The Challenge
A beauty salon business in Romania wanted to access Start-Up Nation 2024 funding — a government grant program offering up to RON 250,000 for new businesses. The owner had the business idea and the industry expertise but no experience with EU funding applications, no understanding of the scoring criteria, and no time to learn the bureaucratic platform (platforma minimis).
What We Did
We managed the complete application process.
We handled the registration on the Start-Up Nation 2024 platform, navigating the technical requirements and document uploads that trip up most first-time applicants.
We designed the acquisitions plan (planul de achiziții), which is one of the highest-scoring components of the application. Each item was selected and justified to maximize sustainable development scoring points — not just operational necessity.
We prepared the business plan with financial projections calibrated to the scoring criteria, emphasizing job creation commitments, innovation elements, and environmental sustainability.
We optimized every scoreable section of the application against the published evaluation grid, treating the application as a product to be engineered for maximum points.
The Outcome
The client received a complete, submission-ready application with an optimized acquisitions plan, scored business plan, and all required platform registrations. The application was structured to maximize competitive positioning within the Start-Up Nation evaluation framework.
What Made This Interesting
Start-Up Nation applications look simple on the surface — fill out a form, upload some documents, submit. In reality, the scoring system is nuanced and the difference between an approved and rejected application often comes down to how the acquisitions plan is structured, whether the sustainability metrics are correctly framed, and whether the financial projections align with the evaluators' expectations. We treat every application like a strategic project, not an administrative task.