July 13 2011
Oi!
During the last weeks the working beasts at our STARTeurope HQ in Vienna have constantly added key elements and a lot of value to the big picture of STARTeurope. It’s unbelievable to watch all this happening…boy we are blowing up like a mofo! Expect something big to happen in Q4 /2011 and as y’all know the world is ending in 2012, but not because of the Mayans but rather because of the shock STARTeurope will send throughout the world in 2012.
We’ll share some of the awesomeness with you: right now in the sweating hot city of Ljubljana, our pals from blossom.io, railsonfire and finderly are having a shot at winning Mini-Seedcamp Ljubljana. Yeah right, our startup community is betta than yours!
On to the Weekly Mashup:
More at http://www.starteurope.at/jobs/
The internets:
Alex Rosen, a former tech noob, on why you should read Hacker News even if you don’t have a clue or the power of sponge learning
Ever wondered what was the key to the great success of the entrepreneurs behind PayPal? Check out this great Quora discussion for some deep insights.
Thinking about funding? Uhuh, try this one: the anatomy of a (un)fundable startup
A Brit who made the pilgrimage to Silicon Valley to live, eat and breath the world’s leading hub for technology startup innovation, writes about how he’s been largely unimpressed and disappointed by the quality of startups over there.
Events coming up in Austria this week:
When: Tuesday, July 19th, starting 7pm
Where: Metalab, Rathausstraße 6, 1010 Vienna
What: A regular meetup of people interested in DevOps
When: Wednesday, July 20th, starting 7 pm
Where: Metalab, Rathausstraße 6, 1010 Vienna
What: A regular Meetup for Python Geeks
When: Friday, July 22nd, starting 7 pm
Where: Metalab, Rathausstraße 6, 1010 Vienna
What: An introduction to Bitcoin and a platform to exchanges thoughts and ideas on Bitcoin
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
July 10 2011
The guest post was written by @haritashtamvada, who won the STARTup Live Vienna #4 with his startup Warrantify.
I
started my entrepreneurial journey in Finland (there is more to that country than just Nokia) where I was pursuing my doctoral studies. I’ve had this idea itching in my mind for a while back then (thanks to the wonderful weather ‘up north’ it gave me ample time to think about it). As a young college grad with virtually no ‘shadow’ to bank on (read: work experience) I took the plunge and set out on solving a problem which I believe almost any consumer who has ever bought a consumer electronic device would instantly connect to: Paper based warranties and receipts and the pain of managing them (all of a sudden you realize that Murphy came up with the Murphy’s law looking at those receipts, you lose them when you want them the most!).
After a bit of pondering and convincing my professor, I quit my doctoral studies and started working on this idea which eventually took the shape of Warrantify.com, to basically challenge the fact that we don’t need ‘paper based’ warranties and receipts. They are obsolete. Instead make it digital. And we’ve set out on starting what we call is a ‘paperless movement’. The beauty in the problem we’re solving is, even your granny would say “Oh yeah, Finally! Someone’s doing this!” *sigh *.
I guess, things started looking bright for my startup life when I decided to participate in the STARTup Live #4 event at Vienna, Austria conducted by STARTeurope. I think people were wondering, what on earth is this guy from India, who studies in Finland doing here in Austria? But I guess, the beauty of such events is your nationality doesn’t matter – it’s your idea and the ability to make a convincing case around it, which matters. After a weekend of brainstorming at the event which by the way, had some amazing and highly motivated folks to help us investors, angels, people from diverse backgrounds, the guys who’ve been-there-done-that, all-in-all a great mix of innovative people making it a fertile ground for you to really test your idea and get the right feedback. Eventually, our team went on to win the contest and kind of validated our belief that this could be a viable business opportunity and more so for me personally as it gave a HUGE morale boost, the much wanted ‘psychological push’ which gets you going. May be that was the turning point of my entrepreneurial career? Since then, we’ve made good progress in building our platform, getting consumers as well as retailers on board…
So how has the journey been so far? Super rough. Educating. Enriching with a steep learning curve. But looking back, Entrepreneurship is not for the faint hearted. Period.
