In the incubator, the story of a startup
(story author: Aladdin Righteous and Happy)
Initially, there were about 150 startups. I reached the final. One of 10. Further, the decision depended on the opinion of the international board of directors. Selected seven, but I was not among them. It was the selection of the first cycle of Happy Farm incubator.
A couple of months in the all-Ukrainian battle of startups, I took the first place out of 330. The main prize is an extraordinary admission to the residents of the second-cycle incubator. So I got to Happy Farm with my startup NextMusic.TV. About my experience acceleration and this article was written.
')
As the first previously selected resident, I am preparing to start an acceleration program from May 20. But not everything is so simple.
I will be selected along with all the participants, because the final demo day is the only time when the board of directors will come from all over the world to Kiev. Only on this day there is an opportunity to prove oneself and involve mentors with invaluable successful entrepreneurial experience into the project. They decide for themselves, personally, for themselves, so in this regard, my victory in the Innovative Breakthrough does not matter.
I am preparing hard for the demo. The only way for me to invest in the allotted time and maximize the essence of the project is to memorize the presentation.
I drive myself over the presentation every day for 5 days in a row, like a robot repeating the same thing, until the language and facial expressions do not get tired, as after the gym.
At the same time constantly rework the presentation. The final version is ready just 24 hours before the final day.
Between ourselves in the startup circle we called this day “Passage of doctors in the military registration and enlistment office”. The eve of the demo day. Everyone received a checklist with a list of incubator departments (Financial, PR, Legally, etc.), which he must go through and sign. A lot of people. Some of the other countries are interviewed remotely via Skype. The case was delayed until late at night. The final department is a presentation before the incubator's CEO Anna Degtereva and Chairman of the Board of Directors Igor Shoifot.
The queue reached me closer to 18:00. My presentation did not cause a storm of emotions among the audience, having received a soft comment from Igor Scheufoth that I can do better. On this day ended with a slight residue on the soul.
Taking the feedback to my heart, I decided to squeeze the maximum out of myself - to present not under PPT with the slides switching on the command, but under the video series. This means that my voice live should be synchronized with the picture second per second. Video do and edit on Powtoon.com. Again, chasing myself around the presentation around the clock.
In the final version, I make the risky decision to include a couple of pieces of music in the middle of a video. It sounds cool and lively. In the middle of a presentation, music starts playing from somewhere in the pitch theme. Cool, but if it comes out crap with speakers or video playback, then “Chef, it's all gone!”.
I find out from the service station of the incubator Karpolana, whether the order with the columns. If anything, ready to bring your audio system. Additionally, on the day of the demo, I check early whether the video and sound is playing from the host computer. It seems to be the order. Just in case, I recorded pieces of music on my smartphone for manual launch.
People selected decently. If on the demo of the first cycle there were only 10 teams and everything from Ukraine, here there are 40 of them from all over the Soviet Union.
Heart beats like a drum. The queue comes to me. On autopilot I give a presentation in a clear time. Sound and video failed to glory. At least I really liked it. I answer rare questions, I leave. Now wait for the results until late in the evening.
I'll tell you how the selection system is arranged.
On a demo bottom, the entire composition of the board of directors of an incubator is concentrated in a separate audience. They listen to all the teams, and then arrange a vote on who from the board of directors wants to be the mentor of which team. If the team gets zero wanting to become mentors, then it does not pass.
All startups have accumulated in the conference room, squeezed like lemons, but continuing to live on adrenaline. Anna and the board of directors enter. Begin to announce the lists, in descending order, how many mentors which project they want. In general, selected 12 teams. Mentors of NextMusic.TV wanted to become Brian Satianathan (Turner Broadcasting) and Igor Ryabenky (Altair Ventures, the well-known angel investor). Hooray! Victory! The program starts in a couple of days. You can pack your bags.
To this day, it was necessary to determine who will be your main mentor (included in 15% that the incubator receives), and who is additional (the size of the equity participation is negotiated individually), unless of course you want more than one. I consulted with the service station partner Andrei Transsky and we decided to take everyone in bulk.
