From Idea to Investor Pitch: 14 Days at TLF Tech Camp in Barcelona

At the end of June, TLF scholars from two partner schools gathered in Barcelona for a single question: can you build a startup in just 14 days?

The two-week entrepreneurship camp at Harbour.Space University combined lectures, hands-on workshops, Agile team projects and sessions with active entrepreneurs. Students went from an initial idea and market research to a technology product prototype and a final pitch — here's what happened.

What did they learn?

Over the two weeks, students worked through the key stages of building a company — identifying a problem, researching the market, developing a business model, creating a product roadmap, defining key metrics, financial modelling, fundraising and pitching.

The camp opened with a talk by Ratmir Timashev, co-founder of TLF, who shared his thoughts on building successful technology companies:

"I am often asked: what does it take to build a successful technology company? And I always say that it's actually very simple: be in the right place at the right time and create a brilliant product."

For the students, the first step was to put this idea into practice. They formed teams, bringing together TLF students from the two partner schools, and began working on their own startup ideas.

Each day combined three connected parts: masterclasses, role-specific sessions and dedicated team work. In the morning, students explored key startup concepts with experienced entrepreneurs and investors. In the afternoon, they joined practical sessions focused on specific roles — CEO, CTO, Design or Marketing/Sales — then returned to their teams to apply what they'd learned.

Throughout the first week, many of the lectures were led by Kamran Elahian, an Iranian-American entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. His masterclasses focused on the foundations of entrepreneurship: understanding the problem, researching the market, shaping a business model and rapidly testing ideas. Students also explored how to work effectively in diverse teams, make decisions together and adapt their thinking based on feedback.

One idea that particularly stayed with the students was the importance of timing — even a strong product can fail if the market isn't ready for it. As Polina from The Island School reflected:

"I was sure the main thing in a startup is the brilliant new idea, and if it is good, it is easy to convince people they need your product. But Kamran Elahian told us how his company invented the iPad eight years before Apple did it. However, though the idea and the product were great, people were just not ready for it. And the company failed. Never had I thought that the timing and people's mindset at the moment of releasing the product could be so important."

The second week shifted from ideas to iteration. Teams pulled apart the feedback from their first pitch, sharpened their problem statements and re-ran their market sizing, then turned to the harder question of how a business actually survives: traction, execution and — eventually — how to tell that story to someone with a chequebook. Sessions with Igor Ryabenkiy, a venture investor and founder and general partner of AltaIR Capital, added a further, sharper perspective on the realities of building and financing a startup.

AI was a recurring thread throughout the camp — not as a separate subject, but as a tool students folded into different stages of their work, from planning workflows and market research to prototyping and pitch decks. The focus wasn't on using AI for its own sake, but on understanding where it could genuinely add value to the product.

Building in Teams

One of the first challenges of the camp was building the teams themselves. Students from two TLF partner schools came together in Barcelona, many meeting for the first time. They had to quickly find common ground and learn how to work with people they barely knew.

For Arseniy, this was one of the most memorable parts of the experience:

"After a whole year without any understanding of who lives on the other side of the sea, we finally met with many great people, with whom we'll surely stay in contact for a longer time now. Especially when we share the same pain and happiness even beyond the school curriculum."

Students brought different backgrounds, interests and approaches to problem-solving. As Vanya Bodiul put it:

"The process of working in a diverse team, where I only knew one person, gave me valuable insights into the obstacles of teamwork — like disagreements over ideas and internal division of team tasks — while also giving me the opportunity to meet new people and make new connections."

Working together meant more than dividing tasks. Students had to argue their ideas, make decisions and find ways to move forward as a group — skills that became essential as their projects took shape.

The afternoon role sessions fed directly into this process. As part of the Role Sessions Lab, students attended dedicated lectures on CEO, CTO, Design and Marketing/Sales roles, led by invited experts, then brought what they'd learned back to their teams — presenting progress, taking questions and applying feedback immediately.

Here's how Elias Holmen, a student at The Island School, reflects on the experience:

"The feeling of being a 'founder' to me means looking back at something awesome and understanding that you were behind all of it. We hadn't gotten very far with our idea, but I suppose I did feel proud of the effort I put in and that our 'business' was starting to sound a bit professional."