You’ll come across lots of moments when you’ll feel like “What the heck, the bank balance is near zero and I need to get my hands on that cool gadget out in the market last week” and worse still, you really want to hire that hacker guy to do the awesome coding he does, but cannot pay him, although you’d hand out that check if you really could write one. The ‘Angels’ are looking for ‘traction’ and something ‘concrete’ (which is highly ironical in the sense that you need those funds to build something concrete). Trust me, I’ve been through all this. At the end, you’d have to take a call, is this for me? Can I handle the rough terrains ahead?
In recent times lots of people think being an entrepreneur is ‘sexy’. Well, the hard truth is the road ahead has a LOT of scary turns and bumps, which make people drop out mid-way, often dejected. But starting up is a long journey and success is not an equation or an end result, it’s a continuous process. There is no magic formula to succeed in the tumultuous road ahead but my experience of being an entrepreneur so far has taught me that hard-work and persistence pays. You need to believe in your vision. Having a good team makes it easy to travel the distance AND keeping things bloody simple helps. As Naval Ravikant once tweeted “Persistence beats timing. Execution beats luck. Not immediately, but eventually”, I think it speaks volumes about why believing in what you do is important. If you don’t believe in it yourself, how would you convince others? Easier said than done, but I think the mantra to succeed in a startup is – stick to the basics, do things right AND talk to your customers. It just works!
July 6 2011
Mirëdita!
We’ve been to Prishtina again – this time, the location was the same (American University of Kosovo) BUT the format was quite different than the traditional STARTup Live. We called it a Casting and well…we were looking for the (potentially) hottest Web- and Mobile Startups in Kosovo.
Sounds interesting, huh? Get all the goodness here:
http://www.starteurope.at/3944/roundup-of-startup-live-casting-prishtina
Want to see a STARTup Live happening in your town? Drop us a mail and we’ll work something out!
Sooo…what’s buzzing these days?
Tripwolf howls for Mobile Application Developers for iPhone and Android: http://goo.gl/fo7NT
Play.fm turns up the music and is offering good vibes for Blackberry Devs, iPhone Devs, Web-Frontend Devs, Backend Devs, MySQL Experts and Interns: http://goo.gl/Ys9vb
TunesBag.com wants to groove with Mobile Applications Developers for iPhone and Android: http://goo.gl/YdtqZ
Finderly is looking for a PHP Developer to build their ship: http://goo.gl/j98Ix
Yasssu wants to conquer the world with an International Sales Manager:http://goo.gl/qRxh9
Hack the world with IP SQUARE as a Software Developer: http://goo.gl/Ns7On
More at http://www.starteurope.at/jobs/
The internets:
Aaaight, Google + is still the hottest thing right now but facebook isn’t sleeping at all: they just have launched three new products!
Fred Wilson is having a few thoughts on European Startups
Sandboxer Dave Radparvar of Holstee on how one single picture can boost your startup like hell or how you can’t plan the extraordinary
The guys from 500 Startups explain how to recruit rockstars like Ari Gold from Entourage.
Events coming up in Austria this week:
When: July 8-10, all the friggin’ weekend long
Where: Metalab, Rathausstraße 6, 1010 Vienna
What: How the environmental movement lost focus and why we urgently need an informed, science based environmentalism.
When: Wednesday, July 13th, 6-8 pm
Where: TheHub Vienna, Lindengasse 56, Top 17-18 (court entrance), 1070 Vienna, Austria
What: How the environmental movement lost focus and why we urgently need an informed, science based environmentalism.
When: Friday, July 15th, 10-12 am
Where: TheHub Vienna, Lindengasse 56, Top 17-18 (court entrance), 1070 Vienna, Austria
What: How the environmental movement lost focus and why we urgently need an informed, science based environmentalism.
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
July 1 2011
Key Facts
- When: June 11th to June 12th 2011
- Where: American University in Kosovo (Prishtina)
- 35 Participants
- 25 Guests
- 6 Mentors
- 5 Experts
- 7 Teams
- 3 Teams competing at Final Challenge
- Team invited to STARTup WEEK 2011:
The Pitchers
Final Round Competitors
- FindD
a location-based job platform to find developers according to different criteria
- Penguin Community
an educational video platform that is localized and aims to fill the gaps in the established, formal education system.
