Creating a Program
A program is the thing startups actually apply to - your pre-incubation cohort, your accelerator batch, your seed fund scheme. Setting one up takes six short screens and about twenty minutes. This page walks you through every screen, tells you what to write in each box, and explains the one step people most often forget at the end.
What you will learn
- What to prepare before you sit down to create a program
- What to write on each of the six screens, in plain language
- Every button in the text editor and when to use it
- How to build a weighted scoring sheet for your evaluation panel
- How to build your application form and reuse questions from your bank
- The final step that actually makes your program visible to applicants
What a program is#
A program is one scheme you run - 'Pre-Incubation Cohort 2026', 'AgriTech Accelerator', 'Seed Grant Scheme'. It holds the public description startups read, the application form they fill in, the scoring sheet your panel uses, and the colleagues on your team responsible for it. Everything that follows - applications, evaluations, onboarded startups, funding, tasks - hangs off the program.
Good to know
One program can run year after year. You do not create a new program every intake - you add a new batch to the existing one. Create a new program only when the scheme itself is genuinely different.
Before you begin#
You can save nothing halfway through, so it is worth having your text ready before you start. Twenty minutes of preparation saves an hour of retyping. Have these to hand:
- A program name your target startups would actually recognise
- A description, an objective, the benefits on offer, and your participation guidelines
- Who is eligible and - just as important - who is not
- What you expect participants to have achieved by the end
- A cover image and a logo, if you have them (both optional)
- The names of the colleagues who will manage this program
The six screens are not saved as you go
Nothing is stored until you press Create Program on the last screen. If you close the tab halfway through, you start again. Write your longer paragraphs somewhere else first and paste them in. (The 'Draft' label you see on the Programs list means something different - that is a finished program that has no open batch yet.)
Creating your program, step by step#
The six screens appear one after another, and a progress tracker on the right shows where you are. You cannot move forward until the required boxes on the current screen are filled - the Next button stays greyed out until they are.
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Open Programs and start a new one
In the left-hand menu, under Programs, click Create Program. You will land on the first of six screens.
All Programs shows everything you are running. Create Program sits just above it in the menu. Tip: Do not see Create Program in your menu? Your role does not include it yet. Ask your centre admin.
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Screen 1 - Basic Details
This is the screen your applicants will effectively read, so write it for them, not for your board. Everything marked with a red asterisk is required.
- Program Title - what startups will search for. 'AgriTech Accelerator 2026' beats 'Scheme III (Revised)'.
- Program Description - two or three short paragraphs on what the program is and who it is for.
- Cover Image and Program Logo - optional, but a program with a picture gets noticeably more applications. Must be an image file and under 5 MB, or you will get an error.
- Scheme Type and Governing Body - start typing to search. If nothing matches, an orange note appears saying your new entry will be created, and it becomes available for future programs.
- Program Objective - what this program is trying to achieve, in one or two sentences.
- Program Benefits - what participants actually get. Be specific: funding amounts, desk space, mentor hours.
- Program Guidelines - what you expect of them in return: reporting, attendance, milestones.
- External Link - optional. Point to a detailed page on your own website if you have one.
Screen 1 of 6 - Basic Details. This is the content applicants will read. Tip: Write Benefits as a list of concrete things, not adjectives. 'Rs 5 lakh grant, a dedicated desk for 12 months, and 20 hours of mentoring' works far harder than 'world-class support'.
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Screen 2 - Scheme Details
Three boxes that decide who applies and, more usefully, who does not. Getting this right saves your team from reading applications that were never going to qualify.
- Eligibility Criteria - who can apply. Stage, sector, incorporation status, location, team size.
- Non-Eligibility Criteria - who cannot. Being blunt here is a kindness; it stops people wasting their time and yours.
- Expected Outcomes - what a startup should have achieved by the time they leave.
Screen 2 of 6 - Scheme Details. Your filter for the right applicants. Tip: Most centres find that a clear non-eligibility list cuts unsuitable applications by a third or more.
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Screen 3 - Evaluation Questions
This is your scoring sheet - what your panel will mark each application against. Your panel members never see this screen; they only see the questions when they score.
- The screen starts empty. Press Add Question - or Add Your First Question - to open the question builder.
- Each question you add is listed with its answer options, their points, your scoring note and its weightage.
- Hover over a question to reveal the pencil (edit) and bin (delete) icons.
- 'Add Another Question' sits at the bottom of the list once you have one.
Screen 3 of 6 - Evaluation Questions, before you have added anything. The builder opens from Add Question. Tip: Five to eight well-weighted questions beat twenty vague ones. Panels rush long forms and the scores get noisier.
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Screen 4 - Application Questions
This is the form the startup fills in. Two buttons sit at the top: Question Bank pulls in questions you have already written for other programs, and New Question opens a blank builder. The full detail of both is further down this page.
- Each question added shows its answer type, a red Required badge if it is compulsory, and a green From Bank badge if it came from your library.
- Questions pulled from the bank can be removed but not edited here - edit them in the program they were created for.
