You have a strong hunch that your idea could work, but nobody has shown you the boring, unglamorous steps that turn it into a real company. The Startup Launch Accelerator by Garerano is twelve live weeks where we pressure-test your concept with real customers, build your first revenue engine and get you sitting in front of investors with a deck that does not fall apart under questioning. You do not need an MBA, a co-founder or a developer to start — you need a method and people who will not let you hide behind excuses.
Most people do not fail because their idea is weak. They fail because they spend nine months building something nobody asked for, then discover the market was never there. Our twelve-week programme forces you to face customers in week one, kill your favourite assumptions early and reinvest that saved energy into the parts of the business that actually move money. Every Tuesday night you join a live working session with mentors who have launched and sold companies in Finland and across the Nordics, and every Thursday you sit in a peer pod that holds you accountable to the promises you made the week before.
No passive video marathons. Every module ends with a deliverable you must ship before the next session opens, and your pod will notice if you skip it.
We walk you through Finnish company registration, YEL insurance, VAT thresholds and the grants that actually pay out, so you are not decoding bureaucracy alone at midnight.
Garerano's coaching bench is made up of operators who have raised, bootstrapped and sold companies across Helsinki, Tampere and Stockholm. Between them they have taken products from empty Notion documents to paying enterprise contracts, and they are not shy about telling you when your idea is heading into a wall. You get their scars, their shortcuts and their phone numbers for twelve focused weeks.
Pick the level of support that matches how fast you want to move. Every tier includes the full twelve-week curriculum, the peer pod and lifetime access to the founder library. The only difference is how much of our team's time you want on your project.
€890 one-time
For founders who want the framework and the pod but will do the heavy lifting on their own clock.
€1,780 one-time
The standard route. Live sessions, a real pod and mentors who know your name and your numbers.
€3,240 one-time
For teams with money on the line who want our hands inside the business every single week.
Every week follows the same rhythm so you always know what is expected. We move in six phases, and each one closes with something you can show another human being.
Week one through two: you write down what pain you are solving, who feels it and how they cope today. We help you find twenty-five people to talk to before you write a single line of anything.
Weeks three and four: a landing page goes live, you run small paid experiments and you learn whether strangers will hand over an email or a deposit. Assumptions die here, quietly and cheaply.
Weeks five and six: your interviews become a concrete product spec, a price point and a promise you can actually deliver. You also design the smallest possible version you can charge for next month.
Weeks seven and eight: outreach goes out, demos happen and you close the first paying account. We rehearse the calls with you and sit in on the tough ones when you ask us to.
Weeks nine and ten: a real financial model, cost per acquisition, run rate and a sensible runway. If your margins do not survive this step, we would rather find out now than after you raise money.
Weeks eleven and twelve: your deck, your narrative and your ninety-day plan after the programme ends. You pitch to a panel of angel investors and you leave with their notes in hand.
Screens, whiteboards and slightly tired faces — the honest picture of what launching a company looks like inside Garerano's live cohort sessions.
Every Tuesday the whole cohort wrestles with one founder's biggest blocker while the mentor plays the skeptical customer.
Week eight onwards we tear your slides apart line by line, then rebuild them until an investor can repeat your story back to you.
Pods of four founders meet every Thursday, share their weekly promises and call each other out when things slip. Gently. Mostly.
Two hours where we open the spreadsheets, question every assumption and make sure the maths holds up when the adrenaline fades.
The last session closes with real angel investors on the call, asking the questions you hoped nobody would ask. You will be glad they did.
The final evening is pictures, nerves and honest feedback. Everyone leaves with a ninety-day plan and someone to report back to.
If what you need is not below, send us a note and we will answer you personally, usually the same working day.
Neither. Half of every cohort arrives with a rough hunch and nothing else. We will walk you through Finnish company registration in weeks five and six if your idea survives the customer tests, and you are welcome to join with an idea you are still deciding to commit to.
Plan on eight to ten hours. Two of those are live sessions, one is your pod check-in, and the rest is customer conversations and the weekly deliverable. Founders who try to squeeze it into three hours tend to fall behind by week four.
Yes. The curriculum is built around Finnish company structures and funding because that is where we operate, but founders from Sweden, Estonia and Germany have finished the programme successfully. Content is delivered in English and all sessions are recorded if the timezone bites.
We call it an early win, not a failure. Killing a weak idea in week four costs you nothing compared to killing it in year two after burning savings. You will pivot to a second concept with the same support and finish the programme just the same.
Founder Intensive members who reach a solid prototype and early revenue can be introduced to our network of Nordic angels. It is never a guarantee of funding, but twelve alumni teams have closed seed rounds through intros made during or after the cohort.
Yes. If you withdraw before the end of week two after completing the readiness assignment, you get a full refund minus the €90 administration fee. After that, we are all in together.
Send us a short note about your idea and your timeline. We read every message, answer within one working day and will tell you honestly if you would be better off waiting for the next intake.
