Yes, you can – Accelerator success stories
“I actually think that acceleration programs should be done online! This is how the future looks like.”
predicted Priit Pedastsaar, CEO of Idyllum Labs in a recent online article. Will he be right? Judging by the responses of accelerators to the crisis, this probably is correct.
Of course, the corona crisis and the accompanying economic crisis is not easy for anyone. But there are companies, including many start-ups and accelerators, that have accepted the challenge faster than others. They had been already leading a “double life” before the crisis: A combination of offline and online presence and collaboration.
The crisis has brought digital acceleration to the fore
Fortunately, there are great tools and online opportunities that can help accelerators run and grow their businesses. Thus the lockdown has not caused a dramatic stop of service in accelerator programs everywhere. Some accelerators are proving that there are even advantages within the crisis: Bringing accelerator programs online and even digitalizing the offer means that entrepreneurs can educate themselves regardless of time and place. ?Opportunities for collaboration have remained almost as great as before and partially have even expanded.
Startup Wise Guys, the international start-up accelerator founded in Estonia, is currently running its programs online and is finding even ways to maintain a motivating atmosphere:
?We had to be a bit more creative than usual when the lockdown kicked in and we had to move our fully onsite batches to the online world, but we had a few tricks up our sleeves already. ?
We have been managing online pre-accelerators for more than a year now, so the move to online was the easy part, but the biggest challenge was – how to keep the #SWGMafia vibe alive online as well! The 50+ attendee online batch launch party was a great way how to kick things off, and there’s more we continue every day! You can read more about it in this article! ?
And the most important message from us in these times has been summarized by our Chief Friendly Officer Dag Ainsoo: “As long as there are new companies created and technology keeps evolving, SWG will be running, online or not!” ??
SWG Facebook
But despite the good online tools and digital platforms, many things need to be implemented in the online world that we would have not even thought of. Using digital tools means that human relationships are created much slower, and team building has also definitely changed. How do SWG program managers manage to make meetings in the digital space as productive and inspiring as personal encounters? Find more on the relationship building in the original article here.
Key2Investors white-labelled platform used by Startup Wise Guys in #HackTheCrisis
We are glad that and proud that Startup Wise Guys sees using the digital platform as the easy part and is very successful in managing the difficult part, i.e. relationship building, as they mentioned above. Meanwhile, Startup Wise Guys runs the online pre-accelerator HackTheCrisis on the basis of the digital accelerator platform of key2investors.
“Already in ordinary circumstances, life after hackathons for the teams is challenging and often they fail to continue. But at times like these, when startups are developing solutions to save lives and ensure economic activity during the pandemic, having a next stepping stone is even more crucial for them. That?s why we are launching a dedicated Online Pre-accelerator to ensure the continuity and maximum impact after #HackTheCrisis hackathons.”
Startup Wise Guys Hack the Crisis.
Key2invesors is more than happy to participate in this project. We truly hope that the crisis will also bring positive changes and that the rise of online platforms will provide more opportunities for startups around the world to grow their businesses.
