“The X Factor” for Entrepreneurs: Singing Ideas Instead of Notes

If you’ve ever watched a talent reality show on TV and wondered why there isn’t a “The X Factor” for entrepreneurial people like you, the answer is simple: those formats do exist, though perhaps not with the prime time visibility. Until they arrive, we have to settle for something much more real than television: idea incubators.

I just graduated from one.This startup incubator SkyLab (in Valencia) is a program designed to work, polish, and present projects as if they were songs in a competition. A stage where voices are not tuned, but concepts; where the melody is your business model and the lyrics are your pitch. In short, a kind of “The X Factor” for entrepreneurial souls.

But to reach that final audition, sometimes life forces you to go through a much tougher casting first: the casting of reality.

The Accident

Reality has a habit of outdoing fiction. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. If I told you I landed at SkyLab because I broke a rib, what would cross your mind? I went from having twenty-four to twenty-five in a second; the calculation is simple: one rib was broken in two. The difficult part, for any novelist, would be explaining why.

The truth is I was riding my bicycle, staring at the asphalt on my way to work, tangled up in my usual cocktail of thoughts about tomorrow. One of the wheels slipped and I fell. And before I could get up, a scooter crashed into me. The impact was dry. The rib, poor thing, took the entire blow.

“Blessed Recovery”

The cure for a broken rib is easy for a doctor to explain: wait for it to heal. Nothing glamorous, unfortunately. No painted cast a la Frida Kahlo nor a transparent orthopedic corset worthy of Lady Gaga. Just time and patience.

Meanwhile, I was already experiencing a weary transition in my journey as an entrepreneur with my brand Wackyfuse, and that was compounded by three weeks of confinement. Three weeks during which, with every step or breath inside my studio, I felt my own rib stabbing me over and over. That hurt a lot.

Your Head Doesn’t Speak, It Screams

When something like this happens to you—an unexpected event that shatters your schemes (literally, in my case)—your head starts a major existential discourse. At first, you ignore it; you have enough to deal with feeling like a wounded character in an Agatha Christie novel, knife still stuck, sitting in your chair waiting for someone to discover the crime and finally call it quits.

But that small guiding voice, the one that initially whispers, becomes very, very insistent… and starts screaming at you! In my case, it told me: “Stop with the reflections and use this break to do something useful with your project!” And that’s how, looking for options, I found SkyLab. I applied, the door opened, and I was accepted into the program. Thank you, little voice, wherever you come from, I owe you one.

The Wonderful Days at Startup Incubator Skylab

I say wonderful because, honestly, I took away more positive than negative things; but the truth must be said: you suffer a little. As a newcomer to these types of programs, the initial adaptation is a challenge. Absorbing so much new information—financial jargon, economic concepts, and above all, the business mindset—and then organizing all that in the little head that got you there, is no light task.

I admit that the program team simplified it to the maximum potential so that anyone could follow the thread and reach the goal. Even so, success is directly proportional to the hours you invest. I, being the born hustler that I am, dedicated many hours of effort… and yes, of breaking my brain cells at times.

In the Heart of the Entrepreneur

Perhaps you’re asking yourself: “What can entering a program like SkyLab do for me?” These programs are specifically designed to support entrepreneurs with a startup.

A startup is an emerging company, often technological, designed to find an innovative business model that is quickly scalable. Entering an incubator program like Skylab gives you the strategic push you need.

These environments help you take the first step, or better yet, a good push, so that every advance has a strategic and meaningful direction. All these steps end in a pitch, which is merely a timed presentation of your project, with a limit of three to five minutes.

The pitch is the heart of the entrepreneur and their idea, explained with the most relevant and summarized points of your business model, and it is the key to starting a good conversation with an investor, which, in the end, is what every entrepreneur seeks wherever they go.

Watch Out, This Gets Addictive!

The program lasted seven months. It sounds like a lot of time, but the truth is it flies by because there isn’t a single week off. The first few days were in-person, where you meet your colleagues (and competitors, like it or not) for the first time. Then you move on to group and individual mentorships as the program content progresses.

What I won’t reveal is the exact content, because I’m not a spoiler like my mother. What I will say is that this gets addictive like a good TV series.

You go from the solitude of the entrepreneur to sharing all your traumas and pains in a group. Suddenly, you don’t feel so alone, and little by little your sky clears of so many gray clouds. You approach every day of the program with more enthusiasm. Total entrepreneurial therapy.

The Third Place, The First to Go Up

I can only say that from this entire journey I’ve learned a lot of new things from all sides (pun intended). The entire experience at startup incubator Skylab was essential. And most importantly of all, the people you meet along every path you tread, and who leave their mark on you.

From mentors to colleagues, including the administrative staff and program companions: without this great team and their dedication, not even having direct access to the Silicon Valley gurus would have helped me achieve such a solid result as the one I achieved here.

On pitch day or Demo Day, as they call it in this program, I was classified in third place. And although it sounds like a final position, it gave me the luck of being the first to go up on that stage and the first to hear my name called as a winner. Today I still have that emotional hangover. Now I truly understand the joy of the saying that the last shall be first.

And now, what is your next pitch?

My time at SkyLab was the push, or that motivational pill, I needed with my Wackyfuse project to reconnect again, to return with that excitement that is found among all of us and to gain momentum again to fly high.

The key to integrating all this new information into my Wackyfuse project is a long and deep story that warrants another publication… and it’s pending!

But the paradox of this story is that sometimes, unexpected halts are the perfect excuse to listen to yourself, improvise, and change the script.

Tell me, what was that unexpected moment in your life that forced you to rethink your path?

• If you’ve been through an incubator or have a project in mind, share your experience in the comments.
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