About - Why we exist.

Too many capable founders spend years building the wrong thing. Not because they lack talent. Not because they are unwilling to work. But because the support structures around them rarely ask the right question early enough: is the problem you are working on actually worth solving?

In much of Europe, pre-revenue funding is scarce, many early-stage coaches have never built startups themselves, and the links between universities and the startup world are still too weak.

The institutional support that exists is often shaped by funders rather than founders — measuring enrollment and hours delivered rather than decisions made. That pushes founders to look like startups before they've shown there's a venture worth building.

The result is a readiness gap. Ideas Forward exists to close it — for founders, and for the institutions that support them.

Where we come from

Ideas Forward was founded in 2019 by Dimitrios Kourtesis, Nikolas Tsoniotis, and Stefanos Tsiakmakis — three tech startup founders who had spent years working together as coaches at OK!Thess before starting the company. Between 2017 and 2020, the three of them trained and coached 122 idea-stage and prototype-stage startup teams together.

When they started Ideas Forward, they brought that experience into a more focused, more methodologically rigorous offering — built around their own experience as founders and investors, not around a theory of what early-stage support should look like.

The company is bootstrapped, profitable, and has never raised outside capital.

Community

Ideas Forward office. We operate from a 500 sqm office in Thessaloniki that serves as the base for the team, incubated companies, and visiting founders. It is our collaboration space, not a co-working business.
Open Coffee Thessaloniki. Ideas Forward co-founder Dimitrios Kourtesis organizes Open Coffee Thessaloniki, the city's largest startup meetup, typically drawing 160 to 200 people every one to two months. Since 2007, it is a point of connection for founders, operators, investors, and people exploring startup creation in northern Greece and beyond.
Next Stage alumni network. Founders who complete Next Stage remain part of an ongoing community that extends well beyond the formal duration of the program.