Next - personal conversations. Everyone says how he can help, gives ideas. After, with the selected mentors we draw up and approve together a plan for 2 months of incubation. The plan turned out to be huge: mobile versions for Android, iOS, new design / UI / UX, a change of focus, an increase in the music base from 250 thousand to 2 million, which means a remake of the architecture, spans of large amounts of data ...
We grit our teeth and break through. For this and they came.
On the same day we are accommodated in the hotel’s luxury rooms.
From the very first day you realize that you have hit the center of a hurricane, something like barracks, something like
pioneer camp, something on the eastern market, something on something unlike anything else. Every day is painted back to back.
In the morning at 8:00 - breakfast.
Then - a master class from the next mega-guest-mega-monster from Silicon Valley (in most cases), less often from a mega-monster from the territory of the Soviet Union.
Next - individual consultations for half an hour with each team.
Lunch at 13.00.
Next - endless tasks from the incubator, legal procedures, pitches, English lessons.
Dinner at 18:00.
11 hours of working waking is over. And you also need to fulfill your plan, develop the product, apply the guest and mentor's favorite tips, communicate with users, rehearse and improve the pitch. And for this there is only evening and night. And if you do not fulfill your plans, why did you even come here and what will you then pitch for investors? "2 months I studied"? It does not interest anyone. Learning is not a goal, but a means. Everything is here for building successful, multimillion-dollar profitable companies.
Having looked at this load, Andrey and I decided that if we walk together for all these events, we will not be in time. Need to build priorities. Andrey concentrates on programming, I - on events.
In theory, everything is fine, only programming tasks here for ten. Moreover, considering that the web version of NextMusic.TV did it from scratch with my beautiful govnodkoding, in order to figure it out, Andrei is faster to do everything from scratch.
We decided to leave this situation in this way. I keep making the web version. Andrew helps me with tasks that can be done autonomously from the kernel. The biggest one is to combine the artists database (one million records), tracks (12 million) with the YouTube API. The result was a database of 50 million records, which still needed to be processed and brought to a working form. I already did this. And Andrew and his friend Igor (our new team member) fully concentrated on mobile and desktop versions (there are few tasks for us, we also decided to make the desktops).
Now we did not interfere with each other and everyone was able to give all the best.
I constantly experimented, quickly tested hypotheses, made prototypes of new and new features, concepts, tested various tricks. Quickly received feedback from users. Quickly removed the interfering and left liked.
Have we been up to date? No, we worked all two months, 19 hours a day.
And during periods when it was necessary to urgently connect a new database and redo the entire architecture, because requests were processed for 30 seconds, and without a ready database, soon there would be nothing for Andrey to do with Igor, the whole plan was inhibited, I had to figure it out for 40 hours in one gulp, sleeping once in two days.
It really was on the border of physical abilities. Very difficult. A lot of anger and growling at himself, what a fig so slowly. In this regard, our NextMusic.TV helped me a lot. I chose Very bad mood, Very energetic, and for the first time in my life I enjoyed the wild energy from thrash-speed-hardcore-des-metal. In Facebook, I wrote: "If it were not NextMusic.TV, then there would not be NextMusic.TV.".
In this mode, everything went from week two until I finished and sighed with relief. But I would never manage to make the right optimal architecture today, if Andrei himself did not help me, Karpolan (STO HappyPharma), who was not too lazy to spend for me an hour educational program, and Valentin (STO startup Instudies.com) is a super-genius super-fast deciding questions over which I sat for half a day.
In general, I want to highlight the people who surrounded me all these 2 months. From the first days I really went nuts in a pleasant sense of the word. Entrepreneurial character, with a gleam in his eyes, a sincere desire to help each other, openness, bezpontovost, ease, unanimity. It seems that around - friends of my soul since childhood. Just for the sake of such an environment, it was 100% worth getting into the incubator.
Thanks to my colleagues in the barracks, issues were resolved much faster. Misha (CEO Jamroo.ms) and Egor (CEO and Designer of Instudies.com) helped me with the design, UI, tools. Andrei on iOS consulted the genius of Sasha from KartoonArt.com. Ideas for service and bug reports came from everyone. When I needed to test a new design for usability, I approached everyone and no one refused to help me.
