Ecap's Journey to Scaling Up with InnovX-BCR Accelerator Program - Lessons Learned and Milestones Achieved

InnovX-BCR is a program dedicated to supporting startups and scale-ups in their growth and development journey. One of the key initiatives under this program is the Scaleup Bootcamp, which aims to provide intensive training and mentoring to selected companies to help them scale up their operations.

One of the scale-ups that participated in our Scaleup Bootcamp was Ecap, a Romanian-based company that is designed based on the concrete needs of entrepreneurs who operate in the e-commerce industry and who need more fluidity.?From reducing time spent uploading products to platforms, eliminating human errors resulting from operational processes, to automatic integration of product stocks, financial management, integration of couriers and generation of AWBs directly in the platform, Ecap's functionalities are built based on analysis the actual activity of some eShops.

All of these benefits are found today in a single platform that integrates them all into an unbeatable dashboard.

During the Scaleup Bootcamp, Ecap was exposed to a wide range of training and mentoring activities, including workshops on business strategy, financial planning, and market positioning. Ecap had the opportunity to network with other entrepreneurs and investors, and receive valuable feedback and guidance from experienced mentors and industry experts. They were the winners of the IBM prize at the Scaleup Bootcamp Demo Day of 2022.

After completing the program, we asked Ecap to reflect on their experience and share their plans for the future. They were asked several questions; let's see what they shared with us!

1. Can you tell us about your scaleup and what inspired you to start it?

"Inspiration came from the product itself.

We are a small team of enthusiastic professionals in e-commerce architecture, led by a visionary leader, who dared to create an e-commerce solution that automates all flows of e-businesses and deliveries efficient results and profit growth to online entrepreneurs.

One of our first clients believes in our story and succeeded to grow its company turnover from 1 to 5 million euros in just three years. We knew this way that we had created a winning solution that we could easily replicate with as many clients as possible, regardless of the specific requirements that they have.

Being part of InnovX-BCR program in 2022 also gave us a lot of knowledge and vision, and support to make a step forward to access the market’s new frontiers.

All this time we’ve worked continuously to develop “the product”, and today it’s a complete one that offers a series of unique features in the market.

So, we promise that we are ready to scale up for some time."

2. What do you think sets your scaleup apart from other companies in your industry?

"Ecap solution started from the necessities of e-commerce entrepreneurs and from their need to improve their business performance in a simple and efficient way; a platform that shows its usefulness through the easy steps of use – “just a few clicks” - and the diversity of features and other platforms integrations – for example, ERPs, marketplaces, couriers, dropshippers – being altogether the key to success for any e-shop development strategy.

Our development was rather based on entrepreneurs’ feedback and their specific necessities than the competition tools offer, as proof, today, Ecap solution includes differentiating features that main competitors don’t have:

- composite products or packages of products management;

- export of “Emag product families” in products with variants;

- stock amount from multiple sources;

- OCR (Optical Character Recognition) of incoming invoices;

- order processing in outsourced warehouses;

- orders cancellation;

- virtual stocks management;

- picking list;

- automatic calculation of parcels numbers according to weight;

- billing from multiple accounts

and so many others."

3. How has the InnovX-BCR accelerator helped you to develop and grow your startup?

"Perhaps the most important aspects offered by the program were to create strategy clarity and to order Ecap’s added values in a way to make this project scalable.

InnovX-BCR accelerator helped us to identify our strengths, and learn to highlight and present them to an audience in a concise, clear, efficient, and attractive format, easy to understand, whether it’s an investor or a partner, or a potential client.

The presence in this accelerator also showed us how important it is to have a good core team, to always have mentors nearby, to listen and be advised, and to build strategic partnerships that help have market reachability and scale up a business."

4. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced during the accelerator program, and how did you overcome them?

"Even if your product is good and you know that your team has big potential to make the impossible possible, it’s not always enough. You know these but others don’t.

So, it’s extremely important to understand proper business language and how to pitch your story in front of an audience, adequately, clearly, and concisely, in order to get the best of it and gain attention and trust through your speech. Most of the time, you have only one chance to get the momentum."

5. How did the mentors in InnovX-BCR support your scaleup’s growth and development?

"Mentors are vital because most of them speak from their real experience. “They’ve been there, done that, while you are just going to!”. Moreover, you can do a lot together with your team, but specialization in different components of a business usually makes the difference.

As an experienced and trusted advisor, a mentor should guide your business thinking and teach you the importance of things to be done and how to be done.

And that’s exactly what Ecap’s team has learned from its mentors in 1 to 1 meetings and specific discussions.

InnovX-BCR mentors helped us to understand the meaning of a good strategy and the steps to follow our objectives, prioritize the actions, create a plan, and identify the right tools to implement it, whether it was about marketing, business strategy, budgeting, communication, or choosing team players."

6. What are some of the most important lessons you learned during the accelerator program?

"- “Sell” the future benefits that clients will get, not what your product does or services do.

- Core team is the basis of future development and everything you are going to build.

- Team members’ professional value represents added value to the business.

- Partnerships are gold mines that must be explored.

- Attract mentors relevant to your business “to ride together” along your scale-up."

7. What are some of the biggest milestones you have achieved since completing the InnovX-BCR accelerator, and what are your plans for future growth?

" The most important changes are an improved perspective on the Ecap business and the courage to go forward. The program confirmed to us that the Ecap solution is a viable project, with the potential to grow without any limits, and that automation will continuously change the e-commerce future in a way that online entrepreneurs from anywhere should access such tools in order to skyrocket their e-commerce business."

8. How has your experience at InnovX-BCR influenced your perspective on entrepreneurship and the tech industry in general?

"Being an entrepreneur means the liberty of your actions but also barriers that you have to overcome. Discovering your entire set of values, identifying your resources, choosing the right tools, and learning how to efficiently and wisely use them against competition or other market limitations, all make the difference. This is the perspective Ecap’s team learned during the program.

The tech industry evolves continuously and expands to new frontiers, and the internet is the largest platform in which the tech industry finds its usefulness. The applicability is huge and the new technologies’ online implementation, directly or indirectly, brings with it the need to make eshops more efficient to scale up and to become more and more profitable. As a result, automation becomes a necessity, a must, in the long run, for all online entrepreneurs. Ecap knows that and has developed a performant solution through which they can scale the distribution of their products securely while benefiting from increased productivity, better financial performance, and happier customers. All these, with a computer, an internet connection, and a few mouse clicks.

And at the end of the day, the satisfaction of succeeding exceeds any obstacle."

9. What advice would you give to other scaleups who are considering applying to the InnovX-BCR accelerator?

" Just do it! But do it with involvement and an open mind even if this means postponing other current projects. Because nothing is lost, everything is transformed into a better shape.

Through the coordinating team, through the mentors present in the program, and through the topics addressed to the audience, InnovX-BCR program has the capacity to “scale up” your and your team’s skills and skyrocket your perspective on your business future. "