| Company<\/th>\n | Sector \/ Product<\/th>\n | Base<\/th>\n <\/tr>\n <\/thead>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| kite.kg<\/td>\n | Voice bot for call-centre automation (AI algorithms)<\/td>\n | Bishkek<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Agritech Digital Solutions<\/td>\n | E-commerce platform for farmers (agri marketplace)<\/td>\n | Bishkek<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| GEO<\/td>\n | Geothermal heating services for households<\/td>\n | Bishkek<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Unicode<\/td>\n | Coding courses<\/td>\n | Bishkek<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Code Generation<\/td>\n | Coding courses<\/td>\n | Bishkek<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| KSSDA<\/td>\n | Coding courses<\/td>\n | Bishkek<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SoMe<\/td>\n | Online survey app for SMEs<\/td>\n | Bishkek<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| freelance.kg<\/td>\n | Online marketplace for freelancers<\/td>\n | Bishkek<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vicard<\/td>\n | App for collecting and organising business cards<\/td>\n | Bishkek<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Origami \/ Max Ive<\/td>\n | Web studio \/ web development services<\/td>\n | Bishkek<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Own Space<\/td>\n | Web studio<\/td>\n | Osh<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody>\n <\/table>\n The sector mix is worth reading: three separate teams were building coding-course businesses, two were in web-studio services. The more differentiated bets \u2014 a voice bot for call-centre automation (kite.kg), a geothermal heating product (GEO), an agricultural e-commerce platform, a freelancer marketplace (freelance.kg) \u2014 were smaller in number but pointed at narrower problems with higher specificity. The presence of a geothermal-heating startup and an agricultural marketplace in a cohort positioned as an IT accelerator is a reminder that in a market Kyrgyzstan’s size, the IT-sector boundary extends into physical infrastructure and commodity supply chains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Session Structure: Three Rounds, Eleven to Seven<\/h2>\n\n\n\nSession 1 introduced the VIRAL framework and ran the cohort through value proposition design, business model construction (using the Canvas), product-demo preparation, and pitch structure. Teams also received pre-read materials on the VIRAL methodology before the session. On the final day of Session 1, they met mentor-facilitators for the first time \u2014 a deliberate sequence that meant teams were presenting work they had developed, not arriving cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The April 24 mentors’ workshop ran in parallel with the close of Session 1: eleven mentors worked with the teams, giving detailed feedback on the projects. The quarterly report describes the feedback as «painful in many ways for participants, but helpful in making the product better.» The question of how teams handle external critique was already visible as a design challenge \u2014 during the group exercise the report calls «Electric Chair» (a structured peer-feedback activity where one team’s assumptions are challenged by all others), several teams adopted defensive postures that blocked uptake of the input. The programme noted this as a recurring pattern to address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By Session 3, in late June, four teams had dropped from the cohort. Seven remained. The June 25-28 programme ran intermediate financial planning and team diagnostics, with the mentoring day on June 27. The mentor list for that session included Aziz Soltobaev (KG Labs), Altynbek Ismailov (HTP.kg), Nargiza Kulataeva, Aibek Imaraliev (BF Consulting), Talant Omuraliev, Azhar Mambetova (Kompanion), Azat Tazhiev (SOMO.kg), Alexandra Ishchenko, and Andrei Gurinov (Timelysoft).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The quarterly report KG Labs submitted after the three sessions documented several outcomes that are specific enough to be useful. Most teams reached a working MVP by the end of the programme. Teams demonstrated measurable improvement in value proposition articulation, business model structuring, and pitch delivery. The diagnostic that showed up across the sessions was the quality of peer feedback: teams that started by defending their assumptions shifted, over the three rounds, toward using the critique to revise their products. The report frames this shift in terms the VIRAL framework makes explicit: understanding the difference between being «investment-ready» and being «investment-attractive» \u2014 concepts that sound related but describe different problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One concrete metric stands out: one startup in the cohort generated 3.5 million KGS in platform turnover during the programme period. The quarterly report does not name the company, but the figure appeared as a headline result in KG Labs’ submission to USAID ECP. For a Bishkek IT startup in 2019, 3.5 million KGS (roughly $50,000 at the time) in demonstrated platform revenue during a three-month accelerator cycle was a meaningful indicator of traction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Post-session survey responses from mentors rated the programme’s results as «slightly or significantly better than other similar programmes in the region,» and the majority expressed willingness to participate in the next cohort and to recommend the VIRAL methodology to other startups. KG Labs planned to continue the acceleration from September 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The programme also surfaced some operational findings. Venue logistics mattered: several potential mentors declined to participate because the session location was too distant from the city’s business district. The administrative burden of collecting post-session reporting forms from participants required active management during the final session day. For a programme that was still institutionalising its formats \u2014 with some mentors attending for the first time in Session 3 without a prior briefing \u2014 these were the expected friction points of a first-cohort run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n USAID ECP Business Accelerator, 2019: Eleven IT Teams, Three Sessions, One Methodology In March 2019, KG Labs Public Foundation signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the USAID Enterprise Competitiveness Project (ECP), implemented in Kyrgyzstan by ACDI\/VOCA. The MOU formalised KG Labs as co-facilitator of a Business Acceleration Program aimed specifically at women- and youth-led IT […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[402,333],"tags":[412,421,109,624,203,676,639,422,420,406,423,417,419,418],"class_list":["post-7772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital-skills","category-startup-ecosystem","tag-412","tag-acdi-voca","tag-agritech","tag-geo-bishkek","tag-business-accelerator","tag-op-ecosystem-activation","tag-format-event-record","tag-freelance-kg","tag-it-startups","tag-kg-labs","tag-kite-kg","tag-usaid-ecp","tag-vilcap","tag-viral-methodology"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"ru","enabled_languages":["en","ru"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"ru":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kglabs.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kglabs.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kglabs.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kglabs.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kglabs.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7772\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kglabs.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kglabs.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kglabs.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |