In this post we will summarize the main results of the pre-acceleration program - have we managed to achieve all the goals that we set before the final stage of the competition? Do many projects really have a future? What alliances were concluded as a result of this difficult battle? Are the teams themselves happy with the results?
Read about this and much more below.
53 teams took part in the educational (distance) pre-accelerator program. 47 projects reached the full-time stage, which took place in the Senezh Management Workshop on November 20-22.
In total, 150 successful developers, designers, marketers and managers were assembled on the site, the remaining 95 were jury members, investors, trackers and experts. They were with the teams during the remote and full-time stages - during these two months they were almost related.
Instead of a thousand words, we asked participants and trackers to share their opinions on the progress and results of the program - in our opinion, the opinion “from the field” is much more interesting.
In general, the progress of the program
FrozenLab team: “The Digital Breakthrough contest initially had the task of automating and classifying user requests received by the management company. We solved it within the framework of the final of the competition and developed it on a pre-accelerator. Our main goal during the program is not to attract investment in the project, but to find opportunities for its development. Based on the results, we developed a project based on speech analytics, which determines who is calling the company (and what address he lives at) and immediately transfers information to the right person within the company or helps to process the application immediately. During the pre-accelerator, we already found the first customers - the management company from Ufa, who became interested in our idea and concept and agreed to spend with us a paid pilot on mutually beneficial conditions. We can manage the project from a distance, so we can provide support to companies in any city in Russia. ”
Dmitry Kuznetsov, member of the Black Pixel team : “At the final, regional stage and as part of the pre-acceleration program, we worked on a prototype device that analyzes the health status of people with arterial hypertension. With the help of it, data on the patient's condition are collected and transmitted to the cardiologist, who makes the final conclusion. Information gathering takes about 2-3 weeks - then the main diagnosis is made. ”
The PLEXeT team initially needed to compare two programs to find plagiarism. To simplify the task, in order not to train the system for each programming language, the team made a comparison of the program executable code. This solution allowed checking many files at once. But the problem was that the problem turned out to be too specific ... Therefore, PLEXeT didn’t look for duplicates and focus on one client: “We thought - why don’t we start looking for viruses. Now it is a voluminous and capacious market in which there is just a problem of quick file analysis. And almost everything is ready for its solution , ”says Oleg Bakhtadze-Karnaukhov, captain of the PLEXeT team.
So the team got a pivot and the concept has changed. Initially, they planned to implement several services at once - to do something like firewalls to protect documents on the corporate network, antiphishing and much more. But the trackers suggested that this is not the way to go, and you need to focus on only one solution. So they did.
“Initially, we planned to create 4-5 services at once, built an ecosystem. But then they realized that it wasn’t good - you need to leave only the sweetest, ” Oleg commented.
After the pivot, the team decided to upgrade the technical part. “We can detect viruses, so let’s distribute them,” the team said. And, in fact, she did everything at the highest level using clustering based on parsing. Such a decision helped to identify some threats predictively, before being detected by a person.
Yuri Katser, captain of the WAICO team from Moscow : “As part of the pre-accelerator, we continued to create a web service for processing data from pipe flaw detectors, with which we won the final of the competition. I would also like to express my respect to some aspects of the educational program, which was extremely useful. Most of all, we remember the lecture on the legal foundations of creating a company - often everyone forgets this. ”
Developers from the Dream Team made an application to help tourists visit Russian reserves without obstacles. It will allow you to buy tickets online - this will eliminate queues and make visiting such places more comfortable and safe. Now many are entering the territory with a "hare", which is fraught with emergency situations when calling the Ministry of Emergencies. To register in the system, a person must enter passport data and write down the desired route - this will replace the long registration process in print magazines. Entrance to the territory will be carried out according to the QR code received as a result.
Sergey Ivanov, tracker : “The main task of the pre-acceleration program is to give projects further life, so that they are further in demand for the real market, by real customers in the face of the public sector and corporations. This work was carried out in two directions.
The first area is education. A large amount of educational material was prepared for various modules. Trackers helped with the development of this material and its application in practice. The second direction was related to testing ideas by real users and customers. This was necessary so that Senezh could share not only ideas and views, but also real indicators and metrics.
Each team had a strong technology cluster - developers, designers, planners, architects, business analysts. In my opinion, there was a great need for product managers - those people who would structure the relationship of the project with the market, increase the efficiency of working out hypotheses, turn ideas and views into experiments so that the project could find its place on the market as quickly as possible. ”
Did you achieve the goals set in the beginning?
