By the end of last year, Impact Hub Geneva launched the second edition of the Pulse Program. It was the start of a three months incubation program for early stage entrepreneurs to help them develop their ideas and take their project to the next level. Last month, the audience had the opportunity to hear the stories and support the winners: Personal Data I.O, La Charrette and Offgridme, during the “Pulse ‘Pitchfunding Night.’’
Pitchfunding
We spoke with José (picture on the left), responsible for designing and coordinating the program, about the final outcomes and the ‘grand finale’ on March 29. Three months passed by so fast! But a lot can happen in a few months. During the Pulse Pitchfunding night on March 29, the three winners had the opportunity to share and pitch their ideas to the audience, while the audience could support the winners by giving them a small financial contribution. Pitch and crowdfunding all in one!
José: “It was incredibly interesting to see how the finalists all progressed in a different way. Some of them were for example more in the stage of structuring their ideas and needed to work a lot on defining and finetuning their business model, while others were more in a stage where they were planning to scale up, a phase where project planning was helpful.
I have to say: three months is still very challenging for early stage entrepreneurs to take something to a next level. We found out that the process of ideation and putting everything in perspective usually takes up a lot more time since testing your assumptions and testing the model is the basis of your project.
One of the highlights of the program were the workshops. They were very hands-on and functioned also as group working sessions. It helped to create group spirit and forced the groups to work on difficult aspects of their project with the help of others.”
Maurizo and Louis from Offgridme
“For us Pulse didn’t feel like a competition. We helped each other along the way and who knows, this might lead to future synergies with other start-ups who joined the program.”
José: “The guidance of the mentors was also helpful to put things in perspective, but it’s important to verify what kind of support is necessary. Each start-up has specific needs. Experienced entrepreneurs for example can help them through different steps of the process such as legal, financial and marketing advice while on the other hand coaches can work more on the vision, team collaboration and personal development.
I think overall three months were a good kick-start for the second half of the year. After the event in March, we will still follow the entrepreneurs. Each of them will get a three months full membership for free and they will get individual check-ins on a more informal basis so that we can connect them with the right people to make their projects a reality. I am excited to follow them and hope that the Impact Hub can open even more doors for them to establish their ideas and grow further!”
Also interested in knowing more about the future ventures?
Have a look at Offgridme to find out how digital products are designed to be addictive and find out about possible solutions.
Find out more about La Charrette, an ecological platform that aims to shorten the supply chain between customer and local producer. They just launched their crowdfunding campaign!
Or read more about Personal Data I.O who helps people protect or control data their own personal data! A very hot topic which received at the moment a lot of media exposure!