Booking terms.
Before you take your place.

1. About these terms

SydeDoor is the trading name of Joao Alves, a sole trader ("SydeDoor", "we", "us"). You can reach us at joao@sydedoor.com, and we will give you a postal address for legal notices on request. These terms form the contract between us and the person who takes a place ("you"). If the member is under 18, "you" also means the parent or guardian who accepts these terms on their behalf.

A member is the person taking part. An edition is one host company, one real brief and four weeks of weekly live sessions.

2. Who can join

SydeDoor is for people aged 16 to 25 when they join. We may ask for reasonable proof of age.

Aged 18 or over: you accept these terms yourself.

Aged 16 or 17: a parent or guardian must accept these terms, give consent for you to take part and pay. Nobody under 18 takes part without that consent. The parent or guardian confirms they have the authority to do this and have gone through these terms with the member.

All sessions are in English, so members need enough English to join in with discussions and team work.

3. Plans and prices

Prices are shown on our pricing page in pounds, euros and dollars. The price and currency confirmed when you book are what you pay.

Waitlist members are not charged. Joining the waitlist does not guarantee a place or a founding price.

4. How booking works

Places are limited. Your booking is accepted, and our contract begins, when we confirm your place in writing. We may decline a booking, for example if an edition is full or if we can't safely offer a place. If we do, we will refund anything you have paid.

Please give us accurate details, including a working contact for the parent or guardian of anyone under 18, and tell us if they change.

5. Payment and renewal

Payments go through a third-party payment provider, which will be named at checkout and in our privacy policy before sales open. We never see or store your full card number.

The virtual membership renews each month on the date you joined, and takes the agreed payment until you cancel. We will tell you the renewal terms before you pay, send any reminders the law requires, and give you notice of any price change before it applies, so that you can cancel first.

If a payment fails, we will let you know and try again. We may pause access until it is paid. In-person editions are payable in full when you book, unless we offer otherwise.

6. Cancelling and refunds

Your 14-day right to change your mind. If you are a consumer, you can cancel within 14 days of the date we confirm your place, without giving a reason, and receive a refund. If you ask us to start within those 14 days, we may keep a fair amount for what has already been provided.

Monthly membership. After that, you can cancel at any time. There is no minimum term. Cancelling stops your next payment, and you keep access until the end of the month you've paid for. We don't refund part-months.

In-person editions. Cancel more than 7 days before the first session for a full refund. Within 7 days of the first session, we will refund you only if we can fill your place.

How to cancel. Email joao@sydedoor.com from the address on the booking, or use any online cancellation option we provide. Your cancellation takes effect when we receive it. Refunds go back to your original payment method, within 14 days.

These terms don't take away any other right to a refund you have by law, for example if a service isn't provided with reasonable care.

7. If we change or cancel something

This is a live programme built with working companies, so hosts, speakers, briefs, dates and timings can change. We will tell you about significant changes as soon as we can. An in-person element might also need to move online.

If a change makes a real difference to what you booked, you can cancel and receive a refund for the part you haven't received.

If we cancel an in-person edition, including for reasons outside our control, you can choose a full refund or a place on another edition. If we can't run a month's virtual sessions and can't offer a reasonable replacement, we will refund that month. We aren't responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control, but we will minimise the impact and keep you informed.

8. Taking part

Editions run on live sessions plus team work between them, so please turn up and do your share. Your team is counting on you. Missing sessions doesn't entitle you to a refund.

You will need your own device and a reliable internet connection for virtual sessions, and you are responsible for your own travel to in-person events unless we say otherwise.

Some sessions use third-party AI tools, each with its own terms and age limits. We respect those limits. Where a tool isn't available to under-18s, they will get an age-appropriate alternative or a supervised demonstration.

SydeDoor helps you explore careers and build proof of your work. We can't promise a job, an internship, a university place or any other particular result.

9. Conduct and safeguarding

We expect members to be respectful, honest and collaborative. Bullying, harassment, discrimination, sharing unlawful or harmful content, presenting other people's work as your own, or recording other people without permission is not acceptable. The same applies to contact with other members outside sessions.

We may pause or end a member's place if their behaviour puts anyone at risk or seriously disrupts an edition, and we'll tell the member and, for under-18s, their parent or guardian. Where a place ends for this reason, we won't refund the period already paid for, but no further payments will be taken.

Our safeguarding page explains how we keep members safe and how to raise a concern.

10. Livestream and recordings

Parts of each edition may be livestreamed, and sessions may be recorded so that members can catch up. On camera is a choice: anyone can take part off-camera. Under-18s appear on the public livestream only with consent.

We will ask for separate consent before using a member's image, name or quotes in our marketing. It's never a condition of taking a place, and it can be withdrawn at any time by emailing us. We will then stop using that material in new content, and remove it from channels we control where we reasonably can.

Please don't record, screenshot or share sessions or other members without permission.

11. Your work and host information

You own what you make. You keep the rights in your own work. So that editions can run, you allow SydeDoor and that edition's host to use it to review, judge and give feedback. We may also show it in your portfolio and, with your consent and credit, in our own materials. If a host wants to use your work beyond that, they must agree it with you (and your parent or guardian if you are under 18) first. Team work belongs to the team together.

Host information. Hosts may share non-public information in a brief. If we tell you something is confidential, please keep it that way, even after the edition ends. Hosts retain ownership of their own materials.

12. Judging and prizes

Final pitches are judged by a panel against a published rubric. The panel's decision is final, though you can always ask us for feedback or raise a concern. Prizes are announced for each edition and may include cash, a day inside the host company and a Fellowship place. Prizes can't be transferred. We may need extra consent or arrangements for winners under 18, and if a prize can't be provided, we will offer a reasonable alternative of similar value.

13. Accessibility and support needs

Please tell us about any access, health or support needs as early as you can, ideally before you book. We will talk through what is possible and make reasonable adjustments. See our accessibility statement.

14. Our responsibility to you

We will provide the programme with reasonable care and skill. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law doesn't allow us to limit, including your statutory consumer rights.

Otherwise, we are responsible for losses that are a foreseeable result of us breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care. We aren't responsible for losses that weren't foreseeable, or for business losses. Our total liability for a booking won't exceed the amount paid for it in the previous 12 months, except where the first paragraph applies.

Please look after your own belongings at in-person events.

15. Your data

Our privacy policy explains how we use personal data, including the extra care we take for under-18s.

16. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms for new plans, legal changes or better ways of running things. If a change affects an ongoing membership in a significant way, we will tell you beforehand, and you can cancel before it applies. The terms in force when you booked apply to an edition already booked.

17. Complaints, law and courts

If something has gone wrong, email joao@sydedoor.com and we will try to put it right quickly. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and its courts can hear any dispute. If you live elsewhere in the UK or in another country, you keep the protection of the mandatory consumer laws where you live and can bring a claim in your local courts.

If any part of these terms is found to be unenforceable, the rest still applies. Nobody other than you and us has a right to enforce these terms, and we may transfer them to a business that takes over SydeDoor, provided your rights aren't reduced.