The last day of Workshop I of the Academic Working Capital program was for improvements in the new versions of the prototypes. The students attended lectures on corporate world and investment mechanisms and, in the afternoon, set up their projects and presented them in a Review of Products Fair, held in the building of Mechanical and Naval Engineering of the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo (Poli-USP).
In the morning, students were visited by the president of Instituto TIM, Manoel Horacio, who spoke of his career and the lessons he learned as an executive. “Those who want to be entrepreneurs must always be thinking about the time when you want to arrive there,” he said. For him, determination is essential in this process. “You will face problems along the way. Those who are not determined, give up,” he added.
Investor Marco Poli, from the organization Anjos do Brasil, also talked with the AWC participants. He spoke about the investor’s mentality in technology and showed some cases. “Entrepreneurs must be persistent and passionate about it, and they have to love innovation, not the product they are developing,” he recommended. Marco also talked about angel investments, seed capital and venture capital, and at what stage of the project each of these modalities focuses on. “Every entrepreneur needs help. If you do not come to ask for help it is because there’s something wrong.”
After the lectures, the students went back to work in their prototypes. If on the first day of workshop students arrived with a technical project, on the fourth day they come out with their first MVP (Minimum Viable Product), already incorporating the design and user experience ideas acquired during the immersion. In the afternoon, with finished prototypes, the students put together their proposals and showed them to investors invited to the Review of Products Fair. About 20 people talked with each student and gave their feedback.
In the workshop closing session, everyone gathered again in the auditorium and talked about their impressions. The students said that immersion was a very important exchange of experiences, which caused them to change the way they saw their products and the profession itself.
The Academic Working Capital participants will now continue working on the prototypes, with remote monitoring by the advisers. The next on-site workshop will be held between December 7th-11th at USP, and will be focused on the preparation for presentation and pitch structure. The TInvestments Fair where they will show their product already finalized to the investors will take place on December 11th.
Click here to see what happened on the first, second and third day of Workshop I.
