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So you are looking for more information about Leangap to make up your mind? We checked out this program so you don’t have to. 

Teenagers have a unique perspective on the world and can offer novel solutions. This creative mindset can create the most revolutionary ideas if exposed to enough concepts and resources. Launching your startup is the best way to make sure your ideas are heard and widely accepted by the public.

Leangap has made starting a company easier through its extraordinary program. Leangap is a global entrepreneurship program catered towards teenagers that enables them to create and launch their own startup company. Students work under the guidance of expert instructors, who have been perfecting the program for nearly a decade.

TL;DR if you like an in-person expensive entrepreneurship program then Leangap is for you. 

Full transparency: BETA Camp is also helping young people explore entrepreneurship, with fully-virtual programs that assist with building your very own startup. However, we try to write unbiased and informative reviews for our readers. 

In this guide, we'll cover everything you need to know about the Leangap Program, including reviews, fees, dates, and more. With the right information, you'll be well on your way to achieving your entrepreneurial goals.

Stick around for the comparison chart at the end.

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Overview

The Program design

Leangap offers both online and offline (in-person) programs. The offline program is based in San Francisco, New York.

The online and offline programs are divided into four phases over four weeks. If your idea is promising enough, it is an incubator that guarantees success. 

The first phase is the validation phase. It happens during the first week when students pitch their unique ideas individually. Then their peers will vote and come to a consensus on which ideas are the best and which they are interested in executing. After that, they will form teams.

The teams will work together to create and perfect the business model. The first concept for their products or services will also be created this week as a part of their action plan. 

Phase two is the creation phase. The teams will create a smaller and more executable version of their products or services with the guidance of the mentors. 

This viable product will then be beta tested by real customers. Leangap ensures that your product reaches a sufficient number of people and that their feedback is honest and constructive. 

The students can then return to refine their ideas or start from scratch to create something new with a fresh perspective from the population. 

Phase three is the most exciting part. This is when you start generating revenue from your projects as they are sold to real customers. Leangap makes it possible so that your product reaches its target demographic and a willing audience so that the students can get sales as soon as possible.

Phase four starts on the fourth and final week of the program. The students will get a chance to demonstrate their idea and pitch their company to a panel of investors, CEOs, technologists, and more representing the Silicon Valley tech scene. 

They will judge the company based on its pitch, market size, and sustainability of the products and finally give a verdict. 

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Key Features

In-Person vs. Online

For an in-person experience, students are provided with an excellent campus at a top university. They are also given college tours, in-person one-on-one mentorship, and fun recreational opportunities to make their experience enjoyable.

For online, students are given access to multiple platforms and resources necessary to accelerate their startup's growth. Instead of sitting 8 hours in front of a monitor, they can communicate and work with their team at their convenience. Besides, mentors give feedback in their afternoons based on their progress.

Resources

Many blogs on making your startup successful and accelerating its growth are present on Leangap's website. You can head over there and get a new perspective from experts. 

Following the application, more resources are available, such as access to every platform required to facilitate your startup and mentorship from entrepreneurs. 

Mentors

You can choose your mentor depending on the field you are interested in and want to pursue. The mentor will then provide you with personalized one-on-one sessions that fit your preferences. 

They are given extensive training as camp counselors, including training for what they have to do in case of medical emergencies like CPR. 

In Beta Camp, students get two mentors for each startup idea. This allows students to gain different perspectives and think broadly. 

In-Person vs. Online

For an in-person experience, students are provided with an excellent campus at a top university. They are also given college tours, one-on-one mentorship, and fun recreational opportunities to make their experience enjoyable.

For the online program, students are given access to multiple platforms and resources necessary to accelerate their startup's growth. Instead of sitting 8 hours in front of a monitor, they can communicate and work with their team at their convenience. Besides, mentors give feedback in the afternoons based on their progress.

Resources

Many blogs on making your startup successful and accelerating its growth are present on Lean Gap's website. You can head over there and get a new perspective from experts. 

