The accelerator is designed to help Yakutian entrepreneurs enter the global market. Entrepreneurs not only from all over the republic, but also from other cities and countries related to Yakutia took part in the project events.
The project was organized by Sinet Spark company, whose main task is the development of Yakutia. The operator of the program was the company YellowRockets, specializing in the organization of acceleration programs for startups. YellowRockets collaborates with leading Russian and international venture funds, development institutions, business angel communities and corporations.
For 12 weeks, 57 teams of entrepreneurs had intensive training, created sales tools, analyzed existing solutions and the experience of foreign competitors, evaluated the effectiveness of advertising and much more. The participants worked on their business together with experts and mentors to get a detailed scaling plan, proven hypotheses and first sales in the end.
During the work of the accelerator, Public Talks were held with well-known speakers, experts, entrepreneurs - Fedor Ovchinnikov, Sergey Bogdanov, Arnon Geshuri, Polina Rusyaeva and others.
Upon completion of the accelerator, the best projects received grant support from Sinet Spark company.
Grants from Sinet Spark were issued in five directions: "Natural products", "Northern Element", IT, "Impact-businesses" and "Tourism". The winner in each nomination received 10 thousand dollars.
Thus, in the direction of "Natural products", the grant holder was the company for processing and preserving berries, fruits and vegetables Agricultural consumer cooperative "Tyreh" under the leadership of Antonida Barashkova. During taking part in the accelerator, the company tested its products at restaurants in Yakutia, increased its assortment and held negotiations with a large chain of grocery companies. Having changed the format of products from jam to sauce, they made a new, more popular product outside the republic - sauce for meat.
"The guys helped us a lot, I had so many new ideas. If back then we used to work only in our republic, now we are already establishing contacts and going beyond Yakutia, we are exhibiting on international trading platforms," says Antonida Barashkova.
Alexey Otukov's Yakut Siberian knife company received a grant in the Northern Element nomination. The team promotes Yakutian knives to the international market. The accelerator helped them identify several segments in the US and Canadian markets, as well as negotiate with 25 bloggers with million-plus subscribers about advertising.
"I am taking part in the accelerator for the first time. I would say that the event is very organized and useful. If we ourselves had started to develop our projects without an accelerator, then we would have gone all this way in a much longer time," Alexey Otukov believes.
An application that helps women lose weight received grant support among the IT participants. It was developed by the company BodyLine under the leadership of Gavril Vinokurov. The marathon series was successfully sold not only in Yakutia, but also in Buryatia. The accelerator helped entrepreneurs to find a "bottleneck" and increase their revenue twice.
"I would like to thank Arsen Tomsky, Sinet Spark and YellowRockets for the opportunity to get awareness around the world. There are a lot of life hacks, tools and information that we can use to reach out to the world," says Gavril Vinokurov.
In the "Impact-businesses" category (projects aimed at improving the situation in a particular city or even district), Igor Savvin's company SCIBERIA received a grant from Sinet Spark. The team has developed and implemented software in several clinics in Yakutsk, which allows to automatically process CT data and reduce the load on doctors several times and provide a convenient monitoring system for clinic managers. As part of the accelerator, they figured out how to sell their product to partners.
"During the accelerator, we received a very cool training program. Top speakers were invited to share their tips. These tips are absolutely necessary for us, start-up companies, to enter the global market," says Igor Savvin.
And, finally, in the category "Tourism", the Yakutian Travel company of Alyona Filippova and Ilya Otukov became the grant holder. The company offers individual and group tours in Yakutia - rafting, fishing, car tours, excursions. During taking part in the accelerator, contacts were established with Moscow tour operators, tour presentations were updated, and the company's pricing policy was revised.
"We are a young company, we started working only a year ago, so an event of this scale was very new for us. The first experience and immediately such results! It was very cool, we liked trackers, training courses, public talks, we got only positive emotions in general," Alyona Filippova and Ilya Otukov shared.
In addition, two more companies received incentive grants of 2.5 thousand dollars - Mikhail Potapov's IT Study and Kirill Tretyakov's Getband project. IT Study specializes in remote learning, including game development and 3D animation. Getband is a platform for musicians to search for joint projects in the city.
"The accelerator was very effective. And most importantly, we considered hypotheses that we could not imagine on our own. We were given techniques for studying introspection to find the most profitable options. That is, it was a hybrid of technical techniques plus intuition," Mikhail Potapov said.
"I liked the training and strong speakers. I have learned a lot, and new opportunities have appeared in my mind. And we will not miss these opportunities," Kirill Tretyakov said.
Sergey Bogdanov, the founder and head of YellowRockets, believes that Yakutia2World is one of the best private initiatives in the regions of Russia in terms of the level of organization, the speakers, the volume of grants and support for project participants.
"I don't know what the secret is, but cool entrepreneurs come out of this harsh region, some of the biggest Russian startups come from Yakutia. Local entrepreneurs are ready to think globally, they are very motivated, they absorb information like a sponge and are focused on work," says Sergey Bogdanov.
Accelerator - a program of accelerated development and scaling for entrepreneurs of Yakutia was held from April 5 to June 25. The project participants were supported and advised by experts and trackers of the program, as well as, if necessary, specialists in solving specific business problems came to their aid.
Photo: Vadim Skryabin