This year we decided to start a new initiative called the ‘Two Week Tech Accelerator’. For a fortnight in June, we hosted three university students who are in the early stages of creating an online business.
To kick off our first Accelerator, we were joined by the team from UniRent.
Gus, Zach and Fraser joined Storm for an action-packed crash course to help get their business idea off the ground, through a mixture of mentoring, technical tips, and business insights provided by our team.
UniRent: Student housing without the surprises
UniRent is a student housing website aiming to provide students with fair and honest reviews about off campus rentals. The guys came up with the idea after hearing horror stories from friends and fellow students about unsuitable properties in the West Country.
Working closely with Dave, Hannah and Tom, they were able to re-look at their proposition from a business point of view, whilst being provided with the creative and technical support they would not usually have to access to.
During the two weeks with us they have now decided on a brand, created an initial landing page for their website and come up with a suitable business plan.
Why are Storm offering this?
David Kelly, Managing Director at Storm, explained: “What we’ve come to realise over the past few years is that there are so many great ideas and brilliant entrepreneurs who don’t get an opportunity to try out their business idea in the real world.”
He continued: “To solve this issue, and as part of our ten-year anniversary celebrations, we decided to launch the Two Week Tech Accelerator programme to help start up and scale up companies based in the Bristol or Bath area.
“What we hope is at the end of the two weeks they’re feeling more equipped to take their idea either to an investor or to have a prototype to test the market further.”
Thoughts from the UniRent founders
University of Bath student, Fraser explained: “A lot of the staff at Storm have asked us difficult questions that we weren’t asking ourselves previously; this prompted some interesting conversations and will really help us in the long run.”
Zach, Bristol University student, commented: ‘We would definitely recommend that anyone who has a start-up tries the Two Week Tech Accelerator. It’s been an absolutely fantastic opportunity for us, we’ve had access to top notch developers and designers, and also just to advice about where we’re going with UniRent. It has been so valuable and we’re now in a position where we’ve really thought about the idea and are ready to move forward with the next steps for UniRent.”
It’s been great having Zach, Fraser and Gus with us for our first Accelerator programme; the team have really enjoyed getting to know them and helping them to build their business. We wish them all the best with UniRent and look forward to seeing the website develop in the future.
Applications for 2020
Storm will be hosting another Two Week Tech Accelerator next year and will be accepting applications for 2020 very soon. Watch this space!
If you would like to find out more about the programme, feel free to drop us a line via hello@stormconsultancy.com.
