While some entrepreneurs are independently wealthy and have no need for a day job, most of them aren’t. That’s why Marta Diana Koziarska and Borys Musielak created ReaktorX, an accelerator for folks who are working or have no time or acumen for creating a business from scratch and want to connect with like-minded professionals. Koziarska and Musielak also run Reaktor Warsaw, a traditional accelerator in Poland.
The accelerator has raised funding from Nowa Era, Aviva, Toolbox for HR, SGP Legal, companies that would like to access these younglings in the nest.
ReaktorX is a non-profit organization and Musielak says he is “doing it to help Polish founders succeed.”
The accelerator comes out of the frustration the Reaktor team has seen within the startup community. In short, the idea creators and coders are at odds and he wants to bring them together.
“I’ve been meeting wannabe founders, often professional bankers, physiotherapists, doctors, teachers, who have been pitching the same concept for months without doing anything to make it happen,” he said. “I’ve been meeting tech people who thought startups are about shipping code, the sooner the better, with no interest in customer development or UX or actually building something people want.”
“Those two groups don’t talk to each other. They don’t know how to find each other. This is true even on a college level. Business students from SGH don’t talk to those losers from Politechika. It’s insane. It needs to change if we are to create a sustainable startup ecosystem here in Warsaw,” he said.
The plan is to put these groups together in coding, PR, and product design workshops and hope that a match takes place. The events and classes are held after hours.
The application deadline is December 12. It’s a fascinating effort and one badly needed. I’ve seen countless “corporate types” who want to build something cool but don’t know where to start. This, at the very least, gives them some of the tools and the ability to find a technical co-founder.
“We’ve been helping startups over the last 5 years and we helped the Warsaw startup scene grow from non-existent to one of the leaders in CEE. This is the next step,” he said.
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