The incubator was devoted to this question approximately 20% of the time. Every Friday the general pitchels were held. At the initiative of the inhabitants of the incubator, led by Pasha from Razmir.com, the evening club Peach (peach ~ pitch) was also organized, the purpose of which was to pitch in front of each other, get used to feel relaxed.
Every time a guest mentor came, we presented ourselves as short pitches of 30 seconds - a minute. On Fridays, a 3-minute pitch was presented.
The one who came to the incubator from scratch had to devote a lot of time to the presentations, to constantly practice and correct it according to the recommendations of distinguished guests.
I was very lucky in this regard. I invested much less time for the presentation, as I had been engaged in it for half a year before, I attended all the open master classes of Happy Pharm and not only.
Nevertheless, my pitch was where to improve during the incubation. I especially liked the workshops and personal recommendations on this issue from Vitaly Golomb, mentor "500 startups".
The correctness of the English carefully recovered Beatrice Day, our magic teacher of English.
All this also took time, so I decided to optimize the process for the time being to write down all the recommendations, and then one week before the demo day I’ll apply, redo the video and rehearse.
When I first found out about Happy Pharma, I was strained by the fact that it was a capus type. This means you live and work all day round the same territory. So far from his beloved wife. But all the other advantages for the sake of a big goal eventually outweighed this inconvenience.
Already after incubation, I realize more advantages from campus. Firstly, it is a complete concentration on the project. Absolutely everything helps you. Secondly - it is a rapprochement with the team. Andrei and I were familiar only virtually. Being under the same roof together in an incubator strengthened our team, turned it into a real team of friends.
After the first two super-tense weeks, the work schedule was a bit flattering. Now I was finishing work at 2 in the morning, enjoying my sleep and waking up under an alarm clock at 7 in the morning.
In order to be in time, I began to approach the visits of guest mentors selectively, attending master classes and private sessions only with those whose experience was useful for specific actual tasks. In addition to this, for maximum focus and efficiency, so that nothing distracts me, I completely started working in the room, skipping breakfasts and sometimes dinners. Andrei went home to Kherson and worked in his office. Work boils at maximum peak load. Everything must be done a week before the demo day, so that there is still time to prepare for it, as planned.
Periodically, various representatives of venture funds, grant funds and angel investors appeared in the incubator. One of them was a guest mentor with a master class. Someone came on purpose. Sometimes there were away pitches. Of those that were crowned with investments, there were two cases.
The first is the grant fund of Alexander Kardakov, who made the decision to allocate a grant of 6 thousand dollars to one of HappyPharma residents, EyeDoc (sightwatcher.com).
The second case occurred when the incubator was visited by angel investor from Boston, Semen Dukach. He, like all mentors, was invited to the incubator by our main pioneer-counselor, Alena Kalibaba, according to the training program :). Tearing away reluctantly from their affairs, everyone gathered in the conference room and took turns to tell their pitches. Then there were personal conversations. With me and Andrey, Semyon wanted to talk separately. He was interested in the project, our team and right on the spot he decided to invest $ 15K in us for a 2% stake in the company.
Now, after almost two months of cooperation, I can say that I am very pleased with the cooperation with Semyon. We have a very similar worldview and both have 0% pathos. Therefore, communication is very easy, relaxed, like friends. Semen at the same time does not impose and helps, if asked, gives very practical advice, is active, always interested, open and available in all methods of communication. Investor dreams.
To participate in the second stage of acceleration (internship in the United States) you need to get a visa. But getting a visa was originally a zone of obscurity. Last season, a part received visas, a part - did not receive. And the relationship someone did not understand. The US Embassy does not disclose the reason for the refusal.
In this cycle, we were all served by an organized group through the embassy website. According to the rules in Kiev could be served to citizens of any country. Further, according to the plan: fill out forms, collect documents, invitations, letters. English teacher Saar Leroy and Katya Seledets, the main start-up partner, helped us with all this. When everything was collected and verified, we received letters with invitations and assurances, signed up for an interview and went to a meeting to the unknown.
Teams from Russia, Belarus and Moldova went first to get an answer before the end of incubation. Ten people in front of me were given visas. Everything looked cloudless. Then one was given a waiver. Cloudlessness disappeared. In a couple of days, it's my turn.
