Entrepreneurship!!! The word brings to mind images of success, innovation, and some globally famous personalities such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. However, like anyone who knows the industry will tell you – entrepreneurship is a challenging and arduous journey. Something that is seldom mentioned is that a lot of this difficultly is caused by some inherent inequalities that exist within the entrepreneurship ecosystem, globally. Namely, inequality between the well-connected and experienced entrepreneurs to novice entrepreneurs with much less connections and limited access to resources.

In 2018 we (founders of Xelera) visited a renowned science and technology faculty in Israel. During a discussion held with the Dean, he presented the challenges faced by his students: his agri-tech students are able to develop some of the most amazing agriculture and food related innovations such as lab-grown meat, high-yield crops that enrich the soil and many more. Yet, they had no idea on how to take these innovations to market and build a business around them. This was the foundation of Xelera.

Xelera’s Mission

Xelera’s mission is to make entrepreneurship more accessible, affordable and inclusive to all early-stage entrepreneurs. Following the conversation mentioned above and another year of researching the entrepreneurship market, we were able to identify the main pain points of our potential customers, which are as follows:

• Lack of Knowledge: The main reason that the agri-tech students and many first-time entrepreneurs are unable to take their ideas to market is because they basically don’t know how to approach it or where to start. In many cases, the lack of familiarity of key concepts such as validation, GTM strategies, startup economics, and so on, leads to these innovative entrepreneurs being severely handicapped while attempting to develop their idea during its’ early stages.

• Lack of Network: Entrepreneurship is a closed ecosystem. Finding a way into this exclusive club that generally favours its existing members, is a struggle for most first-time entrepreneurs. This challenge is further made difficult due to geographical constraints. Early-stage entrepreneurs targeting foreign markets often require “boots on the ground” to understand local market trends and consumer behaviors. These are often in-accessible unless they already have access to a network in the region.

• Lack of Resources: Having access to the right resources at any given time during your entrepreneurial journey is vital for success. These resources could be as simple as professional feedback from the right people or market insights that help you plan your launch or expansion. In addition, resources might come in the form of guidance and support for the entrepreneur.  These resources are difficult to obtain for novice entrepreneurs.

The Solution – A Holistic & Inclusive Entrepreneurship Platform for Early-Stage Ideas

Having these challenges in mind, we have developed Xelera’s digital entrepreneurship platform. This solution is open to all regardless to prior experience, knowledge, or to the readiness level of the project. It offers an easy-to-follow journey (knowledge), continuous feedback (resources), an international network of experts (network) and unique investment readiness index. Providing these features empowers entrepreneurs and makes the development process easier.

In the following articles we will dive deeper into each of these key pillars. Keep watching this space for future posts, and please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

We will soon open the application process for our first startup idea competition. Check out our website and social media accounts for more details.