The opportunity

Redbull is recognised as a household brand throughout the world. While they sell energy drinks, their actual goal is to help people push their boundaries and accomplish great things.

In 2019, Red Bull launched their Red Bull Basement startup programme, with the aim of empowering student innovators to drive positive change through tech solutions. 

Kiwi students would compete in a national competition by providing a basic pitch. The winner was then flown to the Global Final to pitch their idea. In preparation for that, the winning student would get access to a number of experts that would help them flesh out their idea and pitch. 

We were approached by Craig from Red Bull, to lead and support winners in bringing their visions to life.

“Red Bull needed a partner to help us execute their programme and provide a real-world, commercial and life-changing experience for our winners.” 

The solution

We designed a two-week incubator programme, aptly named Hatch, that would allow this to happen and prepare the winner for the global pitch of their idea.

This involved a series of intensive sessions in which we would help the winner explore, refine and define their product, bringing clarity to their vision.

We took the winning students through a brand positioning exercise to truly understand the value that their idea would create in the market, what was driving it, and how they would be able to tell a compelling story about it.

We also took them through a prototyping process, bringing their idea to life in the form of a clickable prototype. And lastly, we then helped them develop a strategy for their pitch and the resulting pitch deck.

The transformation

As a result of this programme, the students were able to learn a huge amount about what goes into developing a technology startup - and their innovative ideas were transformed into viable ideas.

Red Bull was able to continue their mission of enabling people to achieve great things.

The Auckland technology startup scene also benefited from having more experienced and well-equipped young founders who would go on to do great things.

As a result of the success of the pilot programme, we were invited again last year to participate in the second year of the programme which was also a glowing success.