On the coveted day, at 9 am, having answered all four cordons of protection to the question about the purpose of the visit, having twice passed the fingerprints, I waited for my turn to the consul for an interview. Almost minute by minute, according to the planned schedule, my number lit up on the scoreboard.
“Yeah, so you're from HappyPharm?” - the first question from the consul.
“Yes,” I answered, smiling.
Consul: "And you are building profitable companies?"
Me: "Exactly :)".
Then a couple more questions in this spirit and “What is your company doing?”.
My story was interrupted by "If you are from HappyPharm, you must tell in English."
OK. And he spoke in English, at the same time answering the question about the value of the incubator for me personally.
Feels like the whole conversation took a minute and a half and ended with “Ok. Your visa is approved. "
That's great.
But the visa story did not end there. On July 19, at the height of the second congress of the board of directors, someone from the embassy called and said that my visa would be canceled and a life ban on entering the United States issued. The reason is that I am a suspicious dude who changed his last name twice. And in general, my mother left for the United States, stayed there to live, delayed a visa and arranged a scandal, and my father was turned up at the border while trying to illegally emigrate.
Cheerful information on the right day.
Having disconnected from important incubator processes, I call mom and dad and find out about this story. Both say it is complete nonsense. We are picking up all the evidence in a smart way, we are raising the old contacts nine years ago that connect us with a trip to the USA. We collect photocopies of visas.
Dad sent promptly, and my mother's visa to the United States is in the old passport, from which only photocopies are left. In this case, the mother herself abroad, and the photocopies in a closed apartment. We'll have to break the door.
Anya Degtereva and the entire incubator on the ears. Today is advice and Friday, tomorrow is a demo day. Saturday and Sunday are weekends at the embassy. Solve something can only be on Monday. In the meantime, we sit in the lotus position, release unnecessary thoughts and concentrate on the culmination of incubation - the demo bottom.
Full house Full house. The number of visitors is off scale. The place chosen by us accidentally under the conditioner began to play the role of an oasis.
My presentation was put at the very end of the pitch session. The most difficult place. Need to worry the longest. Therefore, I like to always speak first. But nothing can be done.
Pitches pass quickly for two minutes without questions from the audience. Acne our IT administrator includes presentations, music quickly and smoothly. My presentation starts, I quickly pick up the microphone and catch up with the video. Long rehearsals, including with invaluable help fellow soldiers make themselves known. Everything runs smoothly.
Applause, I'm going to take a sip of water, holding the skak with my teeth, as my hands are shaking nervously. Finally you can relax. Buffet this helps.
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On Monday I call a man from the embassy. It is not and will not be a whole week. Strange.
Anya Degtereva and the entire incubator for their part, under the leadership of Beatrice Day, compile a letter of refutation for the embassy according to all the laws of diplomacy, with reinforcement of plenty of photo and video reports. And they are sent to all emails of the US Embassy. After half an hour, the answer comes that the visa is open for me, you can take it.
# @ ### @ & #!
The next day I went to get a passport, in which the visa was displayed until 2018.
We spent the last day in the incubator very sentimentally, as the last day in the pioneer camp. Each had more than 20 like-minded friends. Words of gratitude, dancing, conversations and the birthday of Marina from lonely-walls.com.
It will not be superfluous to once again express your immense gratitude to all residents of the second cycle, mentors, as well as everyone who organized and participated in the magical second acceleration cycle at Happy Farm.
The first stage of incubation is over. We decided not to take the second in the US with Andrei, in exchange for preserving part of the stake. For about 6% released, we are going to attract 2-3 more investors at $ 40-50K for growth in 2-3 months up to 10,000 active users per week. Now we continue to grow at a rate of about +300 active per week. To achieve the goal, it will be possible to attract the next round ~ $ 250K.
Recently, we connected the account of personal tastes and gave users the power to influence the categorization of music. In the near future - launch of public versions of mobile applications on iOS, Android & Windows Phone.
Now we are in Sevastopol. We rest with the whole team after intense incubation. True start-up: on the beach we write articles and press releases, and near besain we enjoy nature and code, code, code.
To be continued…
Initially, there were about 150 startups. I reached the final. One of 10. Further, the decision depended on the opinion of the international board of directors. Selected seven, but I was not among them. It was the selection of the first cycle of Happy Farm incubator.
