The major concepts for developing a Startup individual development plan at Happy Farm
To increase investment attractiveness of the Startups, Happy Farm has introduced a unique training system guided by the Startup individual training and development plan, which involves all the Board-members and experts of the Incubator on the first stage. Then every Startup is provided with experts, councilors and mentors who specializes and has expertise in the specific IT-field.
The educational part of the training program includes 127 hours of lessons. The major principle of the program is “learning by doing” what is absolutely essential according to the “transformer” scheme. The following modules will be included business modeling, business administration, product development, marketing strategies, pitching, fund-raising, project-management, sales and exit strategies.
A mentor defines the level of development of the Startup company he is going to work with on the basis of the following parameters: the level of development of the project, growth potential, company’s organizational structure, the composition and level of professionalism of the team and its alignment with the common goals, the level of development of the product, investment attractiveness, the level of preparation of the team for the Internship in Silicon Valley (USA).
The individual training plans are developed in accordance with the level of development of every team. The business meetings in California are scheduled to streamline and speed up the development of every team. Every Startup team will be prepared to pitch the investors and Venture Funds in their specific field. Every Startup will be provided with necessary information, knowledge, professional consultations and supervision to successfully develop their project to international level.
The training program is adjusted or tailored for individual requirements of every project for its further development. The following training methods will be used: master-classes by the leading experts in field, work-shops, successful Startups case-studies, meetings with Venture Capitalists guru, o-line seminars and others.
Happy Farm History
June 26 - Happy Farm Incubator Launch
July 26 - Launch of the registration of the Startup Applications
September 19 - Screening I
October 5 - Screening II
October 7-15 - Semifinal (Skype-Interview)
October 15-17 - Board-meeting in Schastlivoe village
October 17 - Open Door Day - Final
October 22 - Launch of the Startup companies development program
October 25 - Master-class by Bob Dorf
I n f o r m a t i o n
Happy Farm Business Incubator? Это решение первостепенных tasks of a Startup (business “from scratch”). It is efficient form of partnership that allows talented entrepreneurs, mentors and investors to combine their efforts in creating successful international companies. Happy Farm provides the “smart” office, accommodation, expertise, couching, mentoring; helps with PR, developing marketing strategies, sales and fundraising, legal, financial and HR supervision. In the future, the Incubator will use its 15% the Startups equity to cover its expenses on operation and make profit.
Happy Farm Business Incubator is involved in finding and commercializing new innovative IT technologies and development of every selected project by councilors, mentors and Board-members according to its individual plan.
Happy Farm Incubator has been officially launched in the 6th of October, 2012. Startups of the 1st cycle of the Incubator will be accommodated on the 17th of October. The Startups will receive intensive training and fullu immerse in their work according to the “2+3+2” formula. The teams will be trained for two months in Ukraine, and prepared to their Internship, then will be taken to Silicon Valley (USA) on a 3 months trip for further training and fund-raising, and then will spend two more months back in Happy Farm finalizing the results of their training and further improving their product and business strategy.
Dynamic development of IT field in Ukraine and the world created conditions for establishing Happy Farm Business Incubator.Ukraine occupies the 4th place in the world in the number of certified software developers. The IT market of Ukraine totaled € 1.3 billions in 2011 and it is forecasted to grow by 10-15% this year. Geographically Happy Farm Business Incubator is situated in Schastlivoe village 7 kilometers from Kiev and it occupies 900 square meters.
Happy Farm Business Incubator has evolved from the “Innovation Breakthrough” all-Ukrainian contest, that has been carried our since 2009 года. More than 1200 innovation projects has been submitted and considered over 4 years in the following fields: IT and telecom, clean and effective energy generation, biotechnologies, resource-efficient technologies and some others. The broad base of projects considered, analysis procedures developed and tested and experience received allowed to take the content to the next level and create Happy Farm Business Incubator.
Ukrainian Expert Committee: Anton Karpenko (IT-specialist, entrepreneur, Kiev), Ruslan Savchishin (IT-specialist, a CEO MagneticOne, co-founder of Yaware (Ternopol), Alexey Orap (a CEO at YouScan, Kiev).
Mentors: Juji Akaba (co-founder and managing director of Breakthrough Partners), Gigi Wang (MIT/Stanford Venture Lab (VLAB), Ian Moray (ValueClick Strategy Consulting), Bob Dorf (co-author of Steve Blank of the book “The Start-up Owner's Manual”), Brian Sathianathan (Angel Investor, Emerging Technologies).
Board-members: Igor Shoifot (serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Fotki.com, investor at TMT Investments, USA), Vlad Voskresensky (CEO and co-founder of InvisibleCRM, Ukraine-USA), Anis Uzzaman (partner at Fenox Venture, USA-Japan), Jon Normark (CEO at UsingMiles.com, США) and Paul Asoyan (Executive at Google Ventures, the USA).
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