It is not every day that you get the chance to have two Google mentors giving your startup insights on digital strategy, and when you have them for two intensive days, that it is even better!
That is exactly what the eight startups from the 8th edition of the Lisbon Challenge got. For an intensive two days, José Ramón Saura, a CTO focused on digital marketing and Maria Isla who works at Hackity (read her piece on that day here) and focus on digital strategy flew from Spain to help startups to market their business.
Eight weeks into the challenge, the Startups are getting ready for Investor’s Day on December 6. Both José and Maria found startups “willing to listen and to learn and eager to grow their business”.
The mentors taught the startups how to identify their target, their interests in order to create a digital strategy and achieve their goals. There is an explicit need of knowing where and why a startup wants to go that will save them time and money. For two days all eight startups forgot about the hard work it is to launch a startup or a product and focused on a marketing and communication plan because the truth is: even a CEO reads the news.
José said he was impressed by these early-stage startups due to their “interesting projects, shifting through different technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning”, and by how they all are “talented and gifted”.
What impressed Maria the most on Lisbon Challenge comparing to other acceleration programs is the fact that this one gathers “people from different countries”, which in Maria’s opinion is the secret to learn and grow because “if you want to go global you have to know other markets, create connections, share knowledge, work with different people” and more than ever this is important in the startup world. Lesson’s learned and now fingers crossed that they will all thrive.