A couple of months in the all-Ukrainian battle of startups, I took the first place out of 330. The main prize is an extraordinary admission to the residents of the second-cycle incubator. So I got to Happy Farm with my startup NextMusic.TV. About my experience acceleration and this article was written.
')
Mid-May 2013
As the first previously selected resident, I am preparing to start an acceleration program from May 20. But not everything is so simple.
I will be selected along with all the participants, because the final demo day is the only time when the board of directors will come from all over the world to Kiev. Only on this day there is an opportunity to prove oneself and involve mentors with invaluable successful entrepreneurial experience into the project. They decide for themselves, personally, for themselves, so in this regard, my victory in the Innovative Breakthrough does not matter.
Training
I am preparing hard for the demo. The only way for me to invest in the allotted time and maximize the essence of the project is to memorize the presentation.
I drive myself over the presentation every day for 5 days in a row, like a robot repeating the same thing, until the language and facial expressions do not get tired, as after the gym.
At the same time constantly rework the presentation. The final version is ready just 24 hours before the final day.
Decisive day # 1
Between ourselves in the startup circle we called this day “Passage of doctors in the military registration and enlistment office”. The eve of the demo day. Everyone received a checklist with a list of incubator departments (Financial, PR, Legally, etc.), which he must go through and sign. A lot of people. Some of the other countries are interviewed remotely via Skype. The case was delayed until late at night. The final department is a presentation before the incubator's CEO Anna Degtereva and Chairman of the Board of Directors Igor Shoifot.
The queue reached me closer to 18:00. My presentation did not cause a storm of emotions among the audience, having received a soft comment from Igor Scheufoth that I can do better. On this day ended with a slight residue on the soul.
Changing everything
Taking the feedback to my heart, I decided to squeeze the maximum out of myself - to present not under PPT with the slides switching on the command, but under the video series. This means that my voice live should be synchronized with the picture second per second. Video do and edit on Powtoon.com. Again, chasing myself around the presentation around the clock.
In the final version, I make the risky decision to include a couple of pieces of music in the middle of a video. It sounds cool and lively. In the middle of a presentation, music starts playing from somewhere in the pitch theme. Cool, but if it comes out crap with speakers or video playback, then “Chef, it's all gone!”.
I find out from the service station of the incubator Karpolana, whether the order with the columns. If anything, ready to bring your audio system. Additionally, on the day of the demo, I check early whether the video and sound is playing from the host computer. It seems to be the order. Just in case, I recorded pieces of music on my smartphone for manual launch.
Demo
People selected decently. If on the demo of the first cycle there were only 10 teams and everything from Ukraine, here there are 40 of them from all over the Soviet Union.
Heart beats like a drum. The queue comes to me. On autopilot I give a presentation in a clear time. Sound and video failed to glory. At least I really liked it. I answer rare questions, I leave. Now wait for the results until late in the evening.
Selection system
I'll tell you how the selection system is arranged.
On a demo bottom, the entire composition of the board of directors of an incubator is concentrated in a separate audience. They listen to all the teams, and then arrange a vote on who from the board of directors wants to be the mentor of which team. If the team gets zero wanting to become mentors, then it does not pass.
Announcement of results
All startups have accumulated in the conference room, squeezed like lemons, but continuing to live on adrenaline. Anna and the board of directors enter. Begin to announce the lists, in descending order, how many mentors which project they want. In general, selected 12 teams. Mentors of NextMusic.TV wanted to become Brian Satianathan (Turner Broadcasting) and Igor Ryabenky (Altair Ventures, the well-known angel investor). Hooray! Victory! The program starts in a couple of days. You can pack your bags.
Day before the start
To this day, it was necessary to determine who will be your main mentor (included in 15% that the incubator receives), and who is additional (the size of the equity participation is negotiated individually), unless of course you want more than one. I consulted with the service station partner Andrei Transsky and we decided to take everyone in bulk.
Next - personal conversations. Everyone says how he can help, gives ideas. After, with the selected mentors we draw up and approve together a plan for 2 months of incubation. The plan turned out to be huge: mobile versions for Android, iOS, new design / UI / UX, a change of focus, an increase in the music base from 250 thousand to 2 million, which means a remake of the architecture, spans of large amounts of data ...
