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Entrepreneurial spirit – Pentalabbs contest, behind the scenes

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A few months ago, Pentalabbs (business incubator) initiated a contest where Romanian entrepreneurs were asked to submit their projects in the hope of winning a 20.000 euro prize and being incubated by us. We got many applications and we narrowed it down to 5 finalists out of which we had to pick just one. We asked each of the 5 finalists to meet us at a round table talk. In one case, when the entrepreneur was unable to meet us face to face we had a conference call.

What is the “entrepreneurial spirit”? What are those key elements that a young entrepreneur, pitching up his project should have in order to make it? What are those characteristics that made me chose one project over another?

Here are some of my personal opinions post factum, derived from analyzing the projects submitted for the contest and participating to the round tables.

1. The Drive

Each of the Pentalabbs members had 5 votes to give. Out of 30+ registrations each member had to select 5 of the ones he thought they were worth it. In many cases we were all agreeing that project X was getting the support, in some cases we discussed and argued out pros and cons until we were all satisfied with the choice. Of course that in the pre-selection, each of the team members was selecting 10 or 15 or less and then narrowing down to 5 which were presented in the team meeting.

In my case, entrepreneur’s drive was the first criteria that made me put a project’s name on the list. Drive is that key ingredient that shows me the entrepreneur is really into it, he is loving the project, he is all for the project, he believes in the idea. Why is drive important? When hardship strucks, and for sure it does, the entrepreneur is the only one who can keep the sails up. He is the one that despite all hard winds and rain has to believe in this idea. Drive is what makes the project succeed. I never once read or heard a successful entrepreneur say: “I stopped believing in my project, but one day I discovered my project was all grown up and successful”.

“Energy and persistence conquer all thing” says Benjamin Franklin

You would be surprised to know that among the applications received, a staggering 2 out of 3 applications were presenting more than 1 project and lacking words like: I believe in, I am passionate about.

Guy Kawasaki, Former chief evangelist of Apple and one of Jobs’s trusted fellows once said: “You say: I have lots of great ideas, but I have trouble figuring out which one to try. Let me tell you about a couple. Investor thinks: I want to know which idea you’re going to kill yourself trying to make successful, not which ideas have crossed your idle mind.””

2. Usefulness seed

Bottom line, no sugar coat, is that most of the entrepreneurs I know, read about and have seen, have this seed planted in their heads: I want to create something that will bring me financial independence, that will self-sustain itself so I live a free life.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Who does not want to live a stress free life? But, as a business analyst selecting projects for incubation, I want to give my vote to an idea born out of a need, a dream, a drive.

Business angels, analysts, managers and others will give their money to 2-3-5-10 guys, not necessarily living in a garage, cause that is so overrated now, who had a problem (were tired of writing on sheets of paper because they were too uncomfortable) and created a solution (came up with the post-it) and hoped other people would find their idea useful. Why is it preferably that 2-3-5-10 guys come up with a solution for their problem? The answer is: solving the problem is knowing the problem.

In one project that I analyzed, its owner was saying: I think the idea will be successful because other people will for sure use it. Our next question was: Would you use it? The answer was: for sure, if I were a kindergarten teacher.

If you want to build a tool for kindergarten teachers, be one yourself or bring in your team a partner, not an employee, who is a kindergarten teacher or knows a lot of about being a kindergarten teacher. I gave my votes to the entrepreneurs who built a project based on having extensive knowledge about an area.

3. The underdog

I like to go for underdogs. It is a personal belief of mine that a rejected underdog that still survives, builds into a courageous underdog with great potential once somebody believes in him. While I analyzed the projects I put an extra point in my evaluation for those who were saying: I presented the idea to person X, Y, Z, they thought it was nice but did not invest. However, I still believe in my idea.

This goes hand in hand with the fact that I believe that an entrepreneur without drive is a lost cause. Along the path to success, an entrepreneur is like a ship’s captain with no second in command. He is all alone, nobody to cheer him up, hold his hand and he has to be more than aware of that fact. Once an entrepreneur hits bottom because his idea is rejected or has delays, he is the only one who can pull the ship to shore. Underdogs that still believe in their projects are, to me, preferably than new comers who did not hit a snag in their way.  Mary Anne Radmacher used to say: “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.”

4. Iceberg revealed

How nice is the top but what is under it? Truthfulness is always preferred. I would rather read a project that has a chapter or a few phrases on the kinks, the problems, those strings left unresolved rather than seeing the pretty picture.

5. It is how you say it

If someone told you it is more important what you say than how you say it, it is my opinion, they were wrong. Presentation skills, proper grammar usage, tone of voice, structure, these are characteristics that really count when an entrepreneur pitches a project.

Most of the applications submitted to our contest were high quality and we were impressed. They were in various formats doc, pdf, ppt and they had a good structure, proper language usage, they were tackling all important aspects.

The most important aspect related to application appearance is for me the elevator rule. Let’s say you are in an elevator with a business angel, going from level 1 to level 3. You only have this time to explain your idea. You only have those 1-2 minutes, a 50 words phrase to concise it all. If your idea needs more than 3 levels of elevator ride or more than 50 words to summarize it, then you either do not know what the idea is, or the idea is unfocused or faulty.

“I want to build a software platform that helps mothers relax while breastfeeding.”

“I want to build a website that sells only tomato juicers.”

“I want to build a website with health advice for the elder people.”

Keep it short. Elevator ride. The listener will then say: ok, tell me more. And you go up another 3 levels and explain the main ingredients of your project.

Next, what I looked in judging applications and also the face to face talks was structure. I like to see that a project is split into chunks, into parts. Each part must have a heading, a short line like: Short description, Target audience etc, that tells me what the next phrases are about. During the presentations I liked when the entrepreneur was taking charge and saying: And now I will tell you about the finances of the project…. 5 min later he was down to … let’s jump now to main concerns and so on.

I also liked applications/speeches that ended with a clear, concise summary or statement from the entrepreneur. I also gave extra points for those presentations written using personal verbs like: I think that, I believe in, I did this and that, rather than writing it impersonally.

This concludes the key elements that I took into consideration when I was analyzing the projects received in the Pentalabbs contest. Looking forward to the next one!


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