Get a grant and stay alive

At the beginning of July 2013, our CTO Vlad began to look for a spacious cardboard box to move into it. Financing a young but proud startup was rapidly ending. We are actively looking for money in order to continue working. The situation did not look hopeless, we had a rather large pool of interested investors and there was a demo day ahead. Kostya, who is responsible for marketing and promotion here, suggested considering the option of receiving a grant from the GTF fund that just appeared.

I knew about grants enough to not love them. From the media, we know that grants are a cut, corruption, and also the State Department. In general, absolutely for sure - nothing good. Looking from these positions, I really didn’t want to spend our time participating in this, without a doubt, dirty and meaningless event.

For the sake of decency, I looked at the information about the fund. It included several international, Russian and Ukrainian venture funds. The conditions were quite attractive, but after a short discussion, we decided not to waste our time and energy.

A couple of weeks in Kharkov was held Startup Demo-day, in which we took part. As it turned out, Alexey Anikin, the president of GTF, took part in the same event. After his story about the foundation, I had my first doubts about our unique decision “not to consider participating in the GTF program”. In addition, after the presentation of Pics.io , Alexey advised us to apply for a grant. And we decided to try with the guys. Moreover, we decided that from the fact that we submit an application, nothing bad will definitely happen. In addition, among the founders of GTF, we saw venture funds, with which we were very interested to meet. Kostya filled out an application and we safely forgot about GTF, plunging into exciting moments of attracting the first round of investment.
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From time to time, Alexey sent us clarifying questions from experts who tried to figure out what we were doing. Questions and clarifications were quite reasonable, besides, we were never asked to give a "kickback" or sell our homeland. Then we decided to check our ratings and were surprised to find Pics.io in the top five of the first applicants for the grant. Honestly, our surprise knew no bounds. Under the terms of the competition, ten start-ups were selected from all applications; they were to appear before the grant committee, which would select the three best teams for further cooperation.



Over the next two weeks, we watched a fascinating rally in which Pics.io then got into the top three, then dropped out of dozens of leaders. In the end, we were sent an invitation to the final presentation. But, as it turned out, to participate in the final presentation, it was necessary to approve the grant agreement in advance. The agreement had a couple of points that we categorically did not suit. After long and heated discussions, the team and I decided not to participate in the program. I wrote about this to Alexey. A couple of hours later, he called back and said that they would discuss the problems and, perhaps, think of something. A few days passed and I received a letter from Alexey saying that all problems had been resolved, and the foundation would remake the agreement. A few days later, this post appeared on the GTF website.

On September 9, a meeting of the grant committee was held in Kiev, where projects selected by GTF experts were made. I represented Pics.io, a couple of hesitations, a couple of hitches, a total of the presentation, along with answers to the questions, took about 15 minutes. I am always impressed by well-organized events, this one was organized just fine. In addition to the presentations, everyone got acquainted and talked with everyone. Only people related to start-ups were invited to the event, so the communication turned out to be quite intense and interesting. In principle, we can say that it is possible to submit to the GTF only in order to get to the final presentation. Among other things, our project received a grant, which was very pleasant and rather unexpected.

After the meeting of the grant committee, it took a couple of weeks to approve the contract and exchange the originals for tax. We were assigned a curator from the Runa Capital Foundation , Dmitry Halperin. It seems to me that we found a common language from the first meeting and worked quite productively for all six months. I had quite serious concerns about the amount of reporting that would have to be provided as part of the work on the program. I was frightened not by the fact of disclosing any data, but rather by the bureaucracy, which in most of these cases is considered an inevitable evil. I must say that there were no problems with the GTF. Once a month I wrote a small report on what was done and what the problems are. The report included fairly basic metrics that can be pulled from google analytics and our back office. Then we called up with Dmitry to discuss the results and plans. Everything was businesslike friendly. Since startups are growing fast, and Pics.io is especially good at this, sometimes it was necessary to schedule an intermediate session.

Another question that always interests everyone is GTF accounting. Everything is so simple that I won't even stop here on this.

For Pics.io, the GTF program is coming to an end. In a few days I will write the final report. It was an excellent experience, which once again showed that one should not pay attention to prejudices and should trust people more. GTF does very important things for startups in Ukraine - they introduce everyone to each other, they help their experience, they give the necessary connections and, finally, they give money that a startup can use right now. I am confident that we will maintain relationships with program participants and founding funds. It is possible that one of the GTF funds will become our investor during the next round, at least we would really like it.

Practically at all start-up events in Ukraine, discussion of GTF somehow arises. Many show skepticism and advise not to waste time, because "everything has been bought there for a long time." I absolutely honestly described our experience and I can definitely advise any Ukrainian startup to apply for participation in the GTF. If, suddenly, you still have questions, I will be happy to answer them in the comments.

Photo: Geoffrey Gilmour-Taylor