You want to quit corporate.
But with a plan.
In 8 weeks, you'll have a validated business offering, your first paying customers, and a financial exit plan — while your salary is still intact.
Laughing at table
wel-photos/photo-1.jpg
September 12, 2026
Kungsholmen · Stockholm
5 700 SEK
Founding cohort ratePart 1 · The situation you're in
You're probably caught
in a loop that looks like this:
Most women aren't failing to act because they lack courage or capability. They're caught in a cycle with no good exit — until someone shows them there's a third option.
Something is off
The career looks right. The salary is real. But somewhere along the way, you started feeling like you're putting your best energy into someone else's vision. You have an idea. Clear enough to keep you up at night, not yet real enough to act on.
The gap feels impossible
Quit without proof it works — and risk the financial security you've spent years building. Stay and keep waiting — and watch another year pass. You need evidence before you can act. But the only way to get evidence seems to be acting first. So you freeze.
Another year passes
You stay. You tell yourself: when I have more runway. When things settle. When I finally feel ready. But "ready" never quite arrives. And the idea is still an idea. And the gap feels wider than ever.
The loop breaks when you have a third option: test your idea while your salary is still intact. Real customer conversations. A working prototype. A first paying client. Before you resign. That's what The Lab is built for.
Expressive gesture
wel-photos/photo-2.jpg
This is what it looks like
Not a course you watch.
A room where you actually do the work.
Five weekend sessions in Stockholm. Sticky notes. Real customer conversations. Rough prototypes. A group of seven women at the same inflection point — all serious about what comes next.
Part 2 · The program
Built like a product sprint,
not a motivation seminar.
Most entrepreneurship programs teach you to think like a business owner.
The Lab teaches you to build like a product team.
Short sprints, fast prototypes, real customer testing — before you over-invest in something the market hasn't confirmed it wants. We follow an agile methodology: the same approach used in digital product development, applied to your business idea.
Foundation
Get clear before you build
Your financial threshold. Your expertise mapped as an asset — not a liability. The go/no-go number that turns leaving corporate from a feeling into a decision.
Weeks 1–2
Discovery
Test before you invest
Real conversations with people who would actually pay for your idea. Not surveys, not friends. Evidence — so you stop second-guessing what you've been carrying for months.
Weeks 3–5
Build
Build what the market confirmed
Prototype, price, pitch, close — with your salary still intact. Walk out with real paying customers and the evidence your resignation plan needs.
Weeks 6–8
Sticky-note wall
wel-photos/photo-3.jpg
Customer journey mapping during a session
Laptop + blueprint
wel-photos/photo-4.jpg
The methodology in practice — agile for your idea
Format
Physical-first. Small by design.
Five in-person sessions in Stockholm — 1 full-day kickoff + 4 half-day sessions across 8 weeks. Not a Zoom course you'll abandon in week three.
Part 3 · What you leave with
Not just a better plan.
Proof the plan works.
Eight weeks is not a lot of time to start a business. It is enough time to find out whether your idea has legs — and to get someone to pay for it. That's the goal.
Validated business offering
Not just the idea you've been sitting on. A tested offer — built on customer conversations, not optimism — that real people wanted enough to pay for.
1–2 paying customers
Real revenue. Not projected.
Clear positioning
What you sell, who it's for, and why they'd choose you — using your expertise as your sharpest differentiator, not something to downplay.
A financial exit plan with a real, calculated runway
The numbers that turn leaving corporate from a feeling into a date.
Founding cohort status
Your feedback shapes every cohort that follows. You're not just a participant — you're a co-author of what WEL becomes.
Part 4 · The case for this
There are three ways out of corporate.
Here's what each one actually costs you.
Most people frame this as a binary: stay or quit. The Lab is the third option — the one that doesn't require you to bet everything before you have any data.
Stay. Wait for the right moment.
Another year of strong reviews. The salary stays. So does the feeling that you're putting your best work into someone else's vision — and the idea keeps getting heavier the longer you don't act on it.
What it costs you
- × One more year of your best energy going into someone else's P&L
- × The idea gets hazier the longer it stays untested
- × "Ready" never arrives — the conditions keep shifting
- × The window for low-risk testing gets shorter every year
Quit. Figure it out on the way down.
You decide you're done. You leave. And immediately: the pressure to make money reshapes every decision before you've had time to find out what the market actually wants from you.
