Bristol, Startups and Robert Van Den Bergh
Throughout my time at Bristol University, I worked on my own ‘startup’ projects (a last-minute ticketing app, a smartphone visual-aid and an environmentally-friendly body-wash product).
They all followed a similar route; months of research, slowly building a team, lots of competitions to raise funding and then eventual failure. I didn’t particularly enjoy failing again and again, but I did take important lessons from each failure as well as learning to love the process of building ideas, bringing people together and talking to the target customer.
So when I reached the end of my Accounting & Finance degree, I knew that I wanted to work for a small startup in the ‘technology’ sector, but wanted something that I could (help) take from idea conception, rather than a start-up that had done the groundwork and were 2–3 years down the line.
Cue Alacrity…
So what is Alacrity? Based in Wales, it takes around 14 aspiring entrepreneurs each year (split into Business Leads and Technical Leads) and tries to form them into investment-grade start-ups that can scale (I type ‘tries to’ because the success of any startup is down to its team members, even if you do have great mentors).
So, after a month and a half, what have I been doing? What have I learned?
The first 5 weeks at Alacrity consists of a technical bootcamp. All 14 of us learn to code, with some struggling more than others (Did the business leads really stand a chance against technical leads that have been coding for 15 years?). I have no technical background whatsoever. I had tried to learn to program using online courses (CodeAcademy, Udacity, CodeSchool — you name it, I have probably tried it) while at university, but with minimal success. However, I can now say that I have gained some understanding and appreciation of what it takes to program even the simplest of websites.
So what next? We’re reaching the finale of the 2-week business bootcamp and then we are let loose to start a company… I simply cannot wait!
Robert Van Den Bergh
Business Lead, Team 17
LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-van-den-bergh-32555ba2/
