Yes, everybody is going back to school, but we are different. At TheVentureCity, we do everything our own way. Our Growth Acceleration Program is tailored; that’s why we’ve just had our first two graduates. While the rest of our startups are blooming in their desks, both in Madrid and Miami, The Fastmind and 1Doc3 have left our greenhouse to continue growing big and tall, with solid branches and a bushy shadow.

We have different times and programs, that’s why we are founder centric. Ok, we could make things easier, but it wouldn’t be us.

We are still new. We have a lot to learn. We love learning from incredible founders. In this case, it has been special. We had a close relationship with them, even before TheVentureCity started. Javier Cardona and Jorge Prado are a unique species. This does not mean any kind of privilege, but the opposite. We were as tough and demanding as we are with any other company in our portfolio. There are no exceptions. On the other hand, we expect them to be as wise and inquisitive.

When we first sit down together, we get into the war room and go deep into our North Star Session, a ceremony devoted to set our shared roadmap, milestones and goals towards a happy ending. Several months later, we mourn as we see them leaving the nest, flying high into the real world. Honestly, it’s not so dramatic, they have a support net. They become part of the fund, and they can always claim our services, get advice from our network of mentors and exchange ideas with our staff. Truly, we behave as a family, as tight and solid as a Latino family. That’s why we share a meal with our team and founders during the graduation day.

1Doc3 and TheFastMind have just left our program. They have graduated cum laude. As expected with these superclass companies reaching new levels.

Javier Cardona — a rolo, as they call those born in Bogotá — is the founder and CEO of 1Doc3, the leading online health platform for the Spanish-speaking market, where users ask questions and get answers by real doctors. You would never imagine what teenagers really worry about and how they solve it. The social impact of this service is so big that they’ve become a case study for research labs for several diseases.

“TheVentureCity has helped us define a clear road map that follow our North Star and our mission. They helped us set up an experimentation environment and now we are able to measure many actionable data points and move a lot faster than before!” says Mr. Cardona.

Bayer, Sanofi and Novartis are working with this startup to make strategic decisions. The founder summarizes: “We have a new mindset since we joined the program. We think bigger now. We experiment as much as we can and we make decisions based on data.”

Jorge Prado is a Venezuelan entrepreneur, with deep roots in Miami, where his four kids have been born. He and his brother Eddy has changed we interact with our mobile screens in gaming. They started as a casual gaming company, in the brain training side. We got used to seeing them at Apple and Facebook conferences. A way to evidence their top skills with devices and improving the social side of their apps.

Since they got into TheVentureCity, they pivoted to get into new markets. Through their new, magical links, they have totally redefined the way links are shared on social media. Their exclusive smart technology adapts to the services the users subscribe to and track the way they reshare and consume content.

Our acceleration is unique, as our team and founders are. We specialize in growth, product and internationalization.

Stay tuned, there’s much more to come soon!