Acapella: digitizing and democratizing the access to venture-learning knowledge
Have you ever wondered how to turn your idea into a successful business?
Acapella, a Software/SaaS company based in Berlin, Germany, is one of the success stories that Firstbase.io helped incorporate and start thriving in the US.
Lena Berghaus, the Co-founder of Acapella, shared about their company goals, culture, driving force, and most significant success with us!
Read on to learn more about this fantastic story!
What does Acapella do?
Lena Berghaus and Shashikiran Rao are two founders with a considerable history in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
After many years in the startup environment, they realized that the entrepreneurial support ecosystem needs to be re-imagined to be scalable, inclusive & future-ready and requires a makeover.
The current model doesn't work well for many entrepreneurs. They want it changed so that anyone can find the help needed without worrying about being accepted or not into programs like Startup Academies.
If they succeed, more entrepreneurs will find the entrepreneurial resources needed and deserved - no matter where on earth they live!
The MVP they've created thus far has been an entrepreneur's dream come true: allowing people with similar interests/ideas to form groups around cohort-style virtual workbenches within which collaborating becomes easy. This allows anyone interested to participate without compromising time commitments elsewhere - because every moment counts when working towards launching your project today.
What is Acapella's future goal?
"We believe innovation and entrepreneurship can solve many problems that the world faces today. Brilliant minds with innovative ideas that could solve our problems are spread worldwide. We want to help those ideas find support & collaboration. We do that by digitizing and democratizing access to venture-learning knowledge and providing the benefits of an accelerator-like environment," - says Berghaus.
Being an entrepreneur in such a competitive world and striving towards a big goal can be very hard; what is Acapella's driving force?
When talking about Acapella's future, Berghaus is very passionate, and passion is also Acapella's driving force. They have a deep-rooted belief that entrepreneurship is crucial for innovation & economic development - and this is what keeps them going.
The entire world is filled with brilliant minds that can create innovation. Still, without an ecosystem capable of supporting them all, it becomes impossible for these innovators from anywhere on our beautiful planet earth. This leads Acapella to strive every day towards bringing technology development and adoption, so everyone has access – even if they're just starting or don't know much about how things in the startup world work yet!
They are passionate because their most important mission is "to level the playing field," which means giving people opportunities and making sure there won't be any barriers stopping someone's progress no matter his background.
Apart from having a world-changing mission, what's Acapella's most considerable success so far?
"The idea and structure we developed for taking existing content (e.g., newsletters, tweetstorms) and turning it into guided playbooks on our platform. Users can then follow the experiential knowledge step-by-step while benefiting from the accountability and collaboration tools of the workbench. Instead of 'just' reading an article and trying to figure out how to follow the steps and not being able to get direction or feedback," - says Berghaus.
One example of these successful playbooks is with this article on "Minimum Viable Testing for Startup Ideas" by Gagan Biyani.
What's next?
"We see a future, where those that publish content on their experiential knowledge also turn it into a workbench—allowing their community to read AND apply shared guidance. In turn, it will grow their community and increase benefits. In addition to existing social handles, there would be an acapella workbench handle enabling putting knowledge-to-action," shares Berghaus excitedly.
Thoughts on Firstbase.io
"It was good & smooth overall. I would definitely recommend the service," shares Berghaus.
Final thoughts and advice to newly starting entrepreneurs
Berghaus has tons of experience, and she believes she has found three most essential steps towards entrepreneurial success:
- Understand your motivation to become an entrepreneur.
- You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Choose wisely.
- Find a mentor (if you don’t have a mentor yet, check out one of Firstbase’ partners who can help you find a good mentor)
Acapella's success story is one from which any entrepreneur may benefit whether you're establishing your first business or just thinking about making a career transition into entrepreneurship.
If you're inspired to take the first step after reading this, we'd love to help you!