Last Friday, at our weekly TGIF (you should come!), I spent some time talking with Lisbon Challenge teams. We exchanged some feedback about the program, and at a certain point one of the founders mentioned it to me: “I feel like you really care”. And I thought about it for a minute and realized – we really do.
Lisbon Challenge is Beta-i’s flagship accelerator program, and one of the most recognized programs in Europe. It inherited Beta-i’s people-centric approach – we are “humaniacs” at heart and we convey our approach in Lisbon Challenge program as well.
Lisbon Challenge’s people-centric approach
The people-centric approach is not about just about caring about the founders (which we do!), is about how a human-centric perspective applies to their business in order for it to be the best it can be.
In the 10 weeks of the program, we contaminate the founders with this human-centric perspective and help them better understand and develop:
Who are you building a solution for
The starting point of a good startup is the will to solve a problem you identify – and also the will to know the people whose problem you’re solving. That means gaining a deeper knowledge of your audience through an ethnographic mindset in order to find a product/market fit.
Who are you building a solution with
The road is hard – but you won’t be doing it alone. The culture you build for your company will be determinant to the success of it. The core values you choose and the expected behaviors that embody them will be your guide to decision making, hiring people, dealing with users and other business partners, so building a culture from scratch is the foundation of a winning team.
Who you are as an entrepreneur
Having a startup is probably the toughest business there is. You’ll be constantly challenging your own assumptions, facing inconvenient truths and constant “no’s”. Our methodology is focused not only on growing your business but also in preparing you to transform difficulties into learnings and to see problems as opportunities. As your business grows, so will you – we’re here to get you ready to face the demands of different startup stages.
In the words of Eduardo Sette Câmara, our Head of Acceleration:
“The legacy we’re trying to build with Lisbon Challenge is to find and help founders that can build their companies while taking into consideration everyone that revolves around them.”
What does our people-centric approach mean? Here's what Eduardo Sette Camara, our Head of Acceleration had to say!
Publicado por Lisbon Challenge em Sexta-feira, 24 de maio de 2019
By the end of the video, Eduardo lets us know that as long as founders put in the work, we’ll always be here, doing our best to help them. And if you ask any other Lisbon Challenge alumni, you’ll realize it’s true.
UX Design is trending everywhere, and it’s no wonder – a comprehensive report on the impact of UX Design has shown that companies which invested the most, and who considered themselves to be fully user-centric, saw their sales increase by a staggering 75%.
Effectively, sales are one of the ways to measure the success of a design – but not the only. It can also be measured by other KPIs – such as retention or even the completion of a task – that can tell the designer if the experience if effective or not.
While designing, there are a few principles that can be followed to guarantee a better experience for the user, mostly used for interface design but also applicable to any kind of experience.
They are called heuristics and they represent cognitive shortcuts or rules of thumb that simplify decisions, and represent a process of substituting a difficult question with an easier one.
The 10 usability heuristics
1. Keep users in the know
The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
Have you ever unsuccessfully tried to upload something without knowing if it’s being uploaded or not? No? That’s because the designers understand the “Visibility of system status“, which means giving the user the understanding of the task completion – hence the existence of loading bars, or the sound of a message sent.
2. Make sure the user understands
The system should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.
This rule is about matching the system and the real world – make the experience familiar to the user. That is why the trash icon on our computers is actually a trash bin.
3. Make an Exit Simple
Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.
This is about giving your user control and freedom – to go back and alter the info on a form, to cancel an upload that is too heavy, to leave a task they don’t want to complete. Designers take it to the next level by helping us avoid or undo our mistakes – asking us if we’re sure we want to leave the page, or creating auto-saves that help us go to a previous version of our document.
4. Consistency and Standards
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing.
Consistency is key – to make the users experience easy, information of the same kind should not be presented in different ways. “Buy” buttons should look the same across a website. It’s also important to adhere to external conventions – profile settings are usually available in the top right corner, and FAQ pages look pretty much the same across different websites.
5. Error Prevention
Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.
Designers can delight users by helping them to not make mistakes – that’s why google search helps you correct grammatical mistakes and gmail does not let you live through the embarrassment of sending a second email with a forgotten attachment.
6. Recognition not recall
Minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
Basically, don’t make users memorize things. Google search suggests similar searches and Amazon lets you see your recently browsed items and similar objects.
