The reason why small Ukrainian businesses not as competitive as European or American ones that many lack economic fundamentals, experience and entrepreneurial skills, according to U.S. venture investor and marketing specialist John Von Achen.
According to him, many Ukrainian business owners cannot
explain their ideas to investors, or draw up a proper business plan. Put
simply, they have brilliant ideas, but lack the entrepreneurial skills to turn
them into businesses.
“I’ve been flooded with requests to take a look at
(Ukrainian) startups,” Achen, who is currently CEO of Overcome Global, said on
Dec. 1. “And I did – 28 different startups, none of which could explain their idea.
Most had no idea how to draw up a plan. It’s not because the people are bad.
It’s because they don’t understand what to do.”
He wants to change this: “We’re going to combine education
along with funding.”
According to Achen, Ukraine still has the potential become the
new Silicon Valley and invent another Facebook, Uber, or iPhone.
That sense of potential led him to Ukraine. Achen, together
with the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and one of the Big Four international
auditors, KPMG, wants to hold a startup competition to select the best
entrepreneurs, and then educate and fund them.
Called Ukraine Seeks Startups, the contest will have several
stages. In the beginning the best thousand applications will attend a workshop
on Dec. 19-20 at which they will be shown how to draw up a business plan and enter
the market. The next stage, in February 2016, is to choose the 20 best ideas
and help the entrepreneurs conduct a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.
U.S. venture investor and marketing specialist John Von Achen speaks during a press-conference in Kyiv on Dec. 1.
“We expect thousands of applications. We can only select a
thousand for the first training session. That’s it,” Achen said. “I don’t care
how stupid your idea is, I don’t care how crazy it is! Ok? We want everybody to
register.”
Investments are promised to range from Hr 200,000 to Hr 2 million. A single person, organization, or company is permitted to make several
applications with different ideas.
“We’re bringing investors from all around the word,” Achen
said. “There’ll be seven on the panel that will in fact compete (against each
other) to fund startups. And we’ll have about 20 investors online.”
Achen is also mulling the creation of a TV reality show that
will resemble the famous Japanese TV series Dragons’ Den, which was adapted by television
channels in the U.K. and the United States – (in the U.S. the program was known
as Shark Tank.
In these programs, budding entrepreneurs get three minutes
to pitch their business ideas to multi-millionaires in order to secure
investment finance from a panel of venture capitalists.
Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce president Gennadiy Chyzhykov (R) attends a press-conference dedicated to launching startup competition called Ukraine Seeks Startups in Kyiv on Dec. 1.
As for the old economy: big, established Ukrainian
businesses need not apply, as the focus will be on new, innovative ideas and
native talent, the organizers say.
“With all due respect to the metal (industry), to our
extensive fertile lands, our esteemed missiles and aircraft… the most important
thing we have is our people, our brains, our ideas,” Ukrainian Chamber of
Commerce president Gennadiy Chyzhykov said at the press conference on Dec. 1.
“We fully share the initiative and want to help,” KPMG Ukraine partner Kostyantyn Karpushin told the Kyiv Post. “We want to acquaint
talented guys with potential investors.”
The application form, in which entrepreneurs just have to
enter their names, emails and phone numbers, should be completed on ustartup.com.ua by Dec. 15. In a matter of
minutes, KPMG sends a letter with further instructions: participants must
either shoot a short video or write a description of their idea in a maximum of
300 words. Entries can be made in English, Ukrainian or Russian.
“There are no other limits, except it must be a 100-percent
Ukrainian product,” Achen said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov can be reached at [email protected]. The
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