Phone:
Address:
8, Presnenskaya emb., Moscow, 123112
E-mail:
Search
18 August 2014
The GenerationS Industrial Track Completes Its Second Educational Weekend in St. Petersburg
The second pre-acceleration weekend for technology entrepreneurs in the GenerationS Industrial Track came to a close on August at the Ingria Business Incubator. The program included two days of intensive training and a Demo Day, on which regional projects were selected to enter the GenerationS Industrial acceleration program.
More than 30 startups from 14 Russian cities participated in the event. The goal of the pre-acceleration program was to teach technology entrepreneurs the key market principles and to select projects for participation in the GenerationS Industrial accelerator.
“All our participants have an excellent, in-depth understanding of their technologies,” Pavel Korolev, CEO of Pulsar Venture Capital, said, “however, many simply have no idea how to reduce the whole array of very complex parameters to simple formulas anyone could understand easily. Obvious questions that would be of interest to any investor often remain unanswered, and mass consumers simply cannot understand why they need a new product with all its sophisticated features. The educational purpose of the track is to teach startup entrepreneurs to describe their technologies in a way that would be clear and appealing to customers, investors, and prospective business partners (dealers, suppliers, resellers, etc.) We do not set the goal of making a product perfect in terms of technology – the inventors can do a much better job of this – but we will help them find support in the market.”
Organizers addressed the participants with brief encouraging speeches at the Educational Weekend opening. Speakers included Sergey Mitrofanov, CEO of Agency One, Pulsar Venture Capital’s Strategy Advisor; Andrey Kulagin, the Russian Venture Company’s Head of Industrial Solutions and Biotech Acceleration Programs; Sergey Petrenko, Investment Advisor for Ingria Business Incubator, and Vyacheslav Makovich, VP and Chief Marketing Officer of AAA Trust.
Every participant in the high-intensity education event developed his or her strategy for promoting their project, received some basic understanding of a business model and tried his hand at a pitch session. Experts did their best to give participants valuable knowledge and share their experience during high-intensity training. For example, Vyacheslav Makovich, who taught a master class on promotion and creation of strategy for innovative products, offered his advice to beginner entrepreneurs.
“Don’t write a business plan, write a business model” Vyacheslav said. “Build a hypothesis, test it, get market feedback. If the market rejects your hypothesis, build a new one.”
Sergey Mitrofanov led a training session on investor presentations. His session was built around the core idea: “Enjoy your presentation, be polite and careful.” Besides, Ekaterina Koltunova, CEO of Actualog, taught a financial planning master class.
“Forecasting and the meaning of the balance sheet, P&L and cashflow statements help project founders to get across to the investor a standardized, uniform idea of the project’s financial performance,” Ekaterina emphasized.
The third and final day of the St. Petersburg leg of the pre-acceleration program saw a panel of investment judges evaluate refined presentations and identify participants in the acceleration program from St. Petersburg and other cities and regions in an investment session. They approved a total of 25 projects to participate in a pitch session.
A similar pre-acceleration weekend had already taken place in Moscow, and the final pre-acceleration event is to take place in Yekaterinburg on August 22 – 24. After all three pre-acceleration weekends, the judges will identify a list of 40 best projects which will have the opportunity to participate in the two-week GenerationS Industrial acceleration program in September 2014.
After the acceleration program run by Pulsar Venture Capital, 10–15 projects will have the opportunity to compete in the GenerationS Filnal, which will take place at the Open Innovation, a Moscow International Investment Forum, in October, where the best project teams from all four sector tracks will present their projects to Russian and international investors and will also compete for a RUB 5 million main cash prize as well as other prizes from contest partners.
“All our participants have an excellent, in-depth understanding of their technologies,” Pavel Korolev, CEO of Pulsar Venture Capital, said, “however, many simply have no idea how to reduce the whole array of very complex parameters to simple formulas anyone could understand easily. Obvious questions that would be of interest to any investor often remain unanswered, and mass consumers simply cannot understand why they need a new product with all its sophisticated features. The educational purpose of the track is to teach startup entrepreneurs to describe their technologies in a way that would be clear and appealing to customers, investors, and prospective business partners (dealers, suppliers, resellers, etc.) We do not set the goal of making a product perfect in terms of technology – the inventors can do a much better job of this – but we will help them find support in the market.”
Organizers addressed the participants with brief encouraging speeches at the Educational Weekend opening. Speakers included Sergey Mitrofanov, CEO of Agency One, Pulsar Venture Capital’s Strategy Advisor; Andrey Kulagin, the Russian Venture Company’s Head of Industrial Solutions and Biotech Acceleration Programs; Sergey Petrenko, Investment Advisor for Ingria Business Incubator, and Vyacheslav Makovich, VP and Chief Marketing Officer of AAA Trust.
Every participant in the high-intensity education event developed his or her strategy for promoting their project, received some basic understanding of a business model and tried his hand at a pitch session. Experts did their best to give participants valuable knowledge and share their experience during high-intensity training. For example, Vyacheslav Makovich, who taught a master class on promotion and creation of strategy for innovative products, offered his advice to beginner entrepreneurs.
“Don’t write a business plan, write a business model” Vyacheslav said. “Build a hypothesis, test it, get market feedback. If the market rejects your hypothesis, build a new one.”
Sergey Mitrofanov led a training session on investor presentations. His session was built around the core idea: “Enjoy your presentation, be polite and careful.” Besides, Ekaterina Koltunova, CEO of Actualog, taught a financial planning master class.
“Forecasting and the meaning of the balance sheet, P&L and cashflow statements help project founders to get across to the investor a standardized, uniform idea of the project’s financial performance,” Ekaterina emphasized.
The third and final day of the St. Petersburg leg of the pre-acceleration program saw a panel of investment judges evaluate refined presentations and identify participants in the acceleration program from St. Petersburg and other cities and regions in an investment session. They approved a total of 25 projects to participate in a pitch session.
A similar pre-acceleration weekend had already taken place in Moscow, and the final pre-acceleration event is to take place in Yekaterinburg on August 22 – 24. After all three pre-acceleration weekends, the judges will identify a list of 40 best projects which will have the opportunity to participate in the two-week GenerationS Industrial acceleration program in September 2014.
After the acceleration program run by Pulsar Venture Capital, 10–15 projects will have the opportunity to compete in the GenerationS Filnal, which will take place at the Open Innovation, a Moscow International Investment Forum, in October, where the best project teams from all four sector tracks will present their projects to Russian and international investors and will also compete for a RUB 5 million main cash prize as well as other prizes from contest partners.
