Three innovative startup businesses won in the second stage (Seed) of the entrepreneurship tournament 3Challenge. This time, Start It Smart gave another promising team the opportunity to learn from the experience of some of the most successful Bulgarian entrepreneurs included in our mentorship program. This fall we will hear about the success of the projects in the next stage of the competition (Grow), in which the winner of the 4th season of 3Challenge will be selected!
The second stage (Seed) of the 3Challenge tournament for innovative business ideas took place this Sunday (23 June 2013) in betahaus | sofia. The event was organized by the Start It Smart entrepreneurship club for the fourth consequtive year, this time under the headline “You have to seed it to believe it!”. It took place thanks to the special support of SuperHosting.BG and Telerik.
The audience had the opportunity to hear about progress of 6 of the 7 teams which won the first stage of the tournament (Idea) three months earlier. They were now joined by 3 new teams at a more advanced (Seed) stage in the development of their ideas. Each team had to defend its right to continue in the tournament before the jury of experienced entrepreneurs and investors:
– Georgi Sharkov (Executive Director of ESI Center)
– Krum Hadzhigeorgiev (CEO of Melon)
– Alexander Kovachev (CEO of Red Devil Catering)
– Rumen Iliev (Partner in LauncHub)
– Ivaylo Simov (Co-founder of Eleven)
The main evaluation criteria the jury used to select the winners were 4: formed team; clear vision; validated business model and project traction. Thus, out of the 9 teams presented, 3 were selected to continue to the final (Grow) stage of the tournament. Here’s more about them:
Testingagents.com – a platform that allows website owners to get feedback from real users. Specially hired representatives of their specific target group (“test agents”) are recorded while browsing, commenting and making suggestions for improvement on their pages.
Social365 – corporate intranet social platform aimed at making internal communication systems of large companies more engaging and relevant to the communication habits of their young employees. In short – a corporate Facebook that adapts to the needs of the particular organization.
e-law.bg – a platform which allows everyone to easily and promptly receive advice and consultation to all kinds of legal matters from practicing attorneys. Lawyers, in turn, receive an alternative communication channel and thus reach a wider range of potential clients.
So what did the 3 teams win?
- Mentorship for 3 months by successful entrepreneurs and specialists in different areas who support the participants in realizing their projects with meetings, feedback and knowledge, evaluated at 50 000 BGN
- Free events in the event space of betahaus | Sofia, evaluated at 2 400 BGN
- Accounting services by Saldo.bg, evaluated at 1 800 BGN
- Entrepreneurship courses by The Business Institute, evaluated at 2 700 BGN
- Participation in workshops and discussions part of the Masters Program in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Finance in VUZF University, evaluated at 1 320 BGN
- Participation in seminars by Interactive Seminars, evaluated at 500 BGN
- Subscription to Capital and Capital Daily digital newspapers for 6 months, thanks to Economedia
- Access to the final stage – Grow
This time the Start It Smart team decided to give access to the biggest prize – the 3Challenge mentorship program – to another interesting startup:
Proofable.co.uk – a proofreading platform, which currently attracts many international students from UK universities. Proofable will enable English freelance proofreaders to reach and attract their customers more easily by a bidding system.
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The 3 hot business seeds have exactly 3 months until the next stage of the tournament 3Challenge (Grow), which will take place in September 2013. We wish them and all 3Challenge Seed participants good luck, rapid learning and lots of sales this summer!
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