The first week culminated in a checkpoint pitch, giving each team a chance to present an early version of its project and receive feedback. The second week gave them room to rethink and improve before the final investor pitch — and for many teams, that meant real change. As Vanya Bodiul from H-FARM International School recalls:

"Did your vision of the product change during the camp? A lot of times. Twice we reshaped and specified the problem we had identified, and countless times we changed our approach to finding a solution."

From an Idea to a Startup: The Final Pitch

By the end of the camp, the teams had turned their initial ideas into defined concepts, each built around a clear problem, a proposed solution and a product ready to present.

In total, 15 teams took part in the final pitch, presenting to a panel of real investors with just a few minutes each to make the case for why their idea could become a viable business. The projects spanned a wide range of challenges — here is our Final Four:

• MOVE. focused on making rehabilitation exercises more accessible and effective, using technology to track whether patients are performing prescribed exercises correctly outside of a clinic. The team — Mira Serzhanova, Yuliia Semenyna, Dariya Bolat, Mykhailo Prysiazhniuk and Irina Rudneva — was named the camp's Top Performer and won €5,000.

• DIMENSION tackled the early detection of dementia, proposing an app to identify early signs of cognitive decline and support users in acting to slow its progression. Mikhail Ten, Volodymyr Nemesh, Nikita Pimenov and Mariia Shylo took home €3,000 for the concept.

• MusicAU, from Elizaveta Kamyshenko, Iuliia Balabanova, Vladyslav Lypnytskyi and Altair Akanov, turned guitar practice into a game — using gamification to keep learners motivated — and also won €3,000.

• Neurostride (formerly Research Key) went after personalised education: an online learning platform for AI and machine learning that adapts to each student rather than offering everyone the same pace and material. The team — Michael Ostapenko, Elias Alexander Holmén, Dimka Doronin, Alexandros Koniotis and Mikhail Ershov — received €1,000.

What made the final presentations especially striking was the distance each team had travelled in just two weeks. Asked about his most memorable moment, Arseniy pointed to what came after the pitch, not the pitch itself: 

"Those were the moments before and after our final pitch, when we gathered all our team and talked everything over. We did an amazing job, and even though we weren't the best, the time together was still full of very bright memories."

What stayed after Barcelona?

Perhaps the most important question is what the students took away from the camp. For Vanya, one of the most unexpected lessons was the value of moving quickly:

"Speed beats perfection. Given that the bootcamp was two weeks long, it didn't take long to naturally realise that, in a system under a fixed time limit, the one who does it faster wins, which is something that can also be applied to real life experience."

Polina shared her team's plans:

"Yes, I actually want to start a company. Moreover, my team continued working on our startup after the camp. Now the marketing part is the most important, so I try to post often and look for some conferences or competitions in Cyprus where we could pitch our idea. So, I am quite sure we are capable of turning this idea into a company or at least definitely gain significant experience."

The experience didn't end with the final pitch. Some teams kept developing their projects and presenting them at other events. MOVE, the camp's Top Performer, took its project to the Almaty Regional Youth Forum 2026, where it placed second among 211 participating teams.

As the team put it afterward: "This is another big step for MOVE — and definitely not the last one." For some students, Barcelona wasn't the end of a two-week exercise — it was the starting point.

Beyond the Classroom

An entrepreneurship intensive isn't only pitches, business models and spreadsheets. In the evenings and at weekends, students stepped away from the classroom to experience Barcelona and spend time together outside the camp programme.

They celebrated Sant Joan, explored landmarks including the Sagrada Família and Casa Amatller, and spent time on the city's beaches — swimming, playing volleyball, and simply relaxing together.

Away from their startup roles and daily deadlines, these moments gave students the chance to get to know each other, build new friendships and experience Barcelona beyond the university campus.

The two weeks brought together everything the students had worked on: new knowledge, practical experience, teamwork, feedback and the confidence to present ideas of their own. What began as a concept on day one had, by the final pitch, become something they could explain, defend and take seriously. Perhaps that's what happens when learning goes beyond the classroom: students don't just learn about entrepreneurship — they get to experience what it means to build something of their own.