Moving house can be a daunting affair. A new neighborhood, strange faces, different social norms. Now imagine you have to do business in that environment and be successful from day one.
Welcome Day at Skolkovo for its new resident companies. Photo: sk.ru
Setting up at the Skolkovo Technopark is a scenario facing any startup that has been accepted into the ecosystem.
The biggest job of the Welcome Day event, held every quarter for the latest influx, is simply to let the fledgling companies know exactly that: They’re welcome. To give them a few familiar faces to wave at when they move in. People to call. Places to work.
Of course, startups need to know the procedures for obtaining grants. They have to understand the patent registration process in Russia and abroad. It’s good to find out there are well-equipped service centers that can take care of all their R&D needs.
But chiefly it’s about moral support, said Olga Platonova, the head of the Skolkovo Technopark’s Consultancy Center, after Wednesday’s session for 25 new startups.
“The Welcome Day is primarily to let the participants know we are here and we are working for them,” she said.
Attending the Welcome Day is not obligatory for startups, but Technopark staff have noted a correlation between those that do attend and success down the line.
“That’s exactly the way it is,” Platonova said. “The companies that are here today will, most likely, be the most active as we move forward.”
New home: The Skolkovo Innovation Center. Photo: sk.ru
Otherwise, Technopark staff are frequently surprised at how well-informed – or otherwise - the new participants are about Skolkovo.
“It’s funny, many residents don’t know that much about Skolkovo. It’s because in the first stage, when they receive participant status, it’s the actual selection process to join Skolkovo that interests them. Only when then are here do they start asking what Skolkovo actually is and what the concrete benefits are. It’s interesting that many participant companies have been in touch with the Skolkovo cluster managers quite often before the Welcome Day, and yet they still don’t know much about Skolkovo when they get here,” she added.
Wednesday’s event accounted for the intake of companies in December, January and February. Over that time, 75 startups joined Skolkovo. Only half of those companies are located in Moscow, so Technopark staff consider it a victory that more than 30 people showed up on the day.
“Far more people came than we expected. Entire project teams, not just one representative per company,” said Anastasia Gavrilova, a leading specialist at the Consultancy Center.
In all, the startups heard the following presentations: “Skolkovo: The possibilities for innovations,” by Platonova; “Grant financing at Skolkovo” by Dmitry Kravtsov, the senior manager of the Grant and Expertise Service; “The Intellectual Property Center,” by its chief, Nikita Lashkov; “Investment Department” by Dmitry Shchigolev; and “The Common Use Centers,” by Technopark services R&D development manager Roman Ulanov.
There followed an excursion around the 400-hectare Skolkovo Innovation Center, before a lively Q&A session that dealt with the entire spectrum of services offered to new companies, ranging from how to obtain a grant, to state taxes on registering intellectual property in Poland.
Gavrilova, meanwhile, expanded on the function of Welcome Day.
“We hold this event not simply because it’s continuing something we’ve always done, but because it’s decent hospitality. When someone enters your ecosystem, they need to be greeted correctly. You can’t underestimate this moment, the newcomer might remember it for a long time to come,” Gavrilova added.
The Technopark plans to ramp up the innovativeness of such events in the future to make them even more memorable.
“We want them to feel like they’ve arrived at an ant farm where everyone’s digging away,” she said.
But why should the Technopark be so proactive? Surely it’s the job of the startup to approach with any questions it may have.
“Loyalty is built out of anticipating expectations,” Gavrilova said. “It’s not about waiting around for the questions to be asked. It’s about thinking what we can offer the startups in anticipation.”
“It’s about making them feel we already love them.”