Being selected for the Founders Space Accelerator program made for great excitement and a healthy tinge of fear in the Tuse camp. We were the first South African startup to be a part of the program and were unaware of what to expect. Almost immediately, the warmth of the Founders Space team put us at ease. The video lectures from Captain Hoff, as well as Naomi’s willingness to personally help us navigate a myriad of administrative challenges, instantly made us feel at home.
This comfort was essential to allowing us to fully focus all our energies on the incredibly intense four week program. We were exposed to cutting edge information from some of the world’s foremost authorities on subjects as varied as company law, raising capital, sales and influence, human resources, presentation skills, business model generation, company culture, and immigration amongst many others. It truly was an immersive experience that prepared us for the road ahead, and if our results since the end of the program are anything to go by, we can very safely say that Founders Space succeeded in this objective.
After pitch day, we closed a seed round with Draper Dark Flow, have been selected to pitch at the Global Technology Symposium in San Francisco, gained our first 2 paying commercial clients and have been invited to exhibit our wares at a number of trade shows around the African continent. I have also been invited to talk at the Sustainability Summit in Cape Town this May, on my observations of “Reciprocal Meritocracy” which I learnt about in the program.
I find it difficult to accurately quantify the total value of being part of the Founders Space Accelerator as Tuse continues to benefit from the learnings and networks established long after the end of the program. It’s been barely a month since we finished the program, and I can safely say that Founders Space catapulted Tuse from a good idea to a business that can serve the whole world in a meaningful manner.
Sabelo Sibanda
CEO of Tuse
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