Barclays Female Founder Accelerator 2023 member
Watchers App

Watchers App Limited has been created in August 2021 by four co-founders in a mission of building communities around the content that matters for different people, and turning the process of consuming it passively into a meaningful, active, and shared experience.
We started from a video-content's co-viewing and launched a standalone aggregating b2c app Watchers. It’s been a success due to a referral effect, but the business model was not very sustainable. We’ve made a pivot and now our proposition is a customized SaaS that can be easily integrated into any online platform to provide a trusted space where users of these platforms can communicate in texting and audio chats and collaborate on a content. This human sticky factor along with engagement widgets boosts the audience, grows retentions and transactions of our clients, whatever it’s a video-platform, trading, or gaming, educational or ecommerce platform.
Why did you apply for the Female Founder Accelerator?
I would like to learn how to succeed, in a trusted circle of innovative like-minded women entrepreneurs, to participate in a valuable networking, and of course to make my proposition and my business more competitive and investment-ready after finishing the program.
Do you think there's a need for programmes like this for Female Founders?
I think that the most important issue leading to disparity in founding teams’ gender, getting investment and even company growth is a significant confidence gap around these parts of business, therefore programs like this have an opportunity to provide specific support targeting knowledge and negotiating skills of female founders, especially in tech and innovations.
Why did you want to start your business?
I used to be a top manager for many years previously, but I always wanted to build my own business around ideas that inspired me, as well as to have a freedom and flexibility (even with much more responsibility and much higher risks).
What are you looking to get out of this programme?
I believe the programme will help me to guide my business through its current phase, so I will be able to:
- make my business model and strategy sustainable
- effectively reach big clients, as well as scale my business to smaller clients (to get 70-100 clients to the end of 2023 and to get ARR of 5-10 MUSD to the end of 2023)
- to raise a next round.
Which entrepreneur inspires you the most and why?
Yvon Chouinard, the creator of Patagonia – he built a business to serve his passion (of mountain climbing), and all that he had been doing is always connected to his values (environmental consciousness, simplicity, sustainability, the power of support). The money the company gets is just a logical result of acting such a way, not a target itself.
What has been your biggest win in your entrepreneurial journey?
Finding a product-market fit – when your innovative product finds the audience, the clients pay and they stay (high retention is very important not just business wise, but it gives a sense that you are really creating value).
What has been your biggest challenge?
Scaling and acquiring bigger clients. I’m not selling a product of a very first need, and it’s a b2b solution for which personal contacts and network are important. For me as an immigrant it’s a real challenge now.
Where did you go for business advice and how did it help you?
That’s exactly why I enrolled – I hope to find a way through this program.
What drives you to make your business a success?
Opportunity to bring value to companies and its clients at scale, to be recognized as a business and a business model, to achieve a welfare for the founding team, as well as personal growth and accomplishment.
What advice would you give other founders thinking about starting their own business?
Dream big and bold, don’t be afraid to start, but prepare your action plan carefully – draw different scenarios, including the worst ones, be thorough in evaluations of target audience and market, be precise in agreements with co-founders. The more is described, calculated, and put on a paper – the safer and the more effective you are. Anyway, nothing will go according to a plan – but this will be just a new milestone for creating a new plan.