From Idea to Investor Pitch in 90 Days: Cross-Border Entrepreneurship in Cyprus

Industry: Cross-border entrepreneurship, multi-sector

Participants: 20 entrepreneurs across two cohorts of 10 companies

Engagement: 3 months per cohort, run twice (2024 and 2025)

Run twice, in 2024 and 2025, an EU-funded cross-border entrepreneurship initiative brought together 20 entrepreneurs across two cohorts of ten companies, spanning tech, pharmaceutical, and lifestyle products, with ventures ranging from web-based businesses to sustainability and social tech. Delivered in partnership with a leading economic development agency, the programme united Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot entrepreneurs from across the island.

A Familiar Starting Point

If you run an enterprise or accelerator programme, this pattern will be familiar: the companies coming in almost always have a genuinely disruptive business idea or concept, but struggle with analysis and the articulation of a clear value proposition. Few have taken the time to fully analyse their market or clearly identify who their customers actually are. Who the customer really is, how the market affects the business, how finance and people factor into the plan: these gaps are not about the quality of the idea. What is missing is clarity, and that is exactly what growthsprint. is built to deliver.

This was exactly the starting point for the entrepreneurs who took part in a cross-border entrepreneurship programme in Cyprus, run across two cohorts in 2024 and 2025.

The Challenge

Each cohort of ten early-stage companies, spanning both communities across the island, came into the programme with raw ideas and, in many cases, early proof-of-concepts. Few had ever formally built out a business plan or pitch before. The goal was ambitious: take entrepreneurs from initial idea exploration to a confident, investor-ready pitch, in just three months.

Beyond the founders themselves, the programme also needed to work for the team delivering it. A mentor pool spanning innovation, marketing, and finance had to be able to guide founders consistently, without each mentor pulling participants in a different direction based on their own specialism.

The Approach

The programme was delivered through a blended model: in-person workshops combined with an online learning environment, giving teams both face-to-face idea exchange and the flexibility to keep developing their plans between sessions.

It began with an initial discovery session, where each founder mapped out their idea's purpose, vision, and core objectives. From there, teams worked through growthsprint.'s framework first on physical paper canvases in workshop sessions, then transitioned to the platform for ongoing collaboration.

Rather than getting stuck in open-ended ideation, growthsprint. gave every team a structured way to move quickly from raw concept to clarity, defining a firm strategic objective, a clear market position, and the specific business outcomes they were aiming for. Value proposition and customer and market understanding were established early, giving every team a solid foundation before they began building out their plans in detail.

Critically, growthsprint. gave every team, regardless of sector or starting point, a common language to articulate what their business was actually about, and to direct that clarity toward whatever mattered most to them individually: raising investment, securing their first customers, or developing their first product. The emphasis throughout was on genuine understanding and clear articulation, not on producing a business plan document for its own sake.

For the team delivering the programme, this had a second benefit beyond the founders' own progress. The programme manager and the wider mentor team, spanning innovation, marketing, and finance, all adopted growthsprint. as a shared methodology. Rather than each mentor advising from their own specialism in isolation, the whole delivery team worked from the same framework, giving founders consistent guidance regardless of which mentor they spoke to.

The Outcome

By the end of each three-month cohort, all ten teams, regardless of sector or which side of the island they came from, had gone from early-stage ideas to fully articulated, investor-ready businesses. A 100% pitch-readiness rate, repeated identically across both cohorts. Both the 2024 and 2025 cohorts culminated in a live pitch event in Nicosia, held within the UN buffer zone, the neutral ground dividing the island's two communities, where founders presented to an audience of around 100 people for prize money and investment.

At the end of the programme, each participating company received a growthsprint. Navigator certificate, recognising their completion of the framework. For several founders, this became a milestone worth sharing publicly, turning programme completion into a moment of credibility in its own right.

For many participants, this was the first time they had ever formally built a business plan or pitch, and growthsprint. got them there significantly faster than they would have otherwise.

The programme's funder backed it a second time in 2025, repeating the same format on the strength of the first cohort's results. Beyond the programme itself, several participant companies have gone on to raise further investment, including funding from the European Union, to support international expansion of their products and businesses. The programme is widely regarded as one of the most successful cross-community economic development initiatives on the island.

In Their Words

"Diane and the growthsprint. framework gave me clarity, structure, and a clear roadmap, making planning and pitching my start-up easier. With her help, I built a compelling business case with confidence."
Nicola Solomou
CEO, Silverpen Careers

"We built Gatsot's full growthsprint. Blucanvas from the ground up, defining our purpose, goals, actions, and risks in one clear roadmap. It gave real structure to how we plan, grow, and execute."
İbrahim Özkan
Gatsot

"growthsprint. helped us map out the strengths and weaknesses of our business in an ordered manner. growthsprint. makes you notice the places of improvement and helped us revise our plans."
Alp Ege Zaimagaoglu
Handichat

"Proud to announce that I have completed the growthsprint. Navigator Programme. A powerful programme focused on business strategy, growth planning, and execution."
Gulsu Tecer
Senssos

If This Pattern Sounds Familiar

The gap between a disruptive idea and a clear, fundable pitch is one of the most common challenges programme managers face, and one of the hardest to solve consistently across an entire cohort and a mixed team of mentors. If that is a pattern you recognise in your own programme, growthsprint. was built to close exactly that gap.

Details have been anonymized at the request of the implementing partner. Programme funding was provided by the European Union.