STARTeurope

Introduction

In Summer 2011, STARTeurope, STARTmunich and BambooVentures sat down together in Munich to kick off Start up Live Munich #1.  And this time we decided to focus on sustainable business ideas for the first time.

With the great support of Bosch, Weitnauer and Autodesk and the possibility to host the event at the awesome Steel Case Creative Hall of the Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship, the efforts of the organization team were rewarded. The date of the event was set to the 09. – 11.12.2011.

The goal of the event was to help innovative and sustainable business ideas getting to the next level. The creative people who presented their ideas were looking for a team, improvement of their idea, design of the corresponding business model or money to implement them. Therefore Startup Live Munich #1 provided the general framework.

Friday

On Friday, 9th December, the participants gathered in the late afternoon at Strascheg Center for Entrepeurship. Many arrived by train and some even flew in from Greece! Immediately, ideas were shared with each other and first discussions came up while eating cake and drinking coffee. Shortly after 17 o’ clock the pitches started and 8 ideas were presented. The ideas ranged from education in sustainability to software for energy efficient buildings and it was really  great to see people of so many different backgrounds working and bonding together right away.
Shortly after the presentations the teambuilding started, where the needs of ideas were matched with the skills of the participants that didn’t present an idea. In doing so, teams were formed that went to assigned group working places to start working. The goals for the weekend were defined by each team individually.

Then, STARTeurope’s creative brain Artur Lapinsch delivered  a very motivating presentation and the teams started to work. Some worked on their marketing & sales concepts; others implemented/constructed a prototype or discussed customer segments.

Saturday

The main task for the following day was: getting things done!

Around lunch time, the mentors arrived. (Serial) Entrepreneurs, clean tech experts, investors, and business angels came to support the venture teams with their experience. The mentors were introduced and then went to the group working spaces of the teams, listened to their plans, gave feedback, pointed out critical issues and suggested possible solutions. Usually, after one hour the mentors switched to the next team in order to get in touch with many different ideas. The feedback gave the participants essential insights on their business ideas. Afterwards most mentors stayed longer then planned to discuss further business ideas in a loose atmosphere.
After the mentors were gone, the venture teams refreshed themselves with excellent food & beverages and then tried to work the feedback of the mentors into their business ideas. Again, although the long night of the day before, many teams stayed till late night and worked on their ideas.

Sunday

On Sunday morning, Can Ertugrul prepared the participants with a great pitch training for the presentations in the evening. The last day was fully dedicated to the final presentations. Based on these presentations the jury consisting of Monika Nickl (VP @ Mummert & Company), Alexander Rietz (Business Manager Dii @Siemens AG), Marius Starke (Consultant @ Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, Andreas Unseld (Investment Manager @ UnternehmerTum Fund) and Michael Streich (CEO @ BambooVentures) awarded prizes in different categories.

The winners were (in no specific order):

• One month of free co-working space @ Combinat56: Sustainaville, an electronic game for children getting environmental and sustainable education
• A one day workshop with the communication agency CAMAO AG: Sayari, a web-based community that shares advice on how little things can change the world
• A one day beauty talk with BambooVentures: Small Things, an advisor you wear around your wrist that watches, learns and guides you to live more sustainable

Afterwards, we ended the event with networking, pizza and some beer to celebrate the great improvements and developments of the ideas over the weekend. During the closing, the people exchanged cards and made further plans for cooperation, mentoring or financing.

If you want to see how the event went, check out our photo album on facebook and show us some love!

We also want to thank all the partners who made Startup Live Munich #1  possible once again:

Hosts

Partner

Media partner

The journey: 4 months, 35 organizations and companies. 23 mentors and one team of 10 young entrepreneurial minds working for one vision called Startup Live Athens #1.

First days of November and while the Greek government is changing and media talk about the Greek crisis, somewhere in Athens, we witnessed a different view on what is happening during a crisis – We saw people working together, putting ideas into action and to draw a different picture than the one in the media.

We started with our pitch training ion Friday morning, in relaxed atmosphere at a coworking space in Athens. 29 pitchers were about to take the stage. On Saturday morning the number went down to 14. Teams merged in order to support stronger concept and to push them forward.

Saturday morning started with some gaming in order to get in the right mood and to keep the focus while the sun was shining over the Acropolis, which we were seeing from the Hellenic American Union.

