Joining the Incubator

Looking back to June last year, we were fresh off the heels from Baltic Ventures Launchpad and looking to take Harker to the next stage of our start-up journey. We had previously applied to the LYVA Labs Incubator in 2024 unsuccessfully, so it was a great sign that we were invited to join their 2025 cohort after a stronger application. Our team was nearing the launch of the Harker v1 platform, and we had to start making the difficult transition from development into marketing, sales, and customer support.

The support from LYVA Labs couldn’t have come at a better time for us. The incubator masterclasses equipped us with the knowledge we needed to launch Harker onto the world on the right foot. Ranging from sales to IP to commercial contracts to pitching and beyond - each masterclass delivered a surplus of expertise from both the LYVA Labs team and guest speakers from the local start-up ecosystem.

A stand out example

Beyond the knowledge, we found that most masterclasses gave us tangible takeaways, discussions that we took back to our team, and actions for us to complete that provided meaningful impact for our business.

Probably the most significant example of this, and I’m sure our team would agree with me, is the delegation of hats. We were introduced to the theory of hats in the People & Partnerships masterclass, the idea that founders wear many ‘hats’ that would each be worn by different people in a larger organisation, such as sales, HR, finance, staff management, recruitment etc. Something about this exercise seemed to resonate deeply in the mind of our CEO & Co-Founder, James, and he swiftly identified some specific Harker development hats to give away to a few of our senior software developers. Historically, James was quite protective of these aspects of the development pipeline, but handing off these duties has freed up his time, much to his (and everyone else’s) benefit! This only happened due to the fresh perspective offered by the LYVA Labs team and their meaningful incubator sessions.

Unrivalled support

As James said in his incubator video (watch it here in case you missed it!), the aspect which sets the LYVA Labs Incubator apart is the unrivalled level of one-to-one support with your account managers. These are not just advisors, they really get to know and understand your industry and your business. Being a social enterprise, a lot of the traditional start-up routes weren’t appropriate for us, but Joe and Natalie were excellent at understanding our sector, giving us fresh ideas, and challenging us to be ambitious. Further, these account manager meetings gave us accountability to actually complete the actions and exercises we were given, which sometimes we needed as a ever-busy team!

A huge thank you to the entire LYVA Labs team, especially Joe and Natalie, for their support, and thank you to all the masterclass guest speakers who offered their expertise. Thank you also to our fellow cohort members, who made every session enjoyable, insightful, and welcoming.

Applications for the next LYVA Labs cohort are now open and we couldn’t recommend it more to any deep tech or health & life science start-ups in our network!

Ready to see Harker in action?

If you’re interesting in seeing how Harker can transform your charity’s operations, or you can support us on our journey to solve homelessness with data, drop us a line or book in a demo today.