Yale University Workshop In Partnership With StartLabs

Past Saturday, 03/19, a group of 28 MBA School of Management students from the prestigious American Yale University visited Belgrade, led by the professor dr Ivana Katić.  The main aim of the visit was for students to better understand the processes of social, political and economic transformation in the Balkans.

StartLabs was chosen as the only investment fund in region for a 1-day workshop in which students had the opportunity to work on a hands-on consulting project with StartLabs startups.

Considering that our portfolio startups cover different fields and industries, and that MBA students have impressive professional backgrounds, we tried to make a perfect match for collaboration between them.

The result - 8 startup companies got the opportunity to be professionally consulted by people with previous experience in global companies such as Goldman Sachs, Flipkart, Credit Suisse and others.

Business plans, marketing and go-to market strategies were just few of the discussed topics. Many important questions were raised and left open for both students and startups to work on.

What is important is that end of the day wasn’t the end of collaboration. Each group of students will have a written report on startup companies they were working with. The report will cover, startup facts, discussion of the product and stage; the performance gap, where they might like to be in five years; the solution and a detailed plan for tackling the issue they identified as the performance gap, with specific recommendations.

You can read the interview in Serbian here that Netokracija did with 2 students and their professor on the opportunities in ICT sector in Serbia and region.

All in all, this was an amazing opportunity for a truly global knowledge and experience exchange and we are confident that this cooperation is going to bear fruit to some new and exciting ideas!