Hi there,

So, you are getting ready to embark on the Scale Up! Train-the-Trainer? Exciting! This can be truly life-changing for your professional career!

Before you begin, here’s a couple of points you might like to know.

Part I: Ten fast facts

1.      What is Scale Up? Scale Up! is a methodology to develop entrepreneurs, founders, angel investors, accelerators, incubators, VCs and ecosystem developers. The Scale Up! Methodology is based on 20+ years of experience supporting 1000’s of high-growth startup founders from pre-seed to post-IPO. The methodology is built on ‘working visually’, with a series of visual canvases and the visual Scale Up! kit.

2.      What’s the core idea behind Scale Up!? In Scale Up! participants form teams and compete through the Founder’s Journey, taking a company from idea to successful exit. For most people,  we do around 8-10 years in just three days.

3.      How is Scale Up! delivered? In-person or online (using Miro and Zoom)

4.      How can Scale Up! be run? Your imagination sets the only limitations; we describe seven different ways you can run Scale Up! We prefer the 3-day format, but half-day, one-day, two-day, five day or even 3-month formats are possible. It’s really up to you.

5.      How many people have been through Scale Up!? Globally, ca. 4.500 to date

6.      How many countries have Scale Up! been run so far? 50+

7.      How many expert facilitators are there? ca. 70+

8.      How many Scale Up! version are there? – Scale Up! (1.0) – Scale Up Angel! – Scale Up MENA! – Scale Up Africa Rising! – Scale Up Europe! (launching in 2026). More coming…

9.      Who developed Scale Up!? Chris Rangen and his colleague Jolene Foo-Hodne was working with Innovation Norway, the Norwegian national innovation agency on a national program. This collaboration led to the first Scale Up! back in 20218.

10. Who can run Scale Up!? Globally, anyone can learn to run Scale Up! To date, faculty, VCs, accelerator staff, coaches and consultants have all learned to run Scale Up! With a bit of training and willingness to learn, anyone can.

Part II: Two types of knowledge

The two sets of expertise you will develop For anyone running Scale Up!, there are two skillsets you need. We count these on a one to five level, from beginner to expert.

Domain knowledge Domain knowledge is how much you know about the content, the term sheets, the deal structures, the cap table math and how to bring together a 2M @4M post SAFE, with a 500.000 @3M pre equity round, while also keeping the initial angel investors happy and structuring a 12% post-round ESOP.

Domain knowledge is important. It is what you know. It is the foundation you use to teach, coach and mentor others. Everyone should strive to develop their domain knowledge.

But domain knowledge alone is not enough.

Facilitation knowledge Next, you have faciliation knowledge, or really faciliation skills. How comfortable are you with structuring programs, designing multi-stakeholder workshops and facilitating high-paced masterclasses? Can you manage large groups, in both online and in-person formats?

Can you use your voice well? Can you give instructions clearly? Can you design a workflow to keep people engaged over multiple days?

For most of us, these two sets of skills is something we work on constantly, day in and day out. You never graduate, you just keep getting better and better over time.

Part III: The five core topics you will master

Our train-the-Trainer is designed around five core topic areas. Each represents a critical piece of the puzzle every Scale Up! Expert Facilitator needs to handle with confidence.

1. Founder’s Journey From IPO dreams to the messy realities of taking a company public, you will learn to guide participants through every twist and turn. This is the backbone of Scale Up! – understanding what founders actually go through from idea to exit. Can you tell stories, of success and failure from across the Founder’s journey?

2. Term Sheets 600+ term sheets. SAFE notes. CLAs. Priced rounds. Liquidation preferences. You will learn to read, understand, and explain even the most complex investor term sheets. Did you know there is such a thing as ‘too many term sheets’? You will.

3. Cap Tables From foundational equity to Series K dilution, cap table mastery is non-negotiable. You will learn to help founders understand how their equity evolves – and how to protect it.

4. Ten Steps to Scaling Up This is where strategy meets execution. Scale up mindset. Exit planning. Equity management. ARR velocity. Team development. Market expansion. Customer discovery. Financing. Product development. Scaling with AI. Ten interconnected elements that determine whether a startup stays stuck – or scales.

5. Liquidity & Exits The ultimate question: how do you return value to investors? M&A, IPO, secondary transactions, partial liquidity – you will learn to facilitate conversations most founders have never had. Combined, these five are the core topics you need to study up on to build out your domain expertise.

Part IV: Three levels of development

Here’s the thing about becoming a Scale Up! Expert Facilitator. It’s not about reading a manual. It’s about a progression through three distinct levels.

