NINETEEN teams composed of tech startups and business students in Cebu gathered at the Azia Suites and Residences in Cebu City for the LaunchPad Mentoring Program yesterday.
The whole-day event is aimed at helping applicants create innovative ideas for software product business that respond to the needs of a market segment or create solutions to problems in the community.
At the end of the workshop, five teams with the most viable business model will be selected to undergo the six-month LaunchPad Mentoring Program that starts on September 28, Spring.ph founder Joey Gurango said.
LaunchPad Mentoring Program which started in 2012, is aimed at helping tech startups teams to “cross the threshold between software product idea and starting a software product business.”
It is organized by Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) together with the Philippines Software Industry Association (PSIA) and Spring.ph.
Gurango, a software engineer, said most businesses making up the country’s startup ecosystem are essentially patterned after pre-existing business ideas and models that have succeeded abroad.
“The Philippines has a very young startup ecosystem. (What’s more) there is not much industries in here in the country with mature tech startups,” he said.
At the onset of the LaunchPad mentoring program a coaching team, consisting of software engineers from Spring.ph, will ask participants to submit weekly reports.
“After the six-month term, we will give the teams two years for their projects to gain traction and, eventually, generate revenue,” Gurango said.
After the mentorship program, the teams will be exposed to networks of contacts of investors that will provide funding for their respective projects.
“Tech startups are no different from any other businesses. These ventures may also fail but what makes startups different is we make use of a scientific methodology called the Lean Startup Method,” Gurango said.
He said the Lean Startup Method encourages participants to fail in as early as five years from the inception of their businesses so they can assess early whether they can sustain their success or start with another venture.
