Startup Sabantuy is an international business competition organized by investors so as to choose the best projects and teams. Apart from new contacts with sponsors and investors winners also receive an opportunity to take part in short educational session. This year too many St. Petersburg startupers submitted their applications. That is why organizers came from Naberezhnye Chelny to hold the event in St. Petersburg. ITMO University hosted Startup Sabantuy and served as the main partner.
“During this meeting we got in contact with people who have enough abilities to join our startup projects. Furthermore ITMO U staff members who were involved in the organization process knew a lot about how to plan workshops and promote projects,” said Ekaterina Egoshina, Head of Marketing Department.
Authors of more than 170 projects applied to take part in the event. The jury chose 31 teams that had already developed their business models and started to test their products. Thus 12 projects reached the final.
At the first day of the contest participants presented their “elevator speeches” about project ideas. This way of presenting became popular in America, a country of sky scrapers. If a startuper meets a potential investor in one of them while riding the elevator he has to impress him or her with their idea and make this investor think that his project is successful. He has to do all of that on the way! The next day young startupers presented their ideas again but following the rules of StartupSlam session. The speakers had to focus on the advantages of their products and present good financial plans. Apart from the organizers other investors who were interested in these presentations also took part virtually by using live broadcast service.
“Some participants were bad in budget planning, others didn't analyze peculiarities of the market. However I also met good teams and then invested in their projects. I recommend beginners to be ready for criticism and put on no airs. They should visit such competitions to receive the experience before spending money for their projects,” said Evgeny Turvinenko, investor, head of VentureClub.ru.
The participants worked on projects in such fields as logistics, online education, retail trade, virtual reality and so forth. Vladislav Bermuda, who created international educational media resource StudyOn, placed 1st. The main peculiarity of this online selling platform is that all who buy something using it receive an online ed course as a bonus. Mr. Bermuda will participate in Startup Sabantuy DEMODAY, which will take place this summer.
The organizers also offered six best teams to join IT accelerator session in Naberezhnye Chelny. ITMO University`s team NILSA succeeded to attract investors and was awarded with presentation skills educational course.
The experienced experts advised participants to study the market, look for assistance of specialists as well as analyze clients' requirements.