- Choice-type questions list their first few options underneath, with a '+N more' badge if there are others.
Screen 4 of 6 - Application Questions. Question Bank reuses; New Question writes from scratch. Tip: Every extra required question loses you applicants. Ask for what you need to make a first decision, and request the rest later through a document request.
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Screen 5 - Assign Managers
Choose which colleagues are responsible for this program. They will see its applications, be able to act on them, and receive its notifications.
- Search by name and tick the people who should manage it.
- There is an 'Include me as a manager' toggle - leave it on unless you are setting the program up on someone else's behalf.
- You can add or remove managers later; nothing here is permanent.
Screen 5 of 6 - Assign Managers. Who owns this program day to day. Tip: Assign at least two people. If one is on leave when applications arrive, the queue does not stall.
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Screen 6 - Preview and create
Everything you have entered, laid out on one screen. Read it as if you were a founder deciding whether to apply. If something needs changing, use Previous to go back - nothing is lost.
- Check the title and description for typos. This is public-facing text.
- Confirm the eligibility rules say what you meant them to say.
- Confirm your evaluation weightages add up to something sensible.
- When you are happy, press Create Program.
Screen 6 of 6 - Preview. Read it as an applicant would, then create.
Using the text editor#
Every long box on screens 1 and 2 - description, objective, benefits, guidelines, eligibility, non-eligibility, outcomes - is a proper text editor, not a plain box. Anything you format here is what applicants see, so a tidy bulleted list of benefits reads far better than one long paragraph. A live character and word count sits in the bottom corner.
| Button | What it does | When you would use it |
|---|---|---|
| B / I / U / S | Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough. Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I and Ctrl+U also work. | Emphasising a deadline or an amount. |
| H1 / H2 / H3 | Turns the line into a heading, largest to smallest. | Breaking a long description into labelled parts. |
| Bulleted and numbered lists | Turns lines into a list. | Benefits, eligibility rules, guidelines - almost always better as a list. |
| Quote and divider | Indents a block as a quotation, or draws a horizontal line. | Pulling out a key condition, or separating sections. |
| Alignment (4 buttons) | Left, centre, right and justified. | Rarely needed. Left is right nearly all the time. |
| Text colour and highlight | Colours the text, or puts a yellow marker behind it. | One important warning. Used more than once it stops meaning anything. |
| Link and remove link | Turns selected text into a clickable link, or strips it. | Pointing to a form, a policy or your own website. |
| Copy all / paste | Copies everything in the box, or pastes from your clipboard. | Moving text you drafted in Word or Google Docs. |
| Clear formatting | Strips all styling back to plain text. | After pasting from Word, which usually drags odd fonts along with it. |
| Undo / redo | Steps backwards or forwards. Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y. | Whenever something goes wrong. |
Tip
Pasting from Word or Google Docs? Paste it in, select everything, then press Clear formatting and re-apply your bullets. It takes ten seconds and stops mismatched fonts appearing on your public program page.
Building an evaluation question#
Pressing Add Question on screen 3 opens the question builder. This is where the actual scoring is designed, and it is the part most worth getting right - everything your panel does later depends on it.
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Write the question and its answer options
Type the question at the top. Underneath, you define the answers your panel can choose from and how many points each one is worth. Two option rows are provided; Add Option adds more.
- Give options meaningful labels - 'Exceptional - proven domain experience' guides a panel far better than 'Very good'.
- Points can include halves (0.5, 1.5) and cannot be negative.
- You must keep at least two options; the delete cross only appears once you have three or more.
The blue panel updates as you type. Here the best answer scores 5, the weightage is 10, so this question is worth 50. Tip: The blue box does the maths for you. If a question's max weighted score looks out of proportion to the others, adjust the weightage before you save.
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Set the weightage and write a scoring reference
Weightage is a multiplier, not a percentage. A question with weightage 20 counts twice as much as one with weightage 10. The scoring reference is an optional note that appears to your panel explaining what each score band means.
- Weightage defaults to 10. Leave it there for ordinary questions and raise it for the ones that really matter.
- A good scoring reference reads like: '1-2: Needs improvement, 3: Meets expectations, 4-5: Exceeds expectations'.
- Press Add Question to save it into the list, or Cancel to discard.
Weightage and scoring reference. The reference is optional but it is what keeps two panel members marking alike. - 3
Check the finished list
Saved questions appear as cards showing the options with their points, your scoring reference, the weightage and the option count. This is your scoring sheet.
Two saved evaluation questions. Hover over a card to reveal its edit and delete icons.
Careful
The builder will not let you save with an empty question, a blank option label, a negative score, or a weightage of zero. If nothing happens when you press Add Question, look for the red message that appears at the top of the screen.
Building the application form#
Screen 4 gives you two ways to add a question: write a new one, or take one you have already used elsewhere. Most centres end up using both.
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Write a new question
New Question opens a small builder: the question itself, the answer format, and whether it is compulsory.
Choosing a choice-type answer makes the Answer Options section appear automatically with two empty rows. Tip: The Required toggle is off by default. Turn it on only for answers you would genuinely reject an application without.
