Students received coaching from course lecturer Bram Kuijken. ‘I offered the students weekly coaching sessions during the Startup Project, but they also had access to more than 20 startup mentors’, explains Kuijken. A jury comprised of investors evaluated the pitches on the following points:

• Market potential;
• Degree of innovation;
• Quality of the validation;
• Clarity of the oral presentation;
• Appeal of the slides used in the presentation.

Business solution

The startup Tyro was chosen as the winner. Students Tristan Speijdel, Josephine Hoestra, Jelle Moers, Mente Wester, and Fercan Molenaar came up with Tyro to solve the labour shortage problem in the building sector. They pair up students with building projects and these students perform the simpler building tasks. This allows the more costly specialists to focus on the more specialised building tasks. ‘The jury’s main reason for selecting Tyro was the amount of validation they did when testing their business idea. They were even able to run a paid pilot in the few weeks they had for this course. And their presentation was excellent’, says Kuijken. The Tyro team also won a cash prize of 1,000, sponsored by UvA Ventures.