Executive director explains the acceleration model and assesses the Brazilian scenario
Startup Farm, the largest startup accelerator in Latin America, is defined as a school-accelerator, which aims to foster entrepreneurship through entrepreneurial education, culture and access to investment. Placing the entrepreneur as the central axis of its activities, it offers participants in its programs exposure to a wide network of mentors and facilitators who, together with their institutional partners, academics, large companies and investors, have generated successful cases in the Brazilian and international markets. , such as EasyTaxi, O Deliverador (currently HelloFood) among many others that received investments.
At the end of the 10th edition of the Acceleration Program in June, the accelerator announced its new organizational structure. From now on, she will have business arms to give more strength to her performance. Alan Leite, executive director, in an interview with Portal ABES, explains the accelerator's operating model and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Brazilian startups. Startup Farm plans to run two more acceleration programs in 2014 and has several new features in store for 2015.
Where did the idea for the acceleration model created by Farm come from? What is your education and career path?
Farm's history begins with Felipe Matos. In 2010 he asked himself why we didn't have an environment as favorable to entrepreneurship as in Silicon Valley. Observing and comparing these markets, he identified 3 major "gaps", entrepreneurial education, entrepreneurial culture (networking, networking, knowledge transfer…) and correct capital. Based on these three points, the Startup Farm was born. Felipe is a partner and founder of StartupFarm and director of operations for the Startup Brasil project. I have a degree in administration with experience in the private and public sectors, in companies of different segments and sizes. At Falconi Consultores de Results, I worked on projects of different types helping large companies to achieve results through the use of the PDCA method, father of Lean Startup. In early 2013, I left Rio de Janeiro for São Paulo and my career as a management consultant for the challenge of taking over Startup Farm. Thus, I immersed myself in this ecosystem and rescued an old desire to work with entrepreneurship.
In your opinion, what are the main strengths and weaknesses of Brazilian startups?
There are many innovative and amazing startups in our country, but they often need guidance at this early stage. There are several strengths that we find in them, such as creativity, willingness to do and take risks. As weaknesses we have the low technological and business model innovation and the lack of global ambition.
What is the approximate percentage of entrepreneurs who managed to transform the projects into businesses that are already on the market?
We do not have this updated percentage. We have accelerated 131 startups since 2011. As cases, we have Easy Taxi, O Entregador (currently HelloFood) among many others that received investment.
Who are currently Farm's main partners?
Our last edition of the Program was sponsored by IBM and SendGrid and supported by Plug, Imagem Corporativa, Baptista Luz Advogados Associados, Blanko Digital Makers and Kailo Consultoria. But I always like to emphasize that our network of mentors is also one of our main partners, they are all program volunteers. Around 250 mentors have already passed through the program, including successful entrepreneurs, technicians, executives, investors and other specialists. We have a network that encompasses more than 1,000 people around the world with the profile that fits our operating philosophy.
What is the Farm's management structure for carrying out this work?
StartupFarm announced its new organizational structure during Demo Day. From now on, it will have three well-defined business arms:
StartupFarm.EDU, to manage the accelerator program already known for the ecosystem in the market and the other open programs focused on education for entrepreneurship and promotion of the ecosystem; StartupFarm.PRO, which will be responsible for projects designed for companies from all segments, universities and the public sector, as well as the structuring of public and private programs, and StartupFarm.VC, an acceleration boutique that will provide differentiated service to startups whose business is highly disruptive and with global markets. Startup Farm already has a startup in its portfolio, UpPoints.
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