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Pick the answer format
There are eight formats. Choosing any of the three choice formats makes an Answer Options section appear so you can type the choices; switching back to a simple format clears them again.
All eight answer formats. - 3
Or reuse a question from the bank
Question Bank opens your library of questions from across all your programs. Tick the ones you want and add them in a single go.
- The search box filters as you type, so you do not have to scroll a long library.
- 'Used in N programs' tells you how widely a question is already relied on - a good signal that it is worth reusing.
- Questions already on this program show a green 'Already Added' badge and are greyed out so you cannot add them twice.
- The counter at the bottom left tracks your selection, and the button reads 'Add Selected (N)'.
The Question Bank. Greyed rows are already on this program; the search box filters the list as you type. Tip: Reusing bank questions is what lets you compare a startup's answers across two different schemes later. It is worth a look before writing anything new.
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Review what applicants will see
Added questions are numbered in the order applicants will meet them, each tagged with its format and whether it is required.
- A green 'From Bank' badge marks reused questions. These can be removed here but not edited.
- Questions you wrote yourself show a pencil icon on hover so you can change them.
Three questions on the form. The badges tell you the format, whether it is compulsory, and where it came from.
Two different question types, easily confused
Application questions are what the startup answers when applying. Evaluation questions are what your panel scores them against afterwards. Startups never see the evaluation questions, and panel members never fill in the application form.
The step everyone forgets: add a batch#
Creating the program is not the end. A program on its own is a template - startups cannot apply to it yet. You have to add a batch, which is the actual intake with its own opening and closing dates. Once the program is created you are taken straight to its Batches tab for exactly this reason.
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Add your first batch
On the program's Batches tab, create a batch with a name your applicants will understand and the dates applications open and close.
- Name it in a way that ages well - 'Cohort 1, Jan–Jun 2026' rather than 'Batch A'.
- Set the opening and closing dates carefully. These control when the apply button appears.
- Every batch must have funding attached, drawn from a funding source you have already set up.
- Next intake? Add a second batch to the same program. Do not create a new program.
The Batches tab. Until a batch exists and is open, nobody can apply to your program.
No batch means no applications
If a colleague tells you the program is not showing up for startups, this is almost always why. Check the Batches tab first - either no batch has been created, or its dates have not opened yet.
You need a funding source before you can create a batch
Every batch must have funding attached, and that funding has to be drawn from a source you have already set up. If the Create Batch button is greyed out and the funding list says 'No funding sources found', that is why - go to Funding, add your source, then come back. Worth doing before you sit down to create your program, so you are not interrupted at the last step.
Writing a program page that attracts better applications#
The programs that fill up are rarely the ones with the biggest cheques attached - they are the ones that are clearest about who they are for. A few things consistently make a difference.
Name it for the founder, not the file
Founders search for what they are trying to do. 'Climate Tech Accelerator' finds an audience; 'Scheme 4B (Amended)' does not.
Lead with what they get
Put the concrete benefits - money, space, mentor hours, access - in the first few lines of your description. Not in paragraph five.
Be specific about who should not apply
A clear non-eligibility list is a filter that works while you sleep. It protects your team's review time and respects the applicant's.
Keep the form short
Ask what you need to make a first decision. You can always request more documents once an application looks promising.
Add the images
A cover image and a logo make the program look real and funded. Programs without them read as placeholders.
Reuse questions across programs
Pulling from the question bank means you can compare a startup's answers across different schemes, and your reports stay consistent.
What happens after you create it#
Once the program is live and a batch is open, the portal takes over most of the routine work.
- Startups find the program, fill in the form you built, and submit.
- Applications land in your program's list, waiting for review.
- You review, and ask for changes or extra documents where something is missing.
- Promising applications go to your evaluation panel, who score them using the questions from Screen 3.
- You onboard the ones you want, and they become startups in your portfolio.
- From there you can allocate funding, assign desks, set tasks and connect mentors.
Tip
Everything you entered can be edited later from the program's page - the description, the eligibility rules, the questions, the managers. Nothing you decide today is locked in.
Common questions#
Not at the moment. The program is saved only when you press Create Program on the final screen. Draft your longer paragraphs elsewhere and paste them in, and set aside about twenty uninterrupted minutes.
You almost certainly have not added a batch yet, or the batch dates have not opened. Open the program, go to the Batches tab, and create a batch with today's date inside its application window.
No. Add a new batch to the same program. That keeps all your cohorts, history and reporting together under one scheme.
Yes, but do it carefully. Applications already submitted keep the answers they gave, so changing questions mid-intake makes comparing candidates harder. If you can, wait for the batch to close.
Application questions are what the startup answers when applying. Evaluation questions are what your panel scores them against afterwards. Startups never see the evaluation questions.
One of the required fields on that screen is empty. Required fields are marked with a red asterisk. Scroll up and look for the one you have missed.
Programs are not deleted, because doing so would take applications, evaluations and funding history with them. If a program is finished, close its batches so no new applications can arrive.
