This past weekend, Accelerator hosted a BootCamp for hopeful entrepreneurs and future business owners.
After an intense day filled with workshops about business fundamentals, on the spot pitches, and green smoothies(?), the entrepreneurs were getting a taste of just how much work and effort is required to start your own business.
After being asked to go out and pitch to 50 people Saturday night, the participants were seriously involved in promoting their businesses even after the Saturday BootCamp was over.
Innovation and creativity were everywhere, with business ideas ranging from a cupcake shop all the way to an app that plans to mix events, messaging, and location services all into one place. Some of the students were extremely hopeful and even woke up hours before the early start to the Sunday BootCamp in order to pitch some more.
With £50 cash vouchers being handed out throughout the day for the people who were participating the most and going beyond the set goals, it was a truly inspirational event. A challenge was set for the entrepreneurs to utilize their twitter accounts and to receive the most feedback, which even caused one participant to go out and ask for a tweet “at” her company from every person she pitched to.
Catering at one point during the day was provided by a smoothie business that packed a medley of healthy ingredients into one drink and still managed for it to taste excellent. Helpful criticism of everything from the names of companies, their business plans, to the actual taste of their product (in the case of the smoothie and berry companies) promoted a learning environment filled with constructive criticism.
A day of passion, creativity, and learning came to an end when it became serious time as the pitches were about to be judged. Each company then went up in front of everyone there in order to give a quick summary about what they hope to achieve as a company, who they are looking to benefit, and how they are going to accomplish it. You could tell that nerves were high, as this was probably one of the first (of many) times these hopeful business owners were to pitch their product.
As to which companies are going to get the “thumbs up” and thus granted entry into the Hatchery here at Accelerator, it is anyone’s guess. We are looking forward to seeing new faces and will be excited to release the results as there was certainly a lot of potential this weekend.