Important ingredients to keep people focused and content are food, coffee, sweets…some beer and most important people to work with and to share the passion.

Sunday was focused on the pitches themselves. Before presenting to the audience mentors Tasos Pagakis, Head of Communication Ericsson Hellas and Katerina Kanelidou, Founder of Creative Empowerment, inspired our aspiring entrepreneurs with short talks.

The result: Over 100 people gathering for 54 hours working on 14 ideas put into action and presented as final pitches.

Winning teams and awards

• 1. Missum (John Pagonis)
  Award: Communication strategy by The Newtons
• 2. SouceLair
  Award: Business Coaching by Creative Empowerment
• 3. Yello Cities
  Award: Digital Communication- social media consultancy services by We are Social Media

The message: Make it happen!
Entrepreneurship is about teams making ideas happen. It is a journey of learning, creating, improving and growing. What we tend to forget is that businesses are created by people with a vision. This is how it starts.

This guest post was written by Konstantina Zoehrer. She decided to move from the city she was born, Vienna, to Athens and discovered there a world where passion is a way of living. She loves coffee, tea and traveling through space and time. Her latest journey is called STARTup Live Athens.

Summer 2011, the news about Greece are mostly about the crisis, strikes and demonstrations against the new austerity measures. There is much more happening in the mediterranean country and also with positive impact, even if it seems small scale at the moment.

During the last three years, fresh ideas and young people engage with the entrepreneurial ecosystem and restructuring the business world, and even society, and why not taking the crisis as an opportunity to create. A different approach on what we read in the German Edition of Financial Times some days ago, that young greeks are leaving the country due to unemployment and lack of chances.

Actually, one year ago, I was about to leave the Greece myself. It was a natural decision to me since I was born and grew up in Vienna. The door was open and I was a freelancer and just on my first real steps on my entrepreneurial journey.

What I learnt during my professional path was that culture might be one of the most important values in the business world. People admire the mentality of Silicon Valley, but can we simply copy-paste cultures? Indeed, we can bring some of its components into our culture and build on small changes.

Fact is that, I did not leave Greece. Instead of this, I started traveling as much as possible and took advantage of my intercultural background, starting not think about the components that I was missing in the local entrepreneurial ecosystem but build on them.

As, Alex Christoforou from Wadja, wrote some time ago on Mashable:

Once upon a time, Greece was the Silicon Valley of the world, full of brilliant people taking artistic, philosophical and mathematical risks. Challenging the status quo and upending common beliefs was what made the ancient Greeks so great.

What I was missing was the connection to the European and the international market and new opportunities for young people given through the tools of web 2.0 (networks), but also what was communicated about the Greek entrepreneurial ecosystem outside Greece.

So there I was, thinking what I could do. That is how STARTup Live Athens came into life during one Viennese morning at the STARTeurope HQ. In two days, a team between Athens, Thessaloniki, Vienna and Zurich was set up and we were already contacting possible mentors and partners. I still remember pitching on the phone, on 17th August, at the beach, while I was taking short vacations after two years. I was about to give up. Our team’s budget deadline was the 8th September, we had our soft launch on the 7th.

We recognized that we had to speak another language in order to move things – language of «meraki», the love for what we do, as we call it in Greek. Organizations, companies and people started to engage, because for us it is indeed more than just another event, it was our way to empower actions worth taking and stand up for our dreams, because we are too young to give up, even in a crisis.

Key facts

• Date: Sep 2nd to Sep 4th 2011
• Place: Hafnersee/Carinthia, Bled/Slovenia
• Participants: 30
• Guests: 10
• Mentors: 5
• Experts: 5
• Idea pitches: 11
  
• End presentations: 10
• Nationalities: 3
  

Mentor Driven

During the weekend, mentors and experts came by and supported the teams – founders, serial entrepreneurs, experts in marketing, biz modeling, public funding and grants, sales and law, investments, backend.
Among the mentors:

Expert Rated

The guys that decide on which team wins the weekend is always a mix of different disciplines.

On the experts panel of STARTup Live Karawanks #1 were

Aloha!

A heatwave is burning down Vienna and with temperatures of 37°C and no air conditioner in the office work becomes impossible. Thus, our team is working from cool bars, at home or from the pool. Although we still work hard, there’s a bit of summer feeling in the air and this is why I decided that this week’s Mashup won’t be about work. You should read it and afterwards go out to enjoy these last days of summer. Go for a swim, meet up with friends and leave your smartphone at home to make sure you won’t check any emails. Let life wash away your thoughts about work for at least one day. Relax, recharge your batteries and have fun!

