What Techstars Actually Looks For
According to Semyon Dukach, selection rests on three criteria. First: a strong team that includes at least a CEO and a CTO. Second: a global market for the product. Third: the founders’ confidence in themselves. “We’re simply looking for great people who can build large global companies,” he explained. The makeup of the cohort shows how competitive the selection is: of the twelve teams, six were from Boston, two each from Canada and Ukraine, and one each from Spain and Portugal.
Dukach’s advice to Ukrainians is practical. Before entering the US market, you should show growth through real customers, not presentations. He traces the Ukrainian footprint in the program back to CheckiO, which went through the accelerator about three years ago. Dukach also estimates the success rate of his companies at 70–80% versus 20–30% for others, but that is his own assessment, not a measurement of results.
The Application They Considered Weak
Volodymyr Usov, founder and CEO of Kwambio, said he considered his chances of selection low and his application weak. The team made it to the final interview in Boston thanks to the persistence of one of its members. Usov named the US as the main market for the 3D-model service and planned a public launch for the end of July 2015.
That decision had a long backstory. Usov did not start with 3D printing but with publishing. His publishing house Gutenbergz, founded in Odesa, released “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” for the iPad. The book appeared in the App Store on December 2, 2012, a year behind schedule, and the launch cost about $25,000. By March 2013, according to AIN, the app had 23,000 downloads, 70% of sales came from the US, and the team consisted of seven people. That was also when Usov first saw a 3D printer at an exhibition in New York, and that encounter became the start of a new project.
Kwambio launched in October 2014 with co-founder and CTO Dmytro Kryvoshei. The project won the IDCEE competition and received $500,000 from an unnamed Odesa company. In April 2015, the team placed fourth in the 2014 startup ranking conducted by BVU and iForum. At the time, the startup had a UNIQUE One prototype, and its goal was to make the printer cost less than $1,000.
The Second Ukrainian Resident and the Road Ahead
The second Ukrainian participant in the summer cohort was GV Machines, whose founder Ehor Anchyshkin also gave an interview for the AIN piece. The Boston Techstars program received $650,000 in funding in June 2015 from the accelerator itself and from angels. For Kwambio, participating in the program was a test not only of the product but also of the very idea of working for the American market from Ukraine.
Asked how to prepare for selection, Usov gave an unexpected answer. His advice to colleagues sounds almost paradoxical:
“Don’t make getting into a famous accelerator your goal.”
You have to solve your own problem, and an accelerator, in his view, is merely a tool, and not everyone will need it. In August 2015, Kwambio launched the platform in full and moved its main operations to New York. A few months later, on December 28, 2015, AIN included the company in its top 10 startups of the year, placing it seventh.
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