It still feels like yesterday when we all gathered at Junkyard and introduced our Batch II startups to our partners and friends. After 7 weeks of intense learning, meeting influential people, and even some sleep deprivation, we are now halfway through our second acceleration program!

“Looking at the amount of work that we’ve completed so far, we really have the impression that we’ve been working for more than 4 months,” Audrey, co-founder of Synkers, told us recently. In the lapse of 7 weeks, the Synkers’ founders were able to grow their idea, develop a solid business plan, and deliver the first version of their product, an iOS and Android mobile app that syncs students to tutors.

Hala, co-founder of Interior Adviser, and Karl, co-founder of Sqwirl, also agree that time has just flown by at Speed@BDD. Interior Adviser is currently working on the startup’s website and validating its go-to-market strategy while Sqwirl is testing its on-demand delivery service on iOS. “Our aim is to officially launch the application before Demo Day and reach 1,000 deliveries,” says Karl.

Looking back at the first week of acceleration, Richard, co-founder of Monica, sensed that we had prepared an intense schedule for the startups right from the start: “The acceleration program is packed with workshops, talks, pitching sessions, and one-on-ones. This really set the tone from the beginning and gave us much needed basic knowledge to start working and growing.” The Monica team plans on launching a first version of its events application and is working on establishing solid partnerships to gain traction by Demo Day II.

“Personally, my favorite sessions are the inspirational talks. We’ve had many entrepreneurs come in and tell their personal stories: how they started, the problems they’ve faced, how they overcame them, and the lessons learned. As a new entrepreneur, you can learn a lot from these sessions,” said Samy, co-founder of Vision in Motion, who is currently testing its consumer behavior analytics solution in a few shops in Lebanon to optimize and fit the product to every retailer’s needs.

Work aside, the initial good vibes among the startups grew quickly into friendships. “We all became good friends and often help each other out,” says Loubna, co-founder of TopShou. Since joining Speed@BDD, TopShou started creating its own content and is aiming for 5,000 downloads by the end of the acceleration period.

Even though the sessions played a great role in strengthening the ties among our entrepreneurs, nothing was as effective as our traditional Thursday Happy Hours. “I would have to say that the Karaoke night during Happy Hour #4 was the best! Besides being noisy neighbors while singing to “Eye of the Tiger,” ganging up on Speed@BDD’s CTO and assigning him all of our shots was just hilarious!”, shared Joey, co-founder of Jellyfish. Jellyfish signups have more than doubled since joining our acceleration program and the team has tapped into a new potential market segment: startups! By the end of the acceleration, a new version of the product will be ready to help all project managers out there in handling their finances.

To meet our entrepreneurs and learn about their progress in the second half of the program, join us in person at the Speed@BDD Demo Day II. It will be held on 11 July, 2016, so make sure to attend! More details about the event coming soon…