7. Flexibility for newbies and experts
Accelerators — unseen by the novice user — may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
Experiences must be doable for both newbies and experts – that’s why designers create shortcuts. Experience users will skip tutorials, but use advanced settings (usually partially hidden to not hinder newbies). In real life experiences, escape rooms usually add extra clues for newbies, to help them make logical connections that heavy users already know.
8. Aesthetically pleasant and efficient
Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
This guideline compels us to use only needed information. Interfaces need to be cleared of unnecessary elements and content that do not support the page goals and tasks, so this is where prioritization comes to play. This rule is also the reason very minimalistic design – like the one used by Google – is wildly successful.
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
Have you have repeatedly try to submit a form that says some information is wrong but won’t tell you which information is wrong? Ideally the user should be informed accurately of what is wrong.
Another important layer is the identification of solutions – if the password is wrong, a good design would suggest you a link to password recovery.
10. Help and documentation
Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.
Ideally, users should not need helpful documentation if the design is great. Still, it’s important to create useful documentation to clear any doubts. This documentation should be accessible and clearly structured to help users find the help they need.
Heuristics are a handy guide for UX Designers, as they mostly applicable to any web & mobile applications. You can also use them, or versions of it adapted to other types of experiences. The trick is to always put yourself in the user’s shoes!
The Portuguese startup and Lisbon Challenge alumnus, 360imprimir, just closed a round of $20.4M in investment.
At Beta-i, we are proud to see their success, as they were one of the first startups that joined one of the earliest editions of our acceleration program – Lisbon Challenge. Like Pedro Rocha Vieira, Beta-i’s founder and CEO, put it:
When we decided to launch Lisbon Challenge, the idea was to empower a new generation of entrepreneurs and companies, in order to give these actors the ideal tools to compete in the global digital market. 360imprimir was one of the first startups that went through this process, and it is with great pride that we have noted its success story ever since. Naturally, the fact that they have now raised an investment of €18 million is due, in the first place, to their great management, vision and execution. But I’d like to believe that part of this success also came from the training Lisbon Challenge gave them, of which Uniplaces, Eggy, Attentive, Knok, Impraise, Sparkl or Eat Tasty are also good examples. I hope that this round will open new horizons for them, but I believe that it will also allow them to contribute actively to the ecosystem, fueling a kind of virtuous cycle that Lisbon Challenge helped to start.
Sérgio Vieira, CEO and co-founder, also praised Beta-i for the work done in the portuguese entrepreneurial ecosystem, highlighting the role that Lisbon Challenge played: “For us, as an early stage startup LC gave us the opportunity to see other groups with different realities and different solutions to problems that were ours too. Moreover, the mentoring and pitch sessions played an important role in self-evaluation and communication positioning.”
“Since LC we have observed closely the role of Beta-i in the Portuguese ecosystem and praised their effort to keep pushing the startup scene to the next level – this also happened with 360imprimir.”
Created in 2013, 360imprimir is an e-commerce platform focused on the clients’ (SME’s and independent professionals) do-it-yourself method and delivery of quality and low-cost of printed communications. Operating on a fabless model, the company differentiates through technology: it has an intelligent aggregation software, that ensures the best prices in the market for their clients.
With a business based on technology – from the platform and its many mechanisms to the technology made available to production and logistic partners -, the company will continue to invest in technology and R&D.
In rapid development context like ours, we have to be one step (or two!) ahead of the challenges, so that we may be enablers of the market. 360imprimir is a tech and innovative company, so we’re always updated on the most recent trends in Performance, Scalability, Automation, Artificial Intelligence or Augmented Reality. It’s our DNA and what makes us unique. – Hugo Neto, Chief Technology Officer at 360imprimir
This investment will also give 360imprimir the chance to extend their product range with 20.000 new products and enter 17 new markets.
The company hopes their path will be an inspiration for other portuguese businesses to follow:
“360imprimir is the proof that every company can achieve success if the idea is different and adds value to customer experience. So yes, we believe that our path inspires other entrepreneurs to develop great and innovative ideas.” added the CEO.
José Salgado, CO-founder and Chief Growth Officer at 360imprimir, will also be at Lisbon Investment Summit to speak on a panel that is of interest to all startups following in their footsteps – Scaling Up: Tips and Tricks to Go Global. Get your tickets to LIS here.
