How to boost your IT startup in 3 months?
Hello, my name is Alexey Tkachenko, I am a web developer and entrepreneur. I would like to share with you my personal experience of participating in the state program for supporting IT startups “Sprint” with our project of a service for embedding 3D models into websites Site3D Configurator.
Registration of participation
To participate in this free educational event of the Internet Initiatives Development Fund (IIDF), it was necessary to submit an application on the website sprint.iidf.ru on behalf of a legal entity. At that time, I only had an individual entrepreneur. The playground construction workshop “ARTxPRO” – a client of our project – helped out, allowing us to submit an application on behalf of his organization. For this, I am very grateful to Alexey Petukhov, the director of the company. I think that in your circle there are similar responsive people, if you do not yet have your own legal entity.
According to the organizers, one of the main criteria for selection in the program is the presence of first sales. There are exceptions, but I recommend applying to “Sprint” when there are already some payments from real users of your project. I also advise you to start filling out an application for participation at least a month in advance, since various documents are required from the organization on whose behalf you are applying, and some require time to receive, for example, a certificate from the tax office about the absence of debts.
The main accelerator program
After our project was approved for participation in the 10th stream of the accelerator, I went to Moscow to participate in a three-day starting intensive. We were fed deliciously there, there were many interesting reports, joint tasks with other participants. It was really interesting and useful for me as the CEO of the project. After that, I returned home and the main three-month training program began online.
I was assigned two trackers, a leading one and a linear one. With the first one, Oleg Akulov, we met once a week on Fridays, where we built the main plan for the week, and with the second one, Maxim Komarov, twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays. With Maxim, we discussed the implementation of the planned plan.
There were also two training webinars or master classes per week. The most memorable was the workshop on problematic interviews by Rinat Shamsiev. At it, the speaker called one of our clients and conducted an in-depth study of the company's experience of interacting with our service.
Problems that have arisen
When interacting with the linear tracker, at first there was a situation where I was not very happy with the result, since we did almost no real joint actions during the sessions. I shared this with the accelerator administrator and then Maxim and I began to act much more productively. I do not make a direct connection between these events, perhaps it was just a coincidence.
During the conversations, we edited commercial proposals, technical assignments for freelancers, texts for mailings. And this began to bring a positive effect. Applications from companies interested in our platform began to appear.
Additional benefits of the educational program
Even during the acceleration, I had individual consultations with two experts. The first of them, Stanislav Sambursky, helped build chains of letters for email newsletters, and the second, Yulia Khoroshutina, gave advice on improving the presentation of information on the project website. For example, we redesigned the unique selling proposition in the website header.
Before meeting Yulia, our USP looked cumbersome and difficult to understand: “A widget for demonstrating 3D configurators in the form of blocks on the site or links for viewing”, and then it turned into a more concise and understandable version for our audience: “Embed 3D models on the site and increase conversion by 7%”. In addition, this version of the USP also contained what problem our service solves for the client.
I can also note the benefit of working with Yandex-practicum, which helped attract new employees within the framework of “Sprint”. As a result, it was possible to attract an intern for tasks on Three.js.
Learning Outcomes
I will list our most significant achievements during the acceleration period:
We segmented our target audience and prepared targeted commercial offers for each of them.
Built E-mail Marketing
We attracted an SMM specialist and an intern to the team for the position of front-end developer
We got new clients, which was about 2 times faster than before the accelerator, in terms of their growth rate.
The final stage of acceleration
On August 22, I am scheduled to participate in the defense of our project at the demo day, where representatives of large companies interested in new IT projects will be invited. I think that this is a great opportunity to receive investments or pilot testing for many program participants. For me, this is largely an opportunity to find new users of our project.
Results
I hope that my article will help someone in promoting their startup. Ask questions if you have any in the comments. I will try to answer them all. Good luck to everyone in their endeavors!
