In September 2019, Armand, our CTO, was among the fellows in the MIT Entrepreneurship Bootcamp program, the intensive entrepreneurship program organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The program brings together Armand's two great passions, football and entrepreneurship, and is organized in the form of a bootcamp considered "a whole semester condensed into a working week". Armand has been in entrepreneurship for over 15 years. Football has always been his passion, and for over 10 years he has been collaborating with the FC Politehnica Iași team.

Participation in the MIT Entrepreneurship Bootcamp came as a result of a careful selection process. The procedure started more than 6 months before the program and consisted of several stages. Out of over 700 applicants from all over the world, Armand was among the 70 chosen participants and among the few fellows of the program. His entrepreneurial profile and interest in sports ranked him as a candidate with high potential for the program.

The program was an extremely valuable learning experience. Mentors have been world-renowned teachers and entrepreneurs. In addition, participants were from over 28 countries, with different expertise and background. Thus, the work teams were very diverse.

Armand's team included people from Mexico, India, France, and Kuwait. Together, they had to decide on a business idea and go through all the growth stages of a start-up. The most difficult step was the first - choosing a business idea. Why? Because over 200 ideas were discussed, the emphasis being on the process of identifying the problem and not on solutions.

The 6 working days meant over 85 hours of intensive work, demanding both mentally and emotionally. The experience was not just one of learning, but of developing empathy and trust - trust in both the team and the process (trust the process).

"I realized that the experience was not just about learning, but also about trust. Confidence in team members - members you have just met, confidence in your ability to always have an open mind, confidence that you can withstand only 4 hours of sleep a night and, most importantly, confidence that, following the process, you will always be on the right track. ", says Armand.

See more about what the MIT Sports Entrepreneurship Bootcamp experience meant in the video here.

After the MIT program, Armand launched with the Brandweb team the My11 application, in which football lovers can choose their starting formula for teams in League I and II. Read more details about My11 here.

And it didn't stop there. The creative energy behind the bootcamp determined him to go further and create a product really needed in the football industry - The Football Brain (TFB) is the first local software product that offers solutions for storing, processing, and analyzing football data. With multiple modules that cover the need for financial, medical information at the club level, but also at the individual player level, TFB is the smart and reliable solution for every club eager for performance. Armand wanted to bring the digitalization of football clubs to another level and to demonstrate the importance and value of football data, which through proper analysis can become the most important tool to assist the decisions of club managers and coaches. More details about The Football Brain on https://tfb.ai/