This guest blog post was written by Kim Kashmere. Kim writes for an expat community blog that provides calling cards to Italy and Swiss calling cards. As well as writing she enjoys Travelling, Photography and Walking with her Husband and Dogs.


More people than ever are making that life changing decision to move abroad and try something different, but what start up job opportunities are there to find entrepreneurship while living abroad?

1 – If you are thinking of taking your profession (what you specialize in) abroad with you, you first need to think about whether there would be a market for your specific product or service where you are going. You could look on websites and forums to see what people’s experiences have been setting up their ventures and you can see what currently is being offered by people in the location you are bound for.

In order to compete with others you will need to offer a high quality product or service. If you can offer something unusual this will always be appealing to customers and stand you in good stead.

2 – Have a look at the real estate websites to see if there are any businesses for sale abroad that might interest you. There could be bars,  restaurants, hotels, b&b’s all up for grabs.

If you are going to consider buying a venture I would always advise going out there to see the establishment for real first and also the prices will always be better face to face. Apartments and Villas are always a good little business, as people love their holidays and what makes it so great about investing in Apartments and Villas is that you can make a return from renting them out, while at the same time  they are sitting there making you a good investment.

Obviously you must think wisely over the price you will pay and the location of the property, as this will determine how successful you will be in making money and a wise investment.

3 – Starting a franchise abroad could be just the thing for you as long as you have researched adequately enough to ensure that your product or service is suited to that particular country and to make sure that there is not too much competition around already offering the same/similar product and especially offering it for cheaper than you could go down to. For example certain products & services may be suited more towards cooler climates and others towards hotter climates and other similar variations, so there is quite a lot to take into consideration.

4 – Take a job in someone else’s business abroad to start off with, this way you can gain the experience you may need and maybe after a while you can do the same line of work yourself, then you will be more prepared and experienced, so should have a good chance of succeeding in what you do. People are always looking for staff to work in their real estate businesses especially English speaking staff, not only to help with emails but to deal face to face with any English speaking customers that come out on vacation and want to buy a property.

Also Tourism is another good business to get into as people visiting the country on holiday will be happy to have fellow native speakers giving them advice, help & tips and the customers will have more trust in native English speakers, as they can relate to them and have their native language in common.

5 – If you still can’t decide what the way forward is for you, maybe you will just have to go abroad to your chosen destination and see how the land lies.

Make sure you have enough money to finance yourself so you can live for a few months without income and see what job prospects there. You should get some business ideas or notice something that is missing from the town/city, just by being in the thick of it. If the town/city has something that it is famous for, (wine, leather, or a feature of some kind) doing something business related to that should always be successful as people are already visiting that town/city for that reason so you will already have clientele.

So here are a few ways that can help you and make it possible for you to find entrepreneurship while living abroad. You must work hard at it to start off and you will have lots of uncertainty at the beginning, but once you achieve your goal you will feel satisfied that you have managed to become a successful expat entrepreneur.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

it’s summer, it’s hot and love is in the air: we are showing all you pals & gals some big love and offer you a sweet group discount for the STARTUP WEEK 2011(you can get it going over here)!  Besides, we are still flattered by the love we received from the guys at The Next Web…speechless!

On another note: do you want to be part of the hottest entrepreneurial circle in Europe? Then check out this facebook group we created!

We hope you enjoy the Mashup and wish you bon appétit:

Something completely different to our usual job offerings, but we like it: HealthyCorner, which is offering fast & healthy food (especially breakfast) in Vienna, is looking for a manager with experience in the food service industry. Sounds interesting to you? Contact Vitus Bösch at v.boesch@qidenus.com!

The internets:

An in-depth look at what it takes to start, launch and grow a startup: Startup Lifecycle, by Fred Destin. This presentation was delivered at Mini-Seedcamp Ljubljana and boy, it is straight to the point.

“Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it.” Google’s Senior Vice President David Drummond says there is an organized patent war against Google out there.

Events coming up in Austria this week:

You have an event coming up which should be featured here? Stumbled upon something hot (like really hot)? Want us to post your job offerings? For suggestions and hints, please drop a mail to julian.sametinger@starteurope.at