WAICO: “ First of all, we went to the pre-accelerator for contacts, partnerships or administrative resources. But alas, in the framework of the program we were only given the contact of an expert from Gazprom Neft (GPN). We expected more. Nevertheless, we went to the corporate GPN accelerator - they are interested in our solution, and we are discussing the pilot process. Now the choice of the pilot site is just happening. ”
Black Pixel: “Our main goal at the pre-accelerator is to raise funds for operational launch and marketing of the product. Our goal has been achieved, and now we are communicating with companies about further cooperation. We were also able to attract an administrative resource to the development and find experts from the corporate segment who came up with our solution, and they are ready to continue working. ”
Sergey Ivanov: “A significant proportion of projects have already found the first market customers. The agreement on pilot projects was signed by many participants - I oversaw three teams, and two of them entered into cooperation. The first investment agreements were also concluded and the first negotiations with investors were held. ”
Was working with trackers and mentors effective?
WAICO: “Support, of course, was important - trackers were motivated to achieve results and create truly useful solutions. Due to the fact that we did not understand the specifics of working with corporations very well, a small stupor formed in the development of the project. But trackers helped sort this out. In addition, they tried to help gather useful contacts for us and decide on the final direction of the project. ”
PLEXeT: “I would venture to say that the presentation we made to the experts from the Innovation Support Fund was the coolest of all in my life. We felt on the same wavelength with all members of the jury. They are all just incredible guys who checked our presentation and handout before the defense, and at the final pitch filled up with really right questions: “How is your decision different from others? How to develop it? Do you understand that dynamic execution is required here? ” And we realized - they are really rummaging around! One expert struck us at the very heart - he found information about our competitors, asked questions about their products. We have a great finish.
Work with trackers was also very effective - we were shown how the real business of pilots, implementations, and raising money is done. They talked about all the pitfalls, loopholes. In general, we made a real reality - we all became a real family. We had dozens of chat rooms, we called up regularly and discussed all issues. For this, a separate respect. Hello to our tracker Viktor Stepanov - he is a real pro in machine learning, and in business, and in education. ”
What will happen next?
WAICO: “Despite the fact that we plan to cooperate with the GPN, we are still actively looking for contacts and other opportunities to communicate with oil and gas and oilfield services companies. Our solution will be useful for them. In the future, we plan to create a full-fledged MVP and expand the functionality of the solution. ”
PLEXeT: “We refused to take money from investors - this imposes a certain responsibility on us (and if the solution does not shoot and we spend everything in void?). Nevertheless, we received funds from the FSI. With the help of them, we will be able to fully test the pilot from all sides and there will be less risks. We will spend them mainly on scientific research. We also need a lot of funds for the development of machine learning - to understand how it will look in combat conditions. "
Dream Team: “After the contest, we plan to integrate our solution with the online service of the Ministry of Emergencies to inform the rescue services that there are tourists in the reserve. In the application, they will be able to notify of the beginning and end of the route, with the help of which rescuers of the Ministry of Emergencies will be able to timely go in search of lost or affected groups.
Tracker Sergey Ivanov also spoke about possible scenarios for the development of projects after the pre-acceleration program:
“In my opinion, projects that have gone through the entire program have several ways.
The first scenario is joining a large company as an established team or individual specialists.
The second is the ability to launch pilot projects and turn them into a constant stream of orders. This is the way to professionally provide development services for large public sector companies.
The third scenario is a venture path, where the team will continue to work on their product and attract investment. This is an interesting and most aggressive way, which, on the one hand, gives great prospects, but on the other - great risks. All of these roads are open to Digital Breakthrough graduates. Children can make choices based on their interests, because they gained practical experience at the competition, overgrown with acquaintances, and increased their competencies. ”
Investor Alexey Malikov also spoke about the fate of the projects: “After listening to the final pitch, I see prospects for the development of some projects after the pre-accelerator, but there is one important point. Since most of the solutions appeared based on the hackathon results, many teams have no business experience and it will be difficult for them to create something large. Because making a product is one thing, but negotiating with a corporation is another. In my opinion, 50% of the pitches are absolutely not alive, about 25% it is difficult to say something intelligible, but the remaining 25% can be trusted. For me, as an investor, the most important thing is to see in the eyes of the participants a clear understanding of how their future company will develop. If in two months they didn’t make a pre-accelerator, they didn’t have a business model, then there will be no further ”.
In the comments, we will be glad to receive feedback from other participants of the pre-acceleration program! How do you think everything went? Any additions or comments?