OptioAI On Their Journey from StartupYard to Techstars
Last month we announced that OptioAI, a member of StartupYard Batch 8 and StartupYard’s first Georgian startup, had joined TechStars Berlin. Techstars is the world’s largest accelerator network, with over 1000 invested companies, and $3.3bn raised over the past 12 years. OptioAI is through the first month of the program already, and will present at the Berlin DemoDay on April 19th.
OptioAI joined StartupYard with a plan to create a text-based finance management platform for millennials who weren’t seduced by traditional banking (which is to say, most of them). Today their core mission remains the same, and has evolved to become a text-based platform that “makes your money talk to you,” by connecting users with their financial data in a natural way, via voice and chat.
I checked in with Shota Giorgobiani, Co-Founder and CEO at Optio, to find out how the Techstars program is going. Here is what he had to say, this time via email.
Were you surprised to be selected for Techstars right after the StartupYard program?
The funny thing is, applying to TechStars started more as an experiment.
We’d heard how hard was to get to Techstars. Techstars does not officially publish information about the number of applications they get for every batch, but rumors say that only 1-2% of initial applicants get to Techstars and the number of applications per program can be near 1000.
Furthermore, Techstars generally accepts only 1 or 2 early stage company per batch, so it looked almost impossible right from the beginning. Our goal was to understand how the process works and prepare for the future when we would be “ready,” but as always, you never know when you are “ready” and what “readiness” means. So we ended up by being selected for Techstars Berlin, which actually is a great outcome of the “experiment!”
How does the application process work?
The first part of the selection is pretty much standard: you send your application, you are shortlisted and then have a Skype call. If you are in the final round, you are invited to selection day.
Some cities have 2 meetings with startups and some just one, but overall it’s the same as at StartupYard. The main difference is the final selection process: It’s not like a “traditional pitch” competition, or a series of one-to-ones, it’s more a face to face meeting with the whole selection committee.
We had 2 meetings, each for 15 minutes with 2 different groups. The idea of this meeting for Techstars team is to get to know the team. It’s a known fact (and it’s true not only for Techstars) that most of the time, especially early-stage startups are chosen because of the team, not because of the idea or product. And when I mention team, not only the credibility of the team is important (like how many years have you been in the industry), but also if the team can be managed and helped to make better decisions or not.
This was something we really improved on at StartupYard: how to listen and to show that you are taking questions seriously; how to engage with debate and not be defensive.
Also very important is to show what you have. No matter if it’s a working product with 1000+ users or mockups of your idea. You should be excited about what you are doing and you should naturally show this excitement. It’s even good to start your talk with the demo (and most of the time – you are asked to do so).
One last thing: 15 minutes is too short period to cover everything. You may be tempted to use up your time talking about your plans, but you should be able to cover most important topics in 2-3 minutes and move to the Q/A part, where you have a chance to show your competence, passion, vision and also show where Techstars can help you. So you should be prepared and be able to manage your time well.
For us, it was a little challenge, because we naturally tend to speak a lot about our company, and you should really train yourself to do it quickly. At the end of the day, it’s all about the match: a personal match between team and Techstars and clear view of how Techstars can help, if any of these is missing, I think you will not be accepted.
How did StartupYard prepare you for taking on this next step? What has been the biggest challenge at TechStars?
I can talk about that for hours, but to be short and clear: I think, based on our current stage, we had little chance to get to Techstars, if we had not been in StartupYard.
There are clear reasons for that: at StartupYard we learned to describe what we do and who we are quickly and clearly. This is a crucial thing, you should be able to explain in 2-3 mins why are you building the company, what are you building, how this team can achieve the goal and etc. And that’s very hard to do, it takes time and practice. Second is credibility: I think it’s very hard to get into the world’s top accelerator just by sending the application. Sure you can, but for us, at such an early stage and being from Georgia, it feels impossible.
Credibility and your network are so important, aren’t they?
Your network is your key to the world! You have to always be building it up and making it stronger.
For example, our story with Techstars actually started in Prague, in StartupYard, where we meet Techstars Berlin MD, Rob Johnson, and had the opportunity to talk with him and tell what we were doing. Rob was there because of StartupYard, so already you can see the network effect.
Rob suggested we try and apply for the upcoming program. When someone tells you that, listen to them! That’s a shortcut to being noticed among hundreds of applicants, because it comes from within their network. It comes with a degree of trust and confidence.
And believe me, if you are not already generating revenue and growing steadily and are still proving that your product makes sense, such a “shortcut” can be your only chance.
Overall, StartupYard gave us a lot of direct knowledge and experience and maybe even more importantly, wisdom, which helps us every day at Techstars.
For example, after one bloody month of mentorship in Prague, we had a very clear understanding of how the process looks and feels, how to prepare for meetings, what to expect from mentors, etc. Having that experience is invaluable when you get to Techstars and it helps you get the most out of the mentors there.
How has the move to Techstars affected your strategy going forward? What do you hope to get out of it?
The main challenges now are achieving strong product-market fit and finding a sustainable business model.
So far we have not changed our strategy overall, but that’s an ongoing process and considering the stage of our company, there can and will be changes. For now, we are still working to give millennials an easy way of managing their money through conversational interfaces. At the end of the program, we want to have good traction in terms of users, the finalized core of the product, a clear vision of our business model and 1 or 2 pilots with potential B2B customers. That’s the plan for now.
Have you made big changes in the product?
Yes, we just released an updated version and lots of changes are ahead.
We decided to focus on the simple, yet very valuable functionality of the product, so we narrowed down our long list of the feature set to something, we believe is valuable for our users on a daily basis. Still, we have to do lots of experiments and see how it goes, but we are now more solid in short-term vision and plan.
In short, we want to create a super simple tool/routine for our users, that can help them with daily money management. No long-term savings goals, no 5-year plans of repaying your mortgage – we are focusing on daily money management. Sounds simple, but as usual, the devil is in the details: if you can’t manage your daily spending, there’s no chance to solve your long-term problems., So for now, that’s our main focus and strategy.