It was during SIBS Payforward Bootcamp, the fintech accelerator powered by SIBS and Beta-i, that ReThink met with Maria Antónia Saldanha, SIBS PAYFORWARD’s Program Director and Head of Brand & Communication at SIBS, to speak about the fintech ecosystem and what are the challenges it wants to tackle.
SIBS is now a major player in the market, with 300 million clients and present in Iberia, Africa and Eastern Europe, but how did it all start? SIBS was created 30 years ago, with the help and collaboration of different companies from different industries. The goal was to serve the digital economy, which didn’t even exist yet.
“SIBS grew up as a fintech in a time where the word fintech didn’t even exist.”
According to Maria Antónia, a collaborative and cooperative model is the only way to “do things”, so SIBS has created an ecosystem of a lot of companies, all the banks, and different industries from different countries. Because of this, the payment services provider still moves with the same spirit as a startup: “SIBS grew up as a Fintech in a time where the word Fintech didn’t even exist. We were brought up as a Fintech, we work as a startup – we’re very agile, dynamic and innovative, launching every month a new service or product.”
It was their own history and this understanding that it takes collaboration to innovate, that made SIBS decide to keep the circle going, by fostering innovation inside and outside their walls: “Well, SIBS was created with the help and collaboration of different companies from different industries, so it’s time to pay it forward. It’s our chance to do for others what they did for us. To help, to share knowledge, to share expertise. It’s a way for us to help other companies to grow and to accelerate in order to become as big as SIBS”, said the program director.
The program looks for scalable, innovative solutions that can complement SIBS offer or grow exponentially from it, by taking advantage of SIBS large user market: “When we launched the accelerator for Fintechs it was the first national accelerator focused on payment solutions. The main goal was to attract fintech startups that have solutions for payments, or financial services, or complementary services around financial services so we can boost them in order to provide services either in Portugal or in other geographies where SIBS is, mainly in Africa for instance or Eastern Europe.”
The challenges that the accelerator proposes to solve in collaboration with the startups are, according to Maria Antónia, “the challenges that society faces every day. We’re focusing on Client behavior and Analytics, Security and Authentication, Payment Processes and Payments and Future Stores.”
The accelerator is committed to solve these challenges by working in complete collaboration with the startups – for the four days of the Bootcamp, the startups worked in groups with SIBS mentors – collaborators that could give them insight into the processes that go into SIBS services and technical experts who can help the startups incorporate their technologies in practical terms – and ultimately help them propose more viable, interesting and profitable pilot projects. All this is done within SIBS environment, to allow for better sharing of knowledge and understanding of the business: “We’ve acknowledged that they want to get to know us where we are every day, where we are working on innovation every day – where we have our terminals, our ATMs, our POSs, and all of our teams. So this is something that we’ve managed this year, to bring startups inside SIBS, so they’ve been working during these days in our premises, alongside us, where we work every day.”
When questioned about the future of fintech, SIBS concedes they cannot guess it, but they can be a part of it by keeping innovating inside their business and fostering innovation in the financial market: “We don’t know how the future is going to be, we don’t know how fast the future can grow, but we know that if we work together – startups, corporates, associations like Beta-i, we can move faster, we can grow faster, and we’ll probably have more products, more solutions that make us brighter and our lives more efficient.”
On its third edition, SIBS Payforward is the fintech accelerator powered by SIBS and Beta-i. You can follow the news and the projects being developed by following SIBS Payforward on Facebook and subscribe to Beta-i’s newsletter.
As #LIS approaches, we’re excited to see all the startups pitching in the competition. But we understand they might be very nervous (and excited) to be pitching in front of a crowd of potential clients and investors.
So we rounded up a clipped list of tips from our team (who has seen their fair share of pitches!) directly to any nervous founder!
First things first: think of everything that could go wrong! Is it a long list? Good, now you can prepare for those things!
And now, our top 10 tips:
1. Know your audience
Know who are you pitching for: what are their pains, what are they looking for, what level of technical stuff they understand – it will help you tailor you pitch to the crowd.
2. Always use a structure
Improvising? It doesn’t work. You will end up just losing time!
3. Practice makes perfect
No one does it perfectly in one go! Practice, practice, practice. Ask for help in discovering your weaknesses, correct them and practice some more!
4. Eyes on the crowd
Have they told you “imagine the audience is naked”? It doesn’t work! What about “Just fixate on a point in the back”? No, that will make look strangely absent. Look directly to your audience, but don’t stay on the same person for a long time (that could be awkward!).