We grit our teeth and break through. For this and they came.
On the same day we are accommodated in the hotel’s luxury rooms.
Schedule
From the very first day you realize that you have hit the center of a hurricane, something like barracks, something like
pioneer camp, something on the eastern market, something on something unlike anything else. Every day is painted back to back.
In the morning at 8:00 - breakfast.
Then - a master class from the next mega-guest-mega-monster from Silicon Valley (in most cases), less often from a mega-monster from the territory of the Soviet Union.
Next - individual consultations for half an hour with each team.
Lunch at 13.00.
Next - endless tasks from the incubator, legal procedures, pitches, English lessons.
Dinner at 18:00.
11 hours of working waking is over. And you also need to fulfill your plan, develop the product, apply the guest and mentor's favorite tips, communicate with users, rehearse and improve the pitch. And for this there is only evening and night. And if you do not fulfill your plans, why did you even come here and what will you then pitch for investors? "2 months I studied"? It does not interest anyone. Learning is not a goal, but a means. Everything is here for building successful, multimillion-dollar profitable companies.
Attempted task distribution
Having looked at this load, Andrey and I decided that if we walk together for all these events, we will not be in time. Need to build priorities. Andrey concentrates on programming, I - on events.
In theory, everything is fine, only programming tasks here for ten. Moreover, considering that the web version of NextMusic.TV did it from scratch with my beautiful govnodkoding, in order to figure it out, Andrei is faster to do everything from scratch.
We decided to leave this situation in this way. I keep making the web version. Andrew helps me with tasks that can be done autonomously from the kernel. The biggest one is to combine the artists database (one million records), tracks (12 million) with the YouTube API. The result was a database of 50 million records, which still needed to be processed and brought to a working form. I already did this. And Andrew and his friend Igor (our new team member) fully concentrated on mobile and desktop versions (there are few tasks for us, we also decided to make the desktops).
Now we did not interfere with each other and everyone was able to give all the best.
I constantly experimented, quickly tested hypotheses, made prototypes of new and new features, concepts, tested various tricks. Quickly received feedback from users. Quickly removed the interfering and left liked.
On the brink
Have we been up to date? No, we worked all two months, 19 hours a day.
And during periods when it was necessary to urgently connect a new database and redo the entire architecture, because requests were processed for 30 seconds, and without a ready database, soon there would be nothing for Andrey to do with Igor, the whole plan was inhibited, I had to figure it out for 40 hours in one gulp, sleeping once in two days.
It really was on the border of physical abilities. Very difficult. A lot of anger and growling at himself, what a fig so slowly. In this regard, our NextMusic.TV helped me a lot. I chose Very bad mood, Very energetic, and for the first time in my life I enjoyed the wild energy from thrash-speed-hardcore-des-metal. In Facebook, I wrote: "If it were not NextMusic.TV, then there would not be NextMusic.TV.".
In this mode, everything went from week two until I finished and sighed with relief. But I would never manage to make the right optimal architecture today, if Andrei himself did not help me, Karpolan (STO HappyPharma), who was not too lazy to spend for me an hour educational program, and Valentin (STO startup Instudies.com) is a super-genius super-fast deciding questions over which I sat for half a day.
People
In general, I want to highlight the people who surrounded me all these 2 months. From the first days I really went nuts in a pleasant sense of the word. Entrepreneurial character, with a gleam in his eyes, a sincere desire to help each other, openness, bezpontovost, ease, unanimity. It seems that around - friends of my soul since childhood. Just for the sake of such an environment, it was 100% worth getting into the incubator.
Thanks to my colleagues in the barracks, issues were resolved much faster. Misha (CEO Jamroo.ms) and Egor (CEO and Designer of Instudies.com) helped me with the design, UI, tools. Andrei on iOS consulted the genius of Sasha from KartoonArt.com. Ideas for service and bug reports came from everyone. When I needed to test a new design for usability, I approached everyone and no one refused to help me.
Preparation for the presentation
The incubator was devoted to this question approximately 20% of the time. Every Friday the general pitchels were held. At the initiative of the inhabitants of the incubator, led by Pasha from Razmir.com, the evening club Peach (peach ~ pitch) was also organized, the purpose of which was to pitch in front of each other, get used to feel relaxed.
