The Big 5 For Project Eden

Last Saturday, Project Eden held a pitching for the 20 participants who signed up to get funding and incubation, the event is in conjunction with a series of Bizconnect PPKI events.

From the 20 participants, eventually Project Eden committee chose the big five for closed pitch interviews session. Before this stage, Kevin Mintaraga explained that 52 participants were selected through online registration. They choose the 20 best business proposals to pitch their idea for five minutes to the Project Eden committee.

As written by Kompas.com, the five participants who passed are Bumble Games Indonesia, Telunjuk, PointBump, Arsanesia, and LocalBrand.

Kevin Mintaraga and Natali Ardianto explained via email to DailySocial, the five elected will conduct a closed pitch interview as a continuation of the initial selection, Natali said, "It could be in the first closed pitch interview we did not directly accept the startup, but we give a kind of mentorship to sharpen their business plan, we might even offer to do a pivot so the business plan become more focused, and they did another pitch interview with a business plan that has been sharpened."

When asked about the reasons why Project Eden choose the best 5 as mentioned above, Kevin said that they had the initial idea, founder who have a vision and integrity and the opportunity to developed product that will be accepted by market, while Natali explains that in addition to good products, this five 'winners' has a founder passion, sharp and focused. This kind of character is sought by the committee of Project Eden.

The toughness in a founder became one of the important things, Natali exemplifies PointBump, originally PointBump was an underdog, but after a pitch session yesterday, Project Eden decided to pick them, one reason was that Project Eden saw firsthand the founder passion and believes in his product.

From the five who elected is still possible for them to be the 'winners' which means they will be supported by the Project Eden, everything will be decided in a closed interview session. Support provided by the Project Eden as described by Kevin, "Project Eden will help providing support in accelerating the startup product to enter the market, support that we provide including the provision of workplaces, covering the expense during product development, mentorship (marketing, market insight, ux, monetization plan, analytics, business advice, etc), workshops, legal, administrative and accounting support."

As we know, Project Eden has an Office Space that can accommodate up to 30 startups, Natali gives examples, "We could accept startups A, and because they needed a mobile development, we invite startups B to collaborate. So it could happen that Startups A and Startups B produce Startups C. Therefore, if you feel you have a weak startups or ideas, just try sending it, because we also analyze the portfolio. Basically it’s a mix and match, too. "

Natali added, “Startups who didn't pitch at PPKI might be invinted to pitch as well, although not on big event such as PPKI. This is because we understand completely that the key to good startups are idea, founder, and execution.”

Currently Project Eden has received 100 ideas and business plans, each one carefully researched to get the best potential. They have also done mentorship on business plans projection errors.

We're now just waiting for July 21^st, to find out who would be elected, or could have them all voted. But for you who wondered what would be done by Project Eden after the election is over, Kevin explained that the Project Eden is open for anyone to submit their product ideas, at any time. But all must be related to the digital industry, application that we receive will always be reviewed each week by a committee of Project Eden, if it’s potential there will be closed interview session, of course the purpose is to dig deeper into the product ideas, business plans and various other things.

And as additional information one of Project Eden choices, Arsanesia was also pitch in the second Bandung Night Ventures event, an event held at ITB, organized by the East Ventures.