Knowledge This is where you start. Learning the content. Understanding the frameworks. Reading term sheets. Studying cap table math. Getting fluent in the visual canvases, the Founder’s Journey, the Investor Map, the Rocketship Canvas. You are building the internal library that allows real improvisation later.

Confidence Knowledge is not enough. Confidence comes from running programs. From co-facilitating with masters. From leading a full simulation and experiencing what it feels like when things go sideways – and learning to recover. This is where the nervous system develops. Where you learn to sense what a room needs, moment to moment.

Mastery Master facilitators create unseen structure and invisible support. They make profound learning look effortless. They adapt mid-session to emerging themes without losing coherence. They know when the ‘wrong’ conversation is actually the most important one. Mastery is not perfection – it’s the hard-won ability to orchestrate genuine transformation.

Part V: What a typical Scale Up! session looks like

Here, we use a three-day format. You can of course mix and match this around to best suit your format. You can easily adapt to a one-day format, two-day or even five-day.

Day 1: The Foundations

The Welcome session kicks off with the Founder’s Journey, Investment instruments and Foundational equity. You will dive into Strategy 101, Pre-seed/seed stage dynamics, ESOP structures, Term sheets, Investor mapping, Product development and Pitch deck fundamentals.

By the end of Day 1, teams will have navigated 30+ term sheets across 2-5 rounds, managing raises from 1M – 10M at valuations of 10M – 30M. Boom cards. Bust cards. Burn rates from 10.000 – 100.000. Welcome to the founder’s reality.

Day 2: Scaling Up

Day 2 opens with a Pitch session. Now you take teams into venture territory. Sales organization. Market expansion. Long-term capital strategy. 3x Value uplift. Boards & governance. Rocketship canvases. LinkedIn positioning. Complex term sheets. SAFE conversion mechanics. Product mastery. Investor liquidity & returns. Outcome canvas analysis.

The complexity ramps up. Each team should see term sheets: 30-40. Rounds: 3-5. Raises: 20M – 100M. Valuations: 100M – 500M (and pushing toward 1BN). Boom: 10-30. Burn rate: 500.000 – 5M. This is where scaling founders separate from starting founders.

Day 3: Growth & Exit

The final day opens with an Outcome pitch. You are now in growth stage territory. Global leadership. Market expansion. Margin expansion. Investor questions and power dynamics. M&A strategies. Liquidity transactions. IPO readiness. Exit transactions.

The stakes are highest here. M&A: 0-3 deals. Term sheets: 20-40. Rounds: 1-5. Raises: 50M – 1BN. Valuations: 10M – 30M? Not anymore – we’re talking multiples higher. Boom: 10-15. Burn rate: 10M – 20M. This is where winners are made.

Part VI: Quick reads

Who attends a Scale up Program? Read it.

Who buys Scale Up? Read it.

Evolving Scale Up! Read it.

The Scale Up Angel E-mail Read it.

The four cap tables in Scale Up! Read it.

Scaling Up in MENA: The Most Common Investment Instruments Read it.

Can you run the cap table? Read it.

Scaling up in MENA! Read it.

Ten Books That Will Save You From Costly Cap Table Mistakes: A Reading List for Founders, advisors & expert facilitators Read it.

From student to master: how Enrico Maset become one of the world’s leading Scale Up Experts Read it.

Part VII: Selected case studies

How Katapult Accelerator Gets Its Startups Investor-Ready Read it here.

Scaling up in the rising Egyptian ecosystem Read it here.

Helping Madica’s pre-seed startups bridge the scaling chasm Read it here.

Scaling to exit with Dubai Future District Fund Read it here.

Bridging the Capital Chasm Read it here.

Why This Matters

Globally, over 70 people are now trained and certified to deliver Scale Up! programs. They work in 50+ countries. They’ve taken nearly 4.500 founders, investors and ecosystem builders through the journey.

As an Expert Facilitator, you will join this global community. You will gain the ability to transform how founders think, how investors evaluate, how ecosystems develop.

The best part? The journey from Learn to Run to Apply to Fly is one of the most rewarding professional development paths you can take. Each program you deliver, you get better. Each challenging term sheet negotiation you facilitate, you grow. Each breakthrough moment you witness – a founder finally understanding their cap table, an investor seeing the power dynamics differently – reminds you why this work matters.

Ready?

The Scale Up! Train-the-Trainer is not a certification you collect. It’s a capability you develop. A community you join. A journey you commit to.

From Knowledge to Confidence to Mastery. From Day 1’s foundations through Day 3’s exits. From your first nervous co-facilitation to the flow state of mastery.

Are you ready to help more founders scale?

Let’s go.

Looking forward to working with you!