Every time a guest mentor came, we presented ourselves as short pitches of 30 seconds - a minute. On Fridays, a 3-minute pitch was presented.
The one who came to the incubator from scratch had to devote a lot of time to the presentations, to constantly practice and correct it according to the recommendations of distinguished guests.
I was very lucky in this regard. I invested much less time for the presentation, as I had been engaged in it for half a year before, I attended all the open master classes of Happy Pharm and not only.
Nevertheless, my pitch was where to improve during the incubation. I especially liked the workshops and personal recommendations on this issue from Vitaly Golomb, mentor "500 startups".
The correctness of the English carefully recovered Beatrice Day, our magic teacher of English.
All this also took time, so I decided to optimize the process for the time being to write down all the recommendations, and then one week before the demo day I’ll apply, redo the video and rehearse.
Campus
When I first found out about Happy Pharma, I was strained by the fact that it was a capus type. This means you live and work all day round the same territory. So far from his beloved wife. But all the other advantages for the sake of a big goal eventually outweighed this inconvenience.
Already after incubation, I realize more advantages from campus. Firstly, it is a complete concentration on the project. Absolutely everything helps you. Secondly - it is a rapprochement with the team. Andrei and I were familiar only virtually. Being under the same roof together in an incubator strengthened our team, turned it into a real team of friends.
The second part of
After the first two super-tense weeks, the work schedule was a bit flattering. Now I was finishing work at 2 in the morning, enjoying my sleep and waking up under an alarm clock at 7 in the morning.
In order to be in time, I began to approach the visits of guest mentors selectively, attending master classes and private sessions only with those whose experience was useful for specific actual tasks. In addition to this, for maximum focus and efficiency, so that nothing distracts me, I completely started working in the room, skipping breakfasts and sometimes dinners. Andrei went home to Kherson and worked in his office. Work boils at maximum peak load. Everything must be done a week before the demo day, so that there is still time to prepare for it, as planned.
Pitches to investors, grants, investments
Periodically, various representatives of venture funds, grant funds and angel investors appeared in the incubator. One of them was a guest mentor with a master class. Someone came on purpose. Sometimes there were away pitches. Of those that were crowned with investments, there were two cases.
The first is the grant fund of Alexander Kardakov, who made the decision to allocate a grant of 6 thousand dollars to one of HappyPharma residents, EyeDoc (sightwatcher.com).
The second case occurred when the incubator was visited by angel investor from Boston, Semen Dukach. He, like all mentors, was invited to the incubator by our main pioneer-counselor, Alena Kalibaba, according to the training program :). Tearing away reluctantly from their affairs, everyone gathered in the conference room and took turns to tell their pitches. Then there were personal conversations. With me and Andrey, Semyon wanted to talk separately. He was interested in the project, our team and right on the spot he decided to invest $ 15K in us for a 2% stake in the company.
Now, after almost two months of cooperation, I can say that I am very pleased with the cooperation with Semyon. We have a very similar worldview and both have 0% pathos. Therefore, communication is very easy, relaxed, like friends. Semen at the same time does not impose and helps, if asked, gives very practical advice, is active, always interested, open and available in all methods of communication. Investor dreams.
Visa
To participate in the second stage of acceleration (internship in the United States) you need to get a visa. But getting a visa was originally a zone of obscurity. Last season, a part received visas, a part - did not receive. And the relationship someone did not understand. The US Embassy does not disclose the reason for the refusal.
In this cycle, we were all served by an organized group through the embassy website. According to the rules in Kiev could be served to citizens of any country. Further, according to the plan: fill out forms, collect documents, invitations, letters. English teacher Saar Leroy and Katya Seledets, the main start-up partner, helped us with all this. When everything was collected and verified, we received letters with invitations and assurances, signed up for an interview and went to a meeting to the unknown.
Teams from Russia, Belarus and Moldova went first to get an answer before the end of incubation. Ten people in front of me were given visas. Everything looked cloudless. Then one was given a waiver. Cloudlessness disappeared. In a couple of days, it's my turn.