Following the application, more resources are available, such as access to every platform required to facilitate your startup and mentorship from entrepreneurs. 

Mentors

You can choose your mentor depending on the field you are interested in and want to pursue. The mentor will then provide you with personalized one-on-one sessions that fit your preferences. 

They are given extensive training as camp counselors, including training for what they have to do in case of medical emergencies like CPR. 

In Beta Camp, students get two mentors for each startup idea. This allows students to gain different perspectives and think broadly.

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Logistics

The Leangap Summer program has online and offline classes. You can pick one depending on which is more convenient for you. 

Summer Online Program

The online program will start on June 19, 2023, and end after four weeks on July 14. There are also two weeks of early prep included in the program. 

Classes are from 8:00 am to 11:00 am PST. Leangap doesn't believe in making students sit in front of the monitor for 8 hours. After the morning class, students communicate with their team and work together based on a schedule that is convenient for them. The mentors will check in during the afternoon through a remote platform to see the progress and help if students are struggling with something.

Summer Offline Program

The offline program will start on July 17, 2023, and end on August 11. This also has a duration of four weeks. 

It is hosted at a college campus in San Francisco, California. Students are given full accommodations, security, and safety to make this time as enjoyable and fruitful as possible. 

Leangap will send you the campus details and accommodations once your application is approved. Past housing locations were in prestigious universities like San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley.

Pricing

• Leangap Online Program: The tuition cost for the Leangap Online Program is $5,950.
• ‍Leangap Offline Program: The tuition cost for the Leangap Offline Program based in San Francisco is $7,950.

The tuition fee includes the cost of accommodations in San Francisco throughout the whole four weeks of the program. 

However, meal plans are not included in the program tuition and must be purchased separately. The meal plan is all-inclusive, with vegetarian options as well. You have to inform them by email if you have any allergies or dietary restrictions. 

Both online and offline tuition fees include the curriculum, classes, remote group activities, mentorship by entrepreneurs, access to the platforms necessary to attend the program, special startup resources, and both offline and remote recreational activities.

Financial Aid

Need-based financial aid is provided to smart, talented, and ambitious students who cannot afford it. This aid can range anywhere from 10% to 80% of the tuition cost. Leangap does not provide full-ride scholarships at this time.

You have to send financial statements showing your parents’ income for the last 12 months to be eligible for financial aid.

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Pros and Cons

Some of the pros of the Leangap Program include the following:

• Leangap brings brilliant people from all over the world together to build something they are passionate about. Like-minded, ambitious teenagers can build on one another's ideas and create extraordinary things when working together.  
• Leangap allows you to create a smaller, implementable version of your idea and present it to the general public to see how people respond to it. This can provide valuable insight into any problems, how to solve them, and ways to improve your company. 
• Leangap has a one-on-one approach in terms of assisting its students in ensuring each student is given enough time and attention to flourish.
• Starting and launching a startup as a teenager is remarkable and will give you leverage over others during college admissions, scholarship applications, and recruitment.
• Since Leangap started nearly a decade ago, many of its alumni have secured jobs in leading companies worldwide. So, Leangap provides networking opportunities with big names in tech and businesses.
• Students who can't afford it can apply for need-based financial aid. 

Some of the cons of the Leangap Program include the following:

• The offline location is limited to San Francisco, California, making it difficult for students from other states to attend. 
• The high tuition price makes it inaccessible for students with substandard financial backgrounds. The full-ride scholarship is still not available. 
• It does not allow students to choose their own teams making the collaborative process somewhat difficult.
• The winning idea only gets limited funding from Leangap. However, investors from the judging panel can contribute and invest if they like the pitch enough. 
• Students are only given a day to develop a startup idea, and only some ideas are chosen. Students might not be interested in participating in the company or team they are assigned to. 

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Who is it for?

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Ambitious teenagers who live in San Francisco or New York who want to make a difference with business are encouraged to apply.

