Retrospective: 3 years of Rubik Hub
What is 3 years’ time in terms of startup mentality? How much could you grow or develop in this time frame? What do you actually do in between?
These are the type of questions that we deal with on a daily basis, though not regarding ourselves, but the startups we work with. We read, we debate, we keep our feet on the ground, and we struggle to offer the best answer.
There is no perfect answer to this, as a startup is a complex and adventurous journey, that you never know where it might take you.
The thing is that we often end up comparing Rubik Hub with a startup. It all began with a mesmerizing idea, that was obviously, a solution to a cumulous of problems identified in the community.
We started to develop the idea and transform it into an actual service. We pitched accordingly and obtained the seed funding. We defined the values and intentions and we enlarged the team each year. We tested, failed, pivoted, and anything in between. We came out stronger and more determined to see our dream come true.
Early-stage perhaps defines best the momentum we are in now. Our goals and long-term objectives were identified and clearly set.
But what is Rubik Hub?
Can it be a super dedicated team? A community? A coworking space in the middle of nowhere? A solution for the North East region of Romania and the national startup ecosystem?
I believe we can best describe ourselves as a mix of all those listed above. And to these, we’ll add passion, creativity, determination, innovation, technology, and a proper mindset!
…and behind the scene?
Most probably, most of you never interacted with the whole Rubik Hub team. We are 13 people now, each with different capabilities and competences. What glued us is the feeling that together we can move mountains!
We have Vlad, who strongly believes in the vision and the mission and is confident in our capacity to deliver what we promise. There is Vali, who, most probably, dreams in startupish language and Ella, that ads the pragmatic flavor in the programs they coordinate. Andrei is determined to positively influence wanna-be entrepreneurs. Smaranda is here to tell you the stories, whilst Adina is pushing our story out of the borders of Romania. Ionuț is always there to help up with the technicalities, but also to share his wisdom with the young generation. Cristina is here to untangle the financial threads and to keep the relationship with RDA strong! Ana wants to convert everybody to the proper startup mindset and Robert likes pitching to VC’s and investors. Ines and Raluca, the last ones that dived in our team, are curiously exploring and embracing novelty.
So, what do we do?
In these 3 long years, we had plenty of time to test various programs, projects, and ideas. Not all were a success, but now we can say that we have more clarity and understanding over what works and what doesn’t.
Thus, we are now focusing on 3 main programs, that we know they can make the difference:
#inspire #educate #start
RubikEDU, an educational program dedicated to students and delivered in the partner universities. It was built for the students that would like to consider entrepreneurship as a career opportunity and that are willing to invest time in accomplishing a set of introductive workshops in the startup mindset.
RubikEDU is divided into 3 parts:
- RubikEDU workshops, delivered in the universities
- Square 1 Bootcamp, a 3 days experience for boosting up your creativity
- Founders’ Story, a set of webinars that bring into the spotlight inspiring founders that are sharing from their experience. Each of the webinars is followed by 3 practical ideation workshops.
#align #build #validate
Rubik Garage is a 6 months pre-acceleration program, free of charge & no-equity, that requires a high level of commitment from the startup founders. We support your team and startup to overcome any current blockages and we shall identify together with your development needs.
#grow #connect #investment #accelerate
Startup Spinner Makeathon, an event dedicated to advanced early-stage startups that are ready to prove their readiness for investment and acceleration. It is structured as an intensive 3 days program, with practical workshops, 1:1 office hours, and inspiring key-notes.
What’s next?!
For us, the sky’s the limit! We tumbled a bit due to the pandemic crisis, but we adapted very well, and we consider that working from home or delivering online programs is not a challenge that we cannot take!
Even if the mission and vision are unchanged and most probably will remain this way, our calendar and action plan are always going to be subject to change. It is not easy, sometimes even exhausting for the team to be in a constant change and uncertainty about what we are going to do tomorrow (as we don’t know what tomorrow is going to be about).
But we learned to embrace iteration and even pivoting for accomplishing the mission and for keeping the spirits up within our public. In the first year, we have decided that “awesome is our new minimal” and everybody that stepped into our community felt the Rubik Hub vibe! 🙂