On the coveted day, at 9 am, having answered all four cordons of protection to the question about the purpose of the visit, having twice passed the fingerprints, I waited for my turn to the consul for an interview. Almost minute by minute, according to the planned schedule, my number lit up on the scoreboard.
“Yeah, so you're from HappyPharm?” - the first question from the consul.
“Yes,” I answered, smiling.
Consul: "And you are building profitable companies?"
Me: "Exactly :)".
Then a couple more questions in this spirit and “What is your company doing?”.
My story was interrupted by "If you are from HappyPharm, you must tell in English."
OK. And he spoke in English, at the same time answering the question about the value of the incubator for me personally.
Feels like the whole conversation took a minute and a half and ended with “Ok. Your visa is approved. "
That's great.
It was not there
But the visa story did not end there. On July 19, at the height of the second congress of the board of directors, someone from the embassy called and said that my visa would be canceled and a life ban on entering the United States issued. The reason is that I am a suspicious dude who changed his last name twice. And in general, my mother left for the United States, stayed there to live, delayed a visa and arranged a scandal, and my father was turned up at the border while trying to illegally emigrate.
Cheerful information on the right day.
Having disconnected from important incubator processes, I call mom and dad and find out about this story. Both say it is complete nonsense. We are picking up all the evidence in a smart way, we are raising the old contacts nine years ago that connect us with a trip to the USA. We collect photocopies of visas.
Dad sent promptly, and my mother's visa to the United States is in the old passport, from which only photocopies are left. In this case, the mother herself abroad, and the photocopies in a closed apartment. We'll have to break the door.
Anya Degtereva and the entire incubator on the ears. Today is advice and Friday, tomorrow is a demo day. Saturday and Sunday are weekends at the embassy. Solve something can only be on Monday. In the meantime, we sit in the lotus position, release unnecessary thoughts and concentrate on the culmination of incubation - the demo bottom.
Demo day
Full house Full house. The number of visitors is off scale. The place chosen by us accidentally under the conditioner began to play the role of an oasis.
My presentation was put at the very end of the pitch session. The most difficult place. Need to worry the longest. Therefore, I like to always speak first. But nothing can be done.
Pitches pass quickly for two minutes without questions from the audience. Acne our IT administrator includes presentations, music quickly and smoothly. My presentation starts, I quickly pick up the microphone and catch up with the video. Long rehearsals, including with invaluable help fellow soldiers make themselves known. Everything runs smoothly.
Applause, I'm going to take a sip of water, holding the skak with my teeth, as my hands are shaking nervously. Finally you can relax. Buffet this helps.
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Visa. Continued ...
On Monday I call a man from the embassy. It is not and will not be a whole week. Strange.
Anya Degtereva and the entire incubator for their part, under the leadership of Beatrice Day, compile a letter of refutation for the embassy according to all the laws of diplomacy, with reinforcement of plenty of photo and video reports. And they are sent to all emails of the US Embassy. After half an hour, the answer comes that the visa is open for me, you can take it.
# @ ### @ & #!
The next day I went to get a passport, in which the visa was displayed until 2018.
Ariwiderchi
We spent the last day in the incubator very sentimentally, as the last day in the pioneer camp. Each had more than 20 like-minded friends. Words of gratitude, dancing, conversations and the birthday of Marina from lonely-walls.com.
It will not be superfluous to once again express your immense gratitude to all residents of the second cycle, mentors, as well as everyone who organized and participated in the magical second acceleration cycle at Happy Farm.
After the incubator
The first stage of incubation is over. We decided not to take the second in the US with Andrei, in exchange for preserving part of the stake. For about 6% released, we are going to attract 2-3 more investors at $ 40-50K for growth in 2-3 months up to 10,000 active users per week. Now we continue to grow at a rate of about +300 active per week. To achieve the goal, it will be possible to attract the next round ~ $ 250K.
Recently, we connected the account of personal tastes and gave users the power to influence the categorization of music. In the near future - launch of public versions of mobile applications on iOS, Android & Windows Phone.
Now we are in Sevastopol. We rest with the whole team after intense incubation. True start-up: on the beach we write articles and press releases, and near besain we enjoy nature and code, code, code.
To be continued…
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/190674/
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