One Month Left To Apply to StartupYard
The cutoff for applications to StartupYard 2016 is now less than a month away, on November 11th.
Over the past few months, StartupYard director Cedric Maloux and I have travelled all around Central Europe, meeting startups and entrepreneurs eager to take the next step, and accelerate their businesses. It’s been quite a ride so far, that’s taken us to 6 cities, where we’ve met scores of people with talent, energy, and great ideas.
What Are We Looking For?
Why do we do all this work to reach out to startups? Finding a gem among hundreds of new and untested ideas is a tricky business. We never know what the next big idea is going to be. If we did, we wouldn’t be running an accelerator!
We are looking for startups who can convince us that their idea may just be the next big idea in the areas of Mobile, Data, Anaytics, and IOT.
We are looking for talented engineers, but also dedicated and tireless advocates for a new way of doing business, a new way of thinking about an old problem, or even something entirely new and untested.
Above all, we are looking for teams that we can believe in, and who are ready to use our knowledge, connections, and experience to grow on a global scale.
Why You Should Apply to StartupYard
You shouldn’t think of StartupYard as a menu of things you’ll get when you join.
Of course, we provide 30,000 Euros in funding, and up to 250,000 Euros in follow on financing. We also provide over 500,000 Euros in perks exclusive to members of GAN, the global accelerator network. We also provide workspace, resources, training, and our extensive business network. And who could forget the pizza? We hope you like pizza.
But we are not looking for startups that view us as a source of funding, or a stepping stone they are obligated to use. An accelerator is not a box you need to check off your startup to-do list. At least StartupYard isn’t.
We cannot do anything for a startup that it is not willing to do for itself. But what we can do, is put a startup in the best possible position to succeed. We can’t create relationships for you, but we can provide connections to an unbeatable network of mentors and investors, and the context for building relationships and building trust.
We can facilitate, encourage, and act as a safety net and a sounding board for startups that are willing to take leaps of faith and of imagination. We can push startups -and provide them with the right tools- to improve their communication abilities, refine their business models, sharpen their customer focus, and hone their pitching skills until they can speak convincingly about their ideas in their sleep.
In short, we can be there every day with startups, making sure they have no excuses for failure.
We are often asked what our relationship to our startups is. Are we investors? Are we teachers? Are we consultants? None of these descriptions is right.
We are partners in the plainest sense. We neither lead nor follow, and we don’t profit from our startups until they are successful in the real world. Our interest lies entirely in helping you to succeed, and we accompany our startups on every step toward becoming a real, thriving business.
In short, we live and die with you.
