Target users

The Calendar serves five distinct audiences with overlapping but non-identical needs. Founders want relevant + nearby + soon; investors want demo days + pitch competitions; operators want competitive intelligence; journalists want verified facts; organizers want visibility. Each audience has a different default landing experience and different filter chips surfaced.

The five audiences

1. Working founders

Looking for accelerators to apply to, pitch competitions to enter, ecosystem events to network at. Default filters: their country + their stage + audiences=[founders, startups]. Sort: closing-soon first, then upcoming.

2. Active investors

Looking for demo days + pitch competitions to source deals, plus closed-room investor meetups. Default filters: categories=[demo-day, pitch-competition, investor-meetup] + audiences includes investors.

3. Ecosystem operators

Accelerators, incubators, agencies, government program leads. They scan the calendar to understand the competitive landscape — what programs are running, when cohorts open, what regional gaps exist. Default view: this-quarter, all categories, all countries.

4. Journalists / researchers

Looking up a specific event for verification — date, organizer, attendance, outcomes. The details page is their landing surface. They value sourceUrl + verificationStatus most.

5. Event organizers

Submit their own events via the submit-event form. They want fast verification turnaround + the option to be flagged coverageEligible. They are also the source of authoritative copy edits when an event details page has errors.