17 tech companies from Russia successfully completed their first week of the Boston Incubator Program for early-stage startups, hosted by StartUp Access and sponsored by RVC, Russia.
As the first week of the incubator program comes to a close, startups are busy working on their elevator pitches and reflecting on their experiences. This week’s schedule was jam packed with mentorship sessions, lectures and tours. Boris Yaremen from the Deep Atlas of the Human Anatomy Project (Samara, Russia) shared his initial impressions of the first week: “So far, for me the most memorable and meaningful experience has been visiting the business incubators and meeting their representatives. Their success stories and development prospects have inspired me to continue my work, and offered guidance on my company’s future direction.
The biggest highlight of the week and one startups found most helpful was daily 3 hour mentorship sessions. In total, teams got individual feedback on their projects from 25 successful serial entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders working in a wide range of fields, including: robotics, pharmaceuticals, biotech, IT, e-commerce, healthcare, education, marketing and social media. Vladimir Iliukhin from the AquaDisplay Project (Samara, Russia) shared: “Individual consultations are a highly effective method of communicating with mentors. Their feedback is tremendously helpful in improving our project. As a result, I have reconsidered our business development strategy and shifted our main focus. Another participant, Arkadiy Zolotovitskiy from the Yoomee Project (Samara, Russia) was “amazed by every mentor’s openness and willingness to help”.
Participants also took a lot of valuable information away from a special mentorship session with Axel Tillman, CEO of RVC, USA. Andrey Pavlikov, the INN-EX Project (Samara, Russia) reflected: “The most interesting feedback I got was from Axel. He offered excellent advice, which is indispensable for the development of our project”
The first week of the incubator also included a number of educational lectures that covered a broad range of topics, including: networking, strategic planning, web-based tools for operations management and accounting, as well as tips on presenting and pitching projects to investors. One of the favorites was a talk by a serial entrepreneur and founder of Pixamo Inc., Andrew Prihodko. Rustem Feyzkhanov from the Easy Wallet Project (Moscow, Russia) particularly noted and was “impressed by Prihodko’s “human” description of business”.
Other major events of the week included a meeting with Geoff Mamlet, a venture capitalist and Principal at New Atlantic Ventures, and Scott Bailey, Senior Director of Partnerships at MassChallenge (a global competition and startup accelerator program). Throughout the week, participants also toured MassChallenge, Cambridge Innovation Center (the largest co-working center for startups in the world), Bolt (seed stage fund investing in hardware startups) and MIT.