21212, accelerating Brazilian startups in Rio de Janeiro with a little help from NYC

The example of Bloompa

One of the main consequences of acceleration and mentorship is pivoting, and Bloompa is an interesting example in this respect. According to Frederico, when 21212 selected Bloompa, it was particularly interested in its focus on social commerce.

The company already had a product, which the team had launched at Sao Paulo’s Campus Party. Yet, this social network around shopping wish lists wasn’t taking off. When its founders Ricardo Dantas and Thiago Nascimento joined 21212, they already had a pivot in mind, to transform Bloompa into a recommendation network.

Yet, they soon perceived that this model wan’t easily scalable, and ended up doing an entirely different pivot. Their mentor Fabio Seixas played a crucial role in helping Bloompa finds his way. The founder of the e-commerce website Camiseteria, he was interested in the possibilities social commerce offers, and decided to pair with Bloompa (see our previous posts mentioning Camiseteria and Fabio Seixas: Startup Failure In Brazil: A Taboo To Break and Beyond the Buzzword: How Crowdsourcing Can Disrupt Brazil.)
Together, Bloompa and Fabio decided to zoom in and focus on a problem that social commerce could help solving: shopping cart abandonment, a serious concern for e-commerce websites like Fabio’s.

From mentor, he also became Bloompa’s client: it’s on Camiseteria‘s website that Bloompa has started to test its MVP a few days ago, following the lean startup approach. Bloompa’s MVP consists of sharing buttons users can click on to get a discount if they go ahead with their purchase. Although its final product will of course be more complete, it already gives an idea of the new direction Bloompa is taking.

According to Ricardo and Thiago, this pivot happened much faster within 21212 than it would otherwise have. Indeed, Bloompa was given plenty of opportunities to test its model with mentors, fellow accelerated startups, partners and clients. Although the pair met at an MBA in Tech Entrepreneurship, Ricardo said they learned more in a few weeks at 21212, thanks to the accelerator’s practical focus.

Demo Day in February 2012

Not all 21212′s companies have pivoted or needed to, but the majority did correct their strategy – a natural effect of constantly testing, measuring and validating business models. According to Frederico, the teams are now fully focused on execution and MVPs, with the goal to show early results by December – ahead of 21212′s Demo Day, scheduled for February 2012.

What do you think of the recent boom of accelerators in Latin America? Let us know in the comments.