How EcoSync works, from signing up to the first useful thing

Most platforms explain what they contain. This page explains what happens next - the four things a new account can do immediately, and the one decision that changes everything after that.

Create an account Read the documentation

Step one: an account, and four things that work straight away

Signing up takes an email and about a minute. You do not need an invitation, you do not need to be in a programme, and you do not need to pick a plan.

What a brand-new account can do, before any role or approval:

Post, comment and follow the hashtags for your sector
Message anyone directly, or start a group
Join communities, or start one and write the rules people agree to
Find events and register for them, from a Thursday meetup to a weekend hackathon

Step two: the profile is the product

This is the part people skip, and it is the part that decides whether anything else works. Your headline and your skills are what the platform matches on - which roles surface for you, which mentors are suggested, who finds you in search.

It is also visible: your profile is a public page with your name on it, and it is what somebody sees when they are deciding whether to reply. Ten minutes here is worth more than an hour anywhere else on this list.

Skills drive the matching

Job matching reads the skills on your profile against the skills on a posting. An empty skills list means an empty job feed, and it looks like the platform is broken when it is not.

Your headline is the sentence people judge

It appears next to your name everywhere - search, communities, connection requests. Say what you do, not what you aspire to.

Step three: add the role that matches what you came for

Roles are added from Settings, then Roles. This is the decision that opens the rest of the platform, and you can hold as many as genuinely apply - a founder who also mentors does not need a second account, and adding one never removes another.

Founder - a company workspace holding your team, your documents and your pitch deck, plus applications to incubation programmes and the funding requests that follow
Mentor - publish your availability and what a session costs, take bookings, meet over video, and get paid without sending an invoice
Investor - run deal flow through stages, take a deal to committee, and follow a portfolio after the cheque
Student - internships, events and communities, as a way in that is not a cold email
Professional - networking, jobs and events, without a company attached to you
Freelancer - a profile founders find when they search for the skill they need

What the first week usually looks like

Nobody does all of this, and you should not try. The shortest path to the platform being useful is one thing done properly rather than six things opened.

If you are building something

Set up the company workspace, then look at which incubation programmes are open. Applying carries your company record across rather than making you retype it.

If you want a mentor

Search by the thing you are stuck on rather than by seniority. Mentors publish real availability, so booking is picking a slot rather than starting a negotiation.

If you are hiring

Post the role from your company page and add the screening questions you would otherwise ask on a first call.

If you are looking for work

Fill in your skills, then save one narrow search as an alert. A broad alert becomes noise in two days.

Questions people actually ask

Do I need an invitation or to be in an incubator?

No. Anyone can create an account. Being part of a programme changes what you see inside the startup workspace, but it is not a condition of joining, posting, hiring or booking a mentor.

What does it cost to start?

Creating an account and using the network costs nothing. What a paid plan adds depends on which role you hold, and the current figures are on your plans screen once you sign in - see the plans page for how that is put together.

Can I have more than one role?

Yes, and most people eventually do. Adding a role never removes another, and your primary role only decides how you appear by default in search. A founder who also mentors uses one account for both.

What if I open something I do not have the role for?

You are taken to Role Management rather than an error page. That is the system telling you which role to add - add it there and come back to what you were doing.

How long before it is actually useful?

The honest answer is that it depends on the profile. A filled-in profile with real skills starts matching immediately; an empty one looks like a quiet platform. That is the single highest-return ten minutes here.

Start with a profile

Create an account, fill in what you do, and add the role that matches why you came. The rest opens from there.

Create an account

Ready to Join
the Ecosystem?

Book a demo

EcoSync is a product of Opernova Technologies LLP.

Running an incubator or accelerator? EcoSync for incubators