- The Pitchers – working title
knowledge accumulation meets game dynamics on a platform (“the universe”) that is aimed at youngsters
STARTup Live returns to Prishtina
STARTeurope came back to Prishtina after one year again! This time, the location was the same (American University of Kosovo) BUT the format was quite different than the traditional STARTup Live. We called it a Casting and well… we were looking for the (potentially) hottest Web- and Mobile Startups in Kosovo. And they came: about 35 participants in seven teams started on Saturday. After an intense pitch training, there was an extended business model session, both held by Can Ertugrul and being amazingly supported by the mentors we flew in from Vienna and Vilnius: Mark Tuttle, Bernhard Thalhammer and Kushtrim Xhakli.
On Sunday, we switched to competition mode, brought in some additional local mentors and IT industry experts from Tirana, Albania to get the best teams in shape for the final showdown that night. All teams went through several rounds of revision, iteration and refinement of their concepts, with some of them even dumping their original ideas alltogether. Some would say, the pressure was almost too big, but in my view, it’s absolutely okay to let go from a project early on if it turns out to be not rock-solid. Failure is fine! In fact, eliminating “wrong paths” quickly is priceless. “Fail fast, die hard” should be the credo (especially as the startup scene allows for rapid resurrection!) Three teams survived all the way to the end and competed for tickets to STARTup WEEK 2011 in Vienna.
…. and the winner is:
The Pitchers
as you can guess from their name, their Pitch was convincing 
They now have the whole summer to basically work off their asses to get ready for the StartUp
Week, where they will participate at the StartUp Challenge and compete with 49 other startups for
10 slots to pitch in front of a panel that makes you lick your fingers.
It was great to be in Prishtina (again) and we are looking forward for the next chance to go there!
[STARTeurope Team Prishtina: over and out ]
[foldup title='
“The Pitchers" of Kosovo by Çelik Nimani, editor-in-chief of PCWorld magazine (Albanian edition) '] [/foldup]
A small country branded “The young Europeans” had a quite fired up weekend on the startup
scene. After intense days of pitch training, mentoring and competition “The Pitchers” were the ones
who “survived” and won the Startup Live Casting in Prishtina – a gateway to the European Startup
Festival happening in Vienna in October.
During the days of 11-12th June a small auditorium of the American University of Prishtina wasn’t
big enough for the bright ideas of the ambitious startup guys from Kosovo, who pitched many great
ideas from next generation learning systems to mobile apps for fighting the country’s corruption.
Can Ertugrul from i5invest spiced up the audience, giving advice on great pitching techniques and
next big things to motivate the participants, illustrated by various examples of success and failure.
“I pitch, therefore I am” (… Guy Kawasaki)”
To move ideas to the next level, Startup Live Prishtina made sure to bring experts from Vienna and
local mentors with international experience. After completing half-baked pitches on the first day it
was clear that these young potential startup guys could benefit a lot from mentors Mark Tuttle (I
have to call him “Wordsmither”), Bernhard Thalhammer (“The Yes Man”) and of course Can Ertugrul
(“The One”), in return the mentors were welcomed to join the traditional-great-hospitality dinner
covering startup topics.
“Pitching makes perfect”
To combine the model of local vs international experience the organizers brought mentors with
international experience. Kushtrim Xhakli (“The Deal closer”) and Arianit Dobroshi (“Master Joda”)
worked intensively on spreadsheets for modeling costs, revenue models and identifying the
problems of bootstrapping or refining a business model with every new customer.
After hours of engagement “The Penguin Community”, “The Pitchers” and “finD” were three out of
six teams to pitch on the big stage competing for the prize. The dropouts decided to stand back and
watch fearing failure.
The Penguins
Description:
The Penguins proposed to create a web-based community where people post articles, documents and ideas that directly contribute to a better life in the community. This way, users earn points which give an overview of who is contributing most to the community. The business idea is focused on the community side, so money would have to come from donations and NGOs.
Achievements:
Description: They already did have a brand, a preview of their web page and a way to make our living better.
