Telenet Idealabs kickstarts Accelerator 2014
Last Monday Telenet Idealabs Accelerator 2014 officially kicked off. What have we been doing over the past few months, you wonder? Working hard. Really hard. We had to dress up our brand-new office space, select 10 talented startups, find the best mentors and test the finest kinds of coffee.
Coffeelabs & 10 startups
It’s a tasty Monday morning combination. In our coffee bar, the 10 startups gathered for the very first time. They got to say hello to each other, boost their mornings with a superfood breakfast and take that necessary caffeine shot to start their first day at the office.
While Coffeelabs gathered its usual coffee junkies, we moved onto the 1st floor at Idealabs. The new floor is entirely dedicated to the Accelerator 2014 project and has been totally refurbished as a living breathing startup hub. Thumbs up for the city of Antwerp for making this happen and thank you to our partner Telenet!
At the office
10 startups, 10 entrepreneurs. Wrong! 10 startups means a huge startup floor full of entrepreneurs. At the Telenet Idealabs Accelerator 2014, every startup is a team and is assigned a designated island workstation. This is where the magic will happen: here they will shape , build and launch their startups!
And in the middle of all of that, a bunch of classes, specialist sessions, events, mentor evenings and much more. The first day of the accelerator kicked off with a class on Customer Discovery. Convinced of their own geniality not everybody immediately realized they may need to adapt their business to really adress the problems and needs of their customer. But it’s amazing how in only a few hours the startup teams already started looking at their business with a different eye. It’s a tough world out there and the customer is king. He/she will will finally decide whether your solution is worth buying into. It’s as easy as that.
Their goal is our goal
A team of highly esteemed jury members helped us pinpoint the 10 most high-potential startups. Every single one of them really deserves their place in Telenet Idealabs Accelerator 2014. But, there was a little wake up call: this is only the beginning and theres a lot of work to do…
Within four months they’ll look back at the bumpy road they’ve travelled, and many may not even recognize their starting idea anymore. They’ll be proud of their finalized sellable concept or working product. So, it’s our duty – and actually the reason we love what we do every single day – to guide and help the young entrepreneurs achieve their goals.
Four months, many challenges
So where does that leave us? An inspiring office space, money and priceless publicity … sure it’s a starter. But it takes more to achieve their goal, four challenging months actually. We offer specialised courses (also open to the community), mentors who challenge and shape the startups idea, and many inspiring events. It is a great opportunity in their hands but now its time to create magic and work together to build great businesses, one brick at a time.
So, stop talking & start building.
Originally published at telenetidealabs.be.