What it costs you
- × Income pressure kills clear thinking
- × You build for survival, not for what customers will actually pay for
- × No validation = more guessing = more wasted time and money
- × Years of financial security burned before the idea is proven
Test before you resign.
Real customer conversations, a working prototype, and your first paying client — while your salary is still paying the bills. You leave when the data tells you to. Not when desperation does.
What you get instead
- ✓ Customer evidence before you invest anything beyond your time
- ✓ 1–2 paying customers before you hand in your notice
- ✓ A financial runway that turns leaving into a decision
- ✓ 8 weeks of structured methodology — not motivation content
- ✓ A room of 7 serious women doing the same thing
- ✓ Your income intact the entire time
The Lab is how you test your idea without betting it.
Part 5 · The 8-week sprint
Week by week — what you'll
actually do in The Lab.
You're not studying entrepreneurship. You're doing it — in small, structured experiments, with a group of women doing the same thing alongside you.
Financial clarity
Your real numbers. Your runway. The go/no-go threshold that turns a feeling into a plan — and makes leaving feel like a decision instead of a gamble.
Your starting point
Before we talk about the market, we talk about what you bring. Your key skills, the work that energises you, the clients and projects that fuel versus drain you.
Your idea, sharpened
Vague ideas don't get customers. Precise ones do. We make yours specific enough to be real.
Customer discovery
You talk to real potential customers. Not friends who say "great idea." Actual strangers who have the problem you're solving. You'll be surprised what you learn.
Your value proposition
What you actually sell, to whom, at what price, and why they'd choose you. Most entrepreneurs skip this and pay for it later. We don't skip it.
First prototype, tested
Small enough to build in a week. Real enough to show. A landing page, a one-page offer, a service mockup. It doesn't have to be perfect. It has to be testable.
Pricing and first offer
You name your price. You write your pitch. You send it to real humans. This is the week most people would skip out of fear. We do it together.
Your first paying customers
Close 1–2. Debrief what you learned. Walk out with proof of concept, a financial plan, and a clear next chapter — while your salary is still paying the bills.
You leave with
A validated business offering — no longer just an idea you've been sitting on
1–2 paying customers
Clear positioning — what you sell, who it's for, and why they'd choose you
A financial exit plan with a real, calculated runway
Is this for you?
The Lab is deliberately small.
Fit matters.
Seven spots. The application isn't a formality — it's how we make sure everyone in the room is operating at a comparable level of seriousness.
This is for you if…
- ✓ You're in corporate with an idea that's been sitting in your head for months (or years)
- ✓ You're not ready to quit yet — but you're ready to start building
- ✓ You want a structured method, not just motivation
- ✓ You're willing to put rough ideas out there and sit with the uncertainty of early-stage testing
- ✓ You want to be in a room with women who are as serious as you are
This is not for you if…
- × You haven't decided yet. The Lab is for women who've made the internal decision to build something — not for women still weighing whether entrepreneurship is for them at all.
- × The next 8 weeks are genuinely maxed out. If you can't protect a few focused hours a week, wait for the next cohort.
- × You want validation more than feedback. Customer discovery will tell you things you didn't expect — including things you don't want to hear.
Part 6 · The process
It's an application,
not a checkout.
The cohort is capped at 7 — because the work requires a room where everyone is at a comparable level of experience and seriousness. Here's how we figure out if that's you.
Submit your application
Five minutes. A few questions about your corporate background, what you're building, and what's been stopping you from acting on it. No business plan, no pitch deck — just honesty about where you are right now.
We have a short call — 20 minutes
If your application is a strong match, I'll reach out within 5 days. This is a two-way conversation: I want to understand your situation, and you should leave knowing exactly what The Lab will and won't give you.
If it's a yes on both sides, you're in
You'll receive a confirmation with everything you need for September 12. Your spot is secured with payment — 5,700 SEK total, founding cohort rate. September 5 is the application deadline.
Common questions
Things women ask.
Don't see yours here? Email me directly: cristina@mendezpalencia.com — I reply to every message personally, usually within 24 hours.
Session 2. September 27th 2026.
Session 3. October 11th 2026.
Session 4. November 1st 2026.
Session 5. November 8th 2026.
In 8 weeks, you could have proof
that what's been in your head for years
is actually worth building.
You've given enough years to someone else's vision. This is the structured, low-risk way to start building your own — without quitting, without guessing, without waiting for a better moment that keeps not arriving. Applications close September 5, 2026.