Things to work on:
Too many similar projects around and potential investors might not be not interested.
The Pitchers
Description:
The Pitchers had a very good presentation, a business idea and a monetization model defined. They want to enhance the classical ways of education by challenging it with an interactive game structured in circles, which represent “knowledge galaxies” that connect with other circles of knowledge, and they expand circle by circle.
As Xhakli said, it’s sort of “Angry Birds meets Wikipedia”. There’s also the revenue model story, besides interactive learning of chemistry or math, companies can use the model to engage users by showing their products in an interactive way.
Achievements:
They convinced the jury and… won!
Things to work on:
They need to team up and make a working product for, “Startup Week”, the European Startup Festival.
finD
Description:
finD is highly qualified in technical terms, and they had an idea that should be competitive in thecontext of freelancer.com or elance.com. They try to build up a web/mobile service (they already have a working prototype) that could serve companies looking for a developer or designer close to them, and vice versa designers or developers can locate companies that post job offers.
Achievements:
The team demonstrated its working prototype and projected seven-digit revenues three years after launch.
Let’s see whether they can deliver on part two!
Things to work on:
In spite of their strong technological background, the presentation did not quite convince the expert panel, especially in the light of facing some big fishes as head-on competitors.
Wrap-up
During these two days, everyone learned a huge lesson on the startup business that they should keep in mind. Everyone was thrilled to be there and started practicing approaches, designing solutions and making field testing.
Before moving on to making a toast for the great time that everyone had, one should not forget everyone that helped to make this event happen in Kosovo.
First of all IPKO Foundation, a local NPO working towards improving the high tech entrepreneurial environment in Kosovo, then UNI Group under the leadership of its president Valmir Mustafa who did a great job organizing the event, then the guys from STARTeurope, a Vienna-based team that sets out to stimulate entrepreneurial
action and thinking around Europe, and ECiKS – an organization focused on promoting investments in Kosovo. There was also Unique, a junior enterprise team from Albania, which supported the event and brought some additional action to the second Startup Live event in Prishtina.
Well let’s say we will be seeing more and more ideas on next year’s event so stay tuned for more news from Kosovo’s startup scene, which is shaping gradually.
UNI Group and STARTeurope would like to thank Çelik Nimani for contributing this coverage of our event.
[foldup title="Impressions"] [/foldup]
You can also watch our selected event pictures directly at our Flickr page.
Photographs courtesy to Çelik Nimani and Can Ertugrul.
[foldup title="Mentor Driven. Expert Rated."]
[/foldup]
Mentors/Jury
-
Mark Tuttle – biogy.com (Austria / USA)
-
Arianit Dobroshi – FLOSS Kosova (Kosovo)
-
Bernhard Thalhammer – firstlovecapital (Austria / Japan)
-
Besnik Krasniqi – Business Startup Center Kosova (Kosovo)
-
Kushtrim Xhakli – xhakli.com, Fast Europe Ventures (Lithuania / Kosovo)
Trainers/Coaches
- Can Ertugrul Can is working for i5invest, a leading Vienna-based incubator for web and mobile startups. i5invest ist a member of the Vienna-based web- and mobile startup cluster IntialFactor, a “one-stop shop“ for entrepreneurs. Together with two of Austria’s most highly recognized business angels, he now focuses on creating a novel online payment solution, “payolution“. His university studies and professional roles already took him to places as diverse as Hong Kong, China, Ukraine or Turkey. Before Can joined i5invest, he was an active member of STARTeurope, the co-host of Startup Live Casting Prishtina. On behalf of STARTeurope and Initial Factor, Can frequently serves as the cluster’s lead pitch trainer and business model consultant, coaching individuals and teams in Austria and abroad. Can visited Prishtina for the first time in June 2010 as part of the follow-up program for successful startup teams formed during last year’s event.
