Innovation does not happen in a vacuum. Most startups embark on their journey with scarce resources, limited experience and only a vague idea in the mind of the founder. Luckily, they don’t have to do everything alone. ReaktorX is a Polish pre-accelerating program that offers support to brand new startups and helps them develop core skills necessary for success on the market.

The startup community situation is Poland can be described as a paradox: the state alone has prepared 3 million PLN to invest in startups, but there are none that qualify for receiving these funds. Most of Polish startups are at a too early stage, lacking proper knowledge or skills. This is where ReaktorX steps in.

“In Poland and the Central-Eastern Europe there is a surplus of specialists who lack the soft skills required in business to research the market and sell effectively. Despite the availability of excellent programmers, the product management fails,” explains Borys Musielak, one of the founders of ReaktorX. “These are the questions we want to focus on in our program, so that everyone who graduates from it avoids the most common mistakes in the initial stages of their business. We hope that the participation in ReaktorX will help the young entrepreneurs and will speed up their start”.

Ten startups will participate in the first edition of the program. The pre-acceleration will take two months, during which the startups will take part in workshops and meet with mentors and experts such as Marcin Borecki, a partner in Hedgehog Fund, Regional Head at Microsoft, Bartek Pucek, Head of Mobile & Digital Projects in Onet, Sebastian Grzesik, Project & Program Manager in Nowa Era and Kamila Sidor the founder of Geek Girls Carrots. The most important skills that the participants will acquire are business approach and delivering sales pitches, as well as networking, marketing and PR.

The participants have been chosen due to their growth potential or ability to benefit the most from the sessions. Most of them are Polish, but there is also one Belarussian and one Kosovian startup among them. Two startups remain a mystery – if you want to learn who they are, you can come to ReaktorWarsaw on January 19^th for “speed dating with developers”, where all of the participants will be introduced.

ReaktorX pre-acceleration participants are:

1. Andino: a platform that allows you to compare insurance offers online and pick the best one.
2. cloud Turf: this startup creates spaces in virtual reality, where remote teams can better collaborate, while having level of interaction on par with real life meetings.
3. Getline.in: trust-based platform for lending and borrowing money, inspired by the sharing economy.
4. Dominika Podgorzak: “If you can’t move, go to AppStore”.
5. Sumthesun.com: a one-stop-shop for everything concerning renewable energy: information sources, a handy calculator and way to connect with solar panel installers.
6. Evibrave.com: job marketplace for fintech and telecom industries with a built-in learning platform offering various courses.
7. PyClassroom: this startup offers a better way to teach kids programming. The platform will track pupil’s progress for the parents to follow and motivate the children to learn with a scoring system.
8. BetterCoder: a startup dedicated for students and graduates that prepares them to find their first jobs as developers.