We got ourselves a nice present! 🙂
In these 12 months we have done a great many things, but we will come back to that later, because I cannot wait to unwrap our innoversary present! (Honestly, I don’t know how children at parties manage to wait until after the cake to unwrap the presents.)
Fair warning, it is rather bulky, because it was spun up in October 2020 and required a good 3 months of study, preparation and assembly, but now it is ready to be shared with all of you. Or at least, with those of you who have at least one pet.
Veterly!
Oh yes, because it seems there is a category of doctors that has been rather forgotten by the news of these months, and which instead needs all the support possible to bring even more value into society: veterinarians.
Veterly was born to ease the communication between the veterinarian and the pet owner, in order to put the wellbeing of the animals at the centre. Caring better for animals means more serene owners and, above all, veterinarians more satisfied with their work (and invoicing a little more than they do today).
Consider that the studies we conducted in the Pick phase (our pre-spin-up) showed that veterinarians spend more than 1 hour a day communicating inefficiently with their clients, and another 40 minutes a day organising their calendar. If you add that they often struggle to collect payments due, and that in many cases (around 50%) they are also alone in managing everything, you have a clearer picture of the situation in which these frontier doctors work.
Sustainable startups
Improving the professional condition of those who carry out activities with high human-capital intensity is one of the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals, and more precisely for Veterly number 8, target 8.2, which calls for achieving higher levels of economic productivity through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation, focusing on high value-added and labour-intensive sectors.
In these months we have tied every Startup Bakery business idea to at least one of the SDGs. Creating innovative startups (B2B SaaS using AI) that are sustainable and have an impact on society from birth is far better than trying to straighten out situations born with missions very far from that purpose.
The rationale is the same as the one that drives us not to intervene in already existing startups: it is much more agile and profitable, for us, for our co-founders, for the investors and for the industrial partners who acquire them, to create startups that are “solid” from the start, with an eye also on economic sustainability, beyond the social kind.
But we are only at the beginning.
A great year of innovation
Calling the past year “great” might sound rather generous but, thinking it over, it will be the year that everyone who lived through it will remember indelibly. In this period of lockdowns, smart working and video calls, we managed to take many “small” innovative steps:
We proposed our innovative startup studio model to the market, raising 750 thousand euros from our enlightened investors. Enlightened because they immediately understood the difference from incubators and accelerators, back when our explainer video did not exist yet (thanks for your patience! :))
We gathered around Startup Bakery a team of chefs of the digital and startup worlds, which I am honoured to be part of. Professionals, entrepreneurs and startuppers with exits behind them, channelling their energy to keep baking startups while creating other digital entrepreneurs along the way.
We spun up Donux, our UX studio for software products. And with Donux we set 2 excellent professionals on the entrepreneurial path: our Co-Founders Giuseppe and Giustino.
Together with Advisors, Investors and Co-Founders we conceived and studied 14 business ideas, validated 2 of them for problem-solution fit and spun up 1: the aforementioned Veterly, co-founded with Luca and Annalisa.
We built the beta of our AI software (Artificial Intelligence), which does not have a name yet (suggestions welcome), but which already shows excellent potential in supporting the identification and assessment of the business niches in which to spin up startups. (In our small way, we innovate too.)
Startup Bakery: act two
The next innoversary will be just as dense, but hopefully in a somewhat more serene context for everyone. We began by opening a raise on our first Startup Bakery Lab and on Veterly, but in the April and October slots we will spin up 2 more startups among those currently in validation.
Innovating is by now unavoidable for everyone, above all for businesses considered more “traditional”. It starts with veterinarians, and who knows where we will end up causing a stir in the coming months. In the meantime: happy innoversary Startup Bakery!
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