Students aged 13 to 19, who are interested in building their own company can benefit from the Leangap program. Leangap has a very strategic approach to launching and building a startup. You can become a company founder through Leangap even before starting college. 

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Young people eager to build a strong network and a close-knit community of like-minded peers can also find that in the Leangap experience. 

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3 Things to love about Leangap

real-world implementation

Leangap makes it easy for you to implement your ideas in the real world. In the second phase of your program (after the idea validation phase), a viable version of your product and service is launched on a small scale to see how customers respond to it.

This is an excellent feature of the program as it helps students get valuable insight from the customers before the final creation of the startup. As a result, modifications and problems regarding the idea can be fixed and improved. 

Networking Opportunities 

Most of the alumni of this program intern at leading companies around the world, like Amazon, Google, Apple, and many more. Moreover, the mentors in this program are esteemed professionals and have extensive knowledge regarding entrepreneurship too.

Through Leangap, you can interact one-on-one with mentors and even network with others, building a strong connection that will help you immensely in the future. 

Leangap allows you to present your startup demo to industry experts, investors, and CEOs, giving it a chance to realize its full potential. 

Financial Aid

Leangap gives up to 80% of financial aid to needy students to make it more accessible. You must apply with your parents' income statement from the last 12 months to be eligible.

How does it compare?

The Berkeley Business Academy offers a business course taught by Ph.D. candidates, faculty, and undergraduate students. In this course, students have two weeks to develop a business idea after being given resources, insights, and continuous feedback from the mentors.

The primary distinction between Berkeley and Leangap is that Leangap executes the plan in the real world with actual customers, whereas Berkeley simply develops a business plan.
BETA Camp does the same and has a focussed goal of coming up with an actual revenue-generating startup. 

Leangap and BETA Camp focus more on implementation than theoretical learning. BETA Camp has the added feature of a demo day. Students engage in preparation sessions with leading professionals. BETA Camp students have raised millions in fundraising and launched real business after the program. BETA Camp also comes with a money-back guarantee if you didn’t generate revenue from the camp. This is why BETA Camp is different.

Similar days can also be found in LaunchX, where students celebrate their four-week journey, exchange ideas and network, and finally pitch their ideas to CEOs, investors, and leading industry professionals. 

BETA Camp has much more affordable pricing. BETA Camp charges $2K-$3K for remote sessions and offers up to 80% financial aid for generating the same output, which is a startup launch. Leangap donates only a little additional funding if your startup project gets selected as a winner. 

In Leangap, students are not allowed to select their own teams. This might be a problem for some teenagers because not everyone is as comfortable working with new people At Beta Camp, students spend the first-week consulting and networking with their peers. It enables students to find like-minded individuals with whom they can collaborate. 

Genius School's Young Entrepreneur Academy is another program focused on teaching students how to become entrepreneurs. However, this program only allows startups to be digital. Other programs on this list give the students the freedom to choose any kind of startup they like.

So, the main difference between Leangap and other programs is that Leangap focuses less on ideas and theory and directly jumps into the execution part of the startup process. The idea is presented on the first day, and students are working fully on building their startups by the second day. This has both advantages and disadvantages. 

We can say that instead of a lesson in creating a blueprint for business, Leangap is a holistic program that acts both as an accelerator and an incubator for creating your own startup. 

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Is it worth it? 

Even with the financial assistance Leangap provides, some students may find it costly. Besides, in terms of other promises it offers, there might be some discrepancies. 

Final Verdict

What makes Leangap stand out is that it is dead set on making you an owner of a startup within four weeks. Leangap does not waste time with theories and plans, instead jumping right into execution.

This will be a thrilling experience for the students as they can see the real-world implications of the startup they built. Furthermore, Leangap plays a vital role in turning your idea, from just a project into a real company, by assisting you in earning your first dollar as a startup company.

However, we do recommend checking out programs because they have other benefits to offer.

Leangap is an excellent choice for ambitious and practical teens who dream of creating a real impact. A comparison table as to how Leangap compares with other institutions of its kind is shown:

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