5. Stand your ground
You’re probably nervous, but jittering about will just distract you audience. When in doubt, just stand your ground – a.k.a stand in the same place in a confident pose.
6. Behaviour drives behaviour
The audience will feed off of your attitude. So smile!
7. Clean + simple works everytime
Don’t complicate the slides! Just key information and clean and simple formatting, that follows your presentation is best.
8. Strong Opening
Start strong and make an impression that will last!
9. Pitching is a one-person show
We know it’s a daunting task, but it’s really something that has to be done by one person only – or it will distract from the important stuff.
10. Listen to the questions until the end
Don’t jump the gun! Listen to the questions (an investor will make several in one go) so you have time to give a proper answer that responds to all the points they need!
As the Lisbon Investment Summit approaches, we spoke with Pedro Faclão, managing partner at LC Ventures about the needs for more pre-seed investment and what every startup should have at the ready when talking with an investor.
Why was LC Ventures created and why is it important to create Portuguese investment funds?
LC Ventures was born on the belief that brilliant teams are creating innovative products that don’t develop due to lack of funding.
Portugal has proven its ability to generate valuable STEM and business talent, capable of building industry-leading companies (Farfetch, Outsystems, Feedzai, Unbabel, et cetera), however starting a company requires early financing – With debt out of reach due to the risky nature of venturing a tech startup, entrepreneurs turn into private capital to support their growth. Portuguese investors majorly share a risk-averse investment profile, thus entrepreneurs face a cumbersome process raising pre-seed (angel) and seed capital (the riskier stages of financing) and often don’t obtain funding – Ideas don’t get prototyped and prototypes don’t get productized.
Angel/Early investing increases the likelihood of success for startups because it brings in required capital matched with valuable mentoring from well-experienced professionals. We believe it is crucial to create (pre-seed and seed) VC funds to abet the Portuguese economy flourish through successful startups able to generate employment and drive innovation.
What did you enjoy more in your experience at LIS?
There were several things: meeting other experienced international investors and analyze co-investment opportunities, to discover promising startups led by serial entrepreneurs and exposing LC Ventures investment thesis and gather leads for LP fundraising.
Why do you think it’s important for investors to get together and share their experiences?
Investors bring in value in three forms: (i) capital available to invest, (ii) extensive network of peer investors, corporate leaders, founders, technologists and public decision-makers and (iii) operational experience. With the opportunity to group at LIS, investors can multiply their value-add by extending their network and knowing first-hand what other VCs are witnessing and how they are operating – Sharing best practices is a potent exercise to improve the VC scene.
From this informal get-together, investors might expect co-investments, strategic affixes to cap tables for their portfolio companies, CXO suggestions for portfolio companies and exposure of the VC fund thesis within the ecosystem.
Why do you think Portuguese startups are so relevant and able to attract foreign investment?
Portugal has proven its ability to generate valuable STEM and business talent, capable of building industry-leading companies (Farfetch, Outsystems, Feedzai, Unbabel, et cetera). The before-mentioned talent results from respectable universities and leading research centres.
Another reason is the hard-to-navigate business environment in Portugal – filled with bureaucratic tailbacks and low purchasing power -. Startups that successfully launch in Portugal will face an easier time selling in more fluid business environments and stronger economies such as Germany, UK, US, Australia, Netherlands, etc. So, success in Portugal is a good validation point to set sail to other markets.
Also, valuations in Lisbon are still small compared with leading entrepreneurial hubs (Berlin, London, Stockholm), thus more attractive to close deals in Lisbon (since they are cheaper). In parallel, Portugal’s government has set appealing tax regimes in order to attract foreign investment in national startups (200M).
What are you looking for in startups when you attend events like LIS?
A capable execution team (ideally with a track record of building companies and shipping to market) and a defensible scalable product (preferably software-only solutions).
What advice do you give startups that will be pitching and looking to meet possible investors?
Dedicate special time for fundraising: Fundraising shouldn’t be a “I just need the money” situation. Through a rich fundraising process founders can develop a valuable network, open commercial doors and improve operations. And know your numbers: make sure your unit economics are well-shown and compelling and clearly articulate how and why your solution beats the status quo. Also, don’t come to investors under stress, things take time (reasonably or not). Oh, and study “VC legals” – everything from drag along, tag along, convertible notes, SAFE – should be in your vocabulary.
