Sandeep Varma
Hey, I’m Sandeep!
My School of Splice goal
I’m learning how to build an accelerator program to support our community of South Asian writers in Australia.
I’m the founder of SAARI Collective, community of South Asian writers and content creators in Australia. Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Ross Settles is coaching me on my SOS journey.
In this program, I’m learning how to
How to figure out if an accelerator program would add value to my community of writers
How to organise this program to address the needs of my community
What I’ll need to do
I’ll test my primary assumption with my community: Do South Asian writers really want an accelerator program? What does the program need to do? I’ll reach out on email, text messages, events — as many ways as possible to quickly test this assumption.
If yes, what are the specific areas where they need help? Access to publishers, funding, critiques...?
I’ll pick just 1 or 2 of those needs and start building a program for it. What’s the format? How long will it run? What are the outcomes I want? What do I want people to say about it? How will I measure success?
Now I’ll design a landing page where all of this will sit for now. What is the one thing I want people to do when they find it? Eg. apply here, sponsor us, partner with us.
I’ll run a quick campaign on social media (FB, Twitter) targeting a lookalike audience — but with specific calls-to-action: apply, sponsor, partner. Let’s see if it resonates.
Next, I’ll reach out to my community again and ask for very specific feedback — does this program speak to their needs and wants? Is it useful? What do they want more of? What should I remove? What’s confusing? And what would they pay for this? I need to remember that my lens is always the same: does it solve the problem they wanted me to solve?
I’ll adjust and improve on your plan based on their feedback. Sometimes my role is to translate their needs; often, the best is to remove myself and what I would want from a program like this, and focus solely on my audience feedback.
Now it’s time for me to go back and improve on the prototype based on their feedback. Sometimes my role is to translate their needs; often, the best is to remove myself and what I would want from a newsletter like this, and focus solely on my audience feedback.
Want to learn how to do this yourself? Splice can help. Get in touch.
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