This year Latitude59 and EstBAN’s investment went to early-stage startups Adact from Estonia and ATOM Mobility from Latvia. We asked them to give their feedback on the past event and share their plans for the upcoming months.
What did you gain from participating in the EstBAN&Latitude59 pitching competition?
Kalev from Adact: We received a lot of feedback on our business model, goals, ambitions, and decisions. Clients who saw us on Latitude59 stage, now want to work with us. Within 1 week after Latitude59 we have had more demo requests than the last 4 months combined! Now we have a lot of connections to both investors who help us grow and fellow startups who inspire us to keep working. Coverage in media, newsletters, PR, and marketing materials, there was a lot of attention to us!
Arthur from ATOM: Working with EstBAN&Latitude59 team and mentors is always interesting and challenging. I enjoyed questions and feedback from the jury, it helped us to become an even stronger company. Of course, winning the competition is even better since we had great press coverage and a lot of new potential cooperation inquiries.
What feedback has your company received since taking part in the competition?
Kalev from Adact: We received feedback on our product development roadmap and being much more ambitious than we initially showed ourselves to be, allowed us to improve on our future plans.
Arthur from ATOM: Mostly feedback was positive and motivated us to improve the pitch, delivery and work on market analysis.
What are your company courses/ideas you would implement in the next months?
Kalev from Adact: Since June when we first started focusing on investment, we have had all of our plans covered and laid out. Everything has been going very much by the book for us, which means we had a quick and dirty MVP product and within the next few months we will focus on scalability and product goals. We will also be validating some new potential business models with quick pilots. After closing the investment round we are very excited to actually start executing the plans we thus far have only talked about!
Arthur from Adact: Our goal is still the same – Launch shared mobility services in 100 cities by the end of 2021. So all ideas are related towards achieving this goal. First of all, organize a top-class team of professionals to support the growth.
Having taken part in the competition, do you have any tips for someone just starting out?
Kalev from Adact:
1) Look at your pitch video. Answer the question – Have you seen someone’s video which is significantly better? If the answer is “yes” then redo your video. Why would you do something you yourself believe is not awesome?! If you can’t show a level of quality in your pitch video then I would not have any reason to believe your work processes and the product has high quality either.
2) Have your documents ready and sorted. It would suck to lose investment because you can’t pass due diligence in time for not having accounting documents and another legal mumbo jumbo in order.
3) Build lean, validate, do manual work until you can prove you are building the right thing.
Arthur from Adact: The one and only universal tip is – keep improving what you do (either it is pitch, sales or product) and never give up. For more specific tips, startups can reach out to me and I will be happy to help if I can.
