Startup Academy Camp 2: Develop a Solution and Impress Your Investors!

COMPFEST 13, Jakarta — Camp 2 of the Startup Academy has been held from August 9, 2021, to August 15, 2021. This camp was held online via Zoom. 10 out 162 teams have been selected to participate in Startup Academy for COMPFEST 13. Curious about what you will learn at Camp 2 Startup Academy? Let’s check this out!

Day 1 — Minimum Viable Product

On the first day, participants received material from Ahmed Aljunied as the Co-Founder and CTO of Pinhome; Ahmed went on to explain the minimum viable product (MVP).

Beforehand, Ahmed talked about his educational journey, then continued with his story of building his startup, Pinhome. After that, Ahmed explained the importance of an MVP. Ahmed emphasized that when we think about MVP, our question is not “Can this product be built?” but we should be asking, “Does this product have to be built? And can we build a business that is suitable for the market?”

Next, Ahmed describes what is needed when we build a product. He explained five crucial components when developing a product: Northstar, Roadmap, Rapid Iterations, Engineering, and Focus.

At the end of the session, Ahmed advised all participants, “In the end, the most important thing is, just do your best. Deep dive into your customer’s ‘pain’ and rapidly iterate on solutions for them and measure rigorously.”

Day 2 — Startup Pitching 101

On the second day, Chrisvania Handita Nyssa, as Investment Manager from Merah Putih Inc., explained how to have a good pitch.

Vania starts the material with primary content that should exist in a pitch deck. “First of all, we have to introduce ourselves, and then we introduce the problem and how to solve it. After that, we go into our opportunities. Afterwards, we show our traction. Last but not least, we have to explain our team. However, the most important thing is, we have to be honest,” she said.

Subsequently, Vania gives us some advice when we want to pitch:

• Storytelling: Investors will like it when we tell a story that relates to their problems.
• The Golden Circle: You don’t start with (what) your product. Instead, you start with why you build that product.
• Stop Pitching, Start Conversing: Don’t focus on your presentation. It would be nice if you check your audience in the middle of the pitching.
• Investors invest in Teams, not Slides: In the end, investors will see your business, how many people need your product, your strengths, etc.

Vania gives a message before closing her presentation to the participants, especially to startups that will be pitching, “Be Honest. That’s all. Don’t deceive investors with your numbers or engineering data to convince investors to invest in you.”

Day 3 — Pitching Practice

The participants received the opportunity to practice how to pitch with Chrisvania Handita Nyssa as an Investment Manager of Merah Putih Inc. and Rama Mamuaya as CEO of DailySocial.id.

For the Local Love, Learn & Work, Bersinar, Nexhub, and EddiesAI groups, they practiced with Vania. And for the rest of the groups (BenBen ID, SNEPY!, Blueprint Academy, DJoq, and Tanidev), they trained with Rama.

Day 4 — Fundraising and Monetizing

On the fourth day, Startup Academy brought Italo Gani as a Venture Partner of East Venture. Firstly, Italo went to explain what East Venture is. Then, he starts the material with monetizing, “Monetizing is challenging enough in Indonesia, and one of the most crucial things is how to find your product-market fit. How? Of course with much experimentation,” he said firmly.

After that, Italo continued with material about fundraising, “An investor decides whether he will invest or not is from the founder profile. For East Venture we are looking for founders who have integrity, high self-awareness, and are paradoxical (confident, but not arrogant and are still open).”

“For all of the founders, an idea will just be an idea if it’s never executed. It’s your chance! You are still young, and your startup is still small. You have to experiment, and to experiment a lot. What’s the purpose? When you face many ventures, you can show your experiments to them,” were the wise words spoken from Italo before this section ends.

Day 5 — Final Day of Camp 2

Alumni Sharing Section

On our last day, the event starts with a sharing section with two special alumni of Startup Academy COMPFEST, Gabrielle Shannen Leonard, the CMO/Co-Founder of Aksel, and Hamdi Hidayat as CEO/Founder of Corn Learning.

Firstly, they reminisce about their experience in Startup Academy and their startup condition (before and after Startup Academy).

After that, they shared some advice for pitching, “The most crucial time in pitching is in the first one minute. At that time, you have to make the investor relate to the problem you want to solve. It makes the investor think that they need your product.”

Lastly, they said, “When you’re feeling down, try to remember what your purpose was when you created your startup, you want to solve a problem right? And also, do not forget to be grateful that you are the top 10 startups in this Startup Academy. Not everyone has this chance. So, after this academy, go help the people around you.”

Ice Breaking & Networking

After a short break, the MC reopened the event with fun and lively games.

After the ice-breaking session, the event continued with a networking session where every two teams get to know each other.

And for the distribution of the team: Learn&Work with SNEPY!; Blueprint with Tanidev; EddiesAI with Bersinar; Local Love with Nexhub; Djoq with BenbenID.

Mentoring Session

Finally, we reach the end of Camp 2. Before the closing, every team received their final mentoring session with their mentor. This mentoring takes place for 90 minutes.

After that, we got a chance to interview Mirsa Sadikin, CEO/Co-Founder of Biteship, who was grateful to be a mentor on Startup Academy because he could meet with a (new) startup founders, “When I built my startup, I experience the same thing with the other founders, I needed people to guide me, someone like a mentor. I think COMPFEST is the right place for startup founders as they get the opportunity to be mentored by amazing people and also they also get the chance to interact with so many other founders.”

Mirsa touched on startups trying to stand and survive through the pandemic, “This pandemic is a time for founders to be challenged with circumstances that they cannot control, so this is the biggest challenge for founders. However, every challenge will create an opportunity for more innovation. Keep the spirit, keep innovating. Hopefully, with this pandemic, you will be able to build a sustainable business.”

Aside from that, we had the opportunity to interview the Nexhub team. They are glad to have the opportunity to participate in the Startup Academy COMPFEST, “We’ve come to realize that the world of startups is not that small. There are many things we don’t know. but we also received so much knowledge here, so we understand what steps we have to take next.” They hope that after attending this academy, they can accelerate their startup, “Because we already know where our weaknesses are, what is still lacking so we can focus on that.”

There are still more fun events at COMPFEST! So stay tuned for information about COMPFEST through our Twitter social media account @COMPFEST, our Instagram @COMPFEST, and our site compfest.id (Editorial Marketing/Mikael).