Round 1AWritten Submission
Days 0–2 · All registered candidates · Deadline 21:30 IST on Day 2
The written submission is your first read of the client scenario: a paid performance-marketing and lead-generation plan for the institute, built from the materials released on Day 0. It is submitted asynchronously and opens the event for every registered candidate.
Coverage areas are loose by design — audience and positioning, channel strategy and budget logic, measurement, and the assumptions you are willing to name. Every written round includes a short AI-disclosure section you author yourself.
Round 1BLive Pitch
Days 3–5 · ~50 candidates · 5-min pitch + 3 standard questions
You present the core of your plan to the judging panel in a five-minute live pitch. Slides are optional; if you use them, five to seven slides maximum. The pitch is followed by three standard questions asked of every candidate: the single decision you are most confident about, the one you are least confident about, and what you would need from the client to close that gap.
The live element is where a plan stops being a document and becomes a position you hold. A recorded grooming session, “How to pitch a case in five minutes,” is released ahead of this round.
Round 2Discovery Call & Revised Plan
Days 6–9 · ~25–30 candidates · 15-min live call + resubmission by 13:00 IST on Day 9
Round 2 pairs a live fifteen-minute discovery call with a revised written plan. On the call you drive: you ask the founder character — played by a senior aFactor team member — what you need to know, and they respond in role. The quality of your questions is part of what is assessed.
After the call you have roughly sixty hours to resubmit, opening with a short “What changed after the client call” preamble that makes your revisions explicit.
Round 3Live Defence
Days 10–11 · 12–15 finalists · 20–25 min live defence
Finalists defend their plan before the panel in a twenty to twenty-five minute session built around five to seven plan-specific cross-questions, sent in advance. There is no new submission — Round 3 tests whether your thinking holds up when it is pressed on its own terms.
Winners are announced at the end of Day 11.