variety of benefits from training and support to technical guidance, structuring for scale and improving access to market.

If you are a fund or investor looking to grow and scale your portfolio or if you are a corporate or enterprise running a challenge, get in touch - we have a thriving network of post-revenue enterprise-ready businesses with whom we can connect you.

 Cloud Platform Partner Benefits

HubSpot for Startups: Grow Faster. Grow Better.

Startups using the HubSpot CRM platform acquire and retain more customers with HubSpot’s software, educational resources, and robust integrations. All at startup-friendly pricing ranging from 30% to 90% off in your first year.

Find out more on the Hubspot site and watch the 1 minute video here.

Published In

Connect, learn, grow and scale.

Expand your network while you scale your business. Sw7 is a growing network of B2B SaaS product-led technology business Founders, CEOs, COOs, CROs, Mentors, Cloud Platform Partners and Investors. Plug into a host of valuable resources, data, insights, and webinars as you go on the journey of launching, growing, funding, and scaling your business!

You can join the Sw7 Network here.

Get your Scale-Readiness roadmap for free - start here.

Connect with us on any of the Sw7 digital channels or join our webinars and events:

Tech Startups, Founders & Developers Africa, our LinkedIn Community of 8.2k members, and growing daily.

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