- Marius Starcke Marius is working at TheMerger, a boutique M & A advisory and business development consultancy for web and mobile startups. TheMerger, with its offices in Vienna and San Francisco, is another member of the Intial Factor cluster. His previous experiences within the IT landscape range from key account management at a multimedia agency in Germany via offshoring management in India to international sales channel marketing at IBM. In 2010, Marius temporarily joined Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. Since his return to TheMerger, he has been actively involved in raising the first ‘Super Angel Fund’ for the Alps & Danube region, which is due to launch this summer. As an early member of STARTeurope, Marius led the team’s internationalization efforts and has attended more than a dozen startup events across Central and Eastern Europe as a mentor. Together with Valmir of UNI Group, Marius co-organized last year’s event in Prishtina and has visited Kosovo in this context already several times.
[foldup title="Thanks to our Partners and Organizers"]
[/foldup]
Thanks to all our partners who made this possible. Supporting a crazy bunch like us cannot be easy
Nah honestly, you rock. Thanks.
lead sponsor
ipko foundation [ www.ipkofoundation.org ] IPKO Foundation is a local operating foundation in Kosovo. Its goal is to seed and support the development of the next generation of leaders with a digital vision for Kosovo. These young leaders may come from any sector or discipline but are united in their embrace of technology, Internet and the information society.
venue and coaching partners
American University of Kosovo [ www.aukonline.org ] American University in Kosovo is the only non-profit private university in Kosovo. Teaching is in English, and students are enrolled in degree programs at Rochester Institute of Technology.
Initial Factor [ www.initialfactor.com ] Initial Factor is a Vienna-based cluster initiative that serves as a one-stop-shop for web and mobile startups in Central Europe.
Organizers
UNI Group [ www.uni-group.org ] Founded in 2006, UNI Group is the first junior enterprise in Kosovo. It has been working to establish partnerships with businesses, academic and governmental institutions in Kosovo, as well as with student consultancies throughout Europe. In 2008, UNI Group joined JADE (The European Confederation of Junior Enterprises) as Consultative Member, and represents Kosovo within this network.
STARTeurope [ www.starteurope.at/ ] STARTeurope aims to stimulate entrepreneurial action and thinking in Europe by enabling people to realize their own business ideas and successfully launch new companies. Using concepts like Start-up Live, complementary skill sets are linked in new venture teams. The organisation was founded in 2009 by graduates of universities in Vienna.
eciks [www.eciks.org] With its professionalism and dedication, ECIKS has grown to be the leading organization in investment promotion for Kosovo. Independently or through donor-funded projects, ECIKS has served more than 100 foreign companies. With many of them already generating profits in Kosovo, ECIKS seeks to contribute to a prosperous and dynamic Kosovo, fully integrated in the European Union.
Supporters
unique [ www.uni-que.org ] unique is the first junior enterprise in Albania, founded in 2009. likewise to its sister organization UNI Group, unique works towards partnerships with local businesses and academic and institutions, as well as with student consultancies in other parts of Europe. unique joined JADE as the networks first Albanian partner organisation in 2010.
Media partners
Indeksonline [ www.indeksonline.net ] Indeksonline.net is a newly established news agency based in Pristina. With a fresh and easy-oriented design, it contains everything you need to know about Kosovo: the political, economic, showbiz and sports events. And, it’s quick and original as the motto goes. With only the first anniversary approaching Indeksonline.net was quoted several times for its exclusive reporting, not only by the main-stream media in Kosovo, but in the region as well.
June 30 2011
Hello world!
From the beautiful city of Vienna, we’d like to herald great news for you: we have scored new awesome speakers for the greatest startup event in history, the STARTup Week. From next week on, we’ll also have additional troops moving into the office to push things even harder.
Besides, we are working like maniacs on pimping STARTeurope behind the scenes. No spoilers yet, but we’ll keep you updated here and boy, you’ll gonna love our plans to take over the world.
So what’s hot this week?
You are a Web Developer? Yasssu wants you! http://goo.gl/3ysYD
Finderly hopes to find a Business-Allrounder-Intern: http://goo.gl/ig3w1
Groupon Vienna offers a special deal to a Sales Manager: http://goo.gl/0Bqp5
Garmz wants to dress up their website and is looking for a Junior Web Designer http://t.co/q4xaMTG
More at http://www.starteurope.at/jobs/
The internets:
The hottest topic on the internets right now definitely is Google + . With all the buzz around it, these people who were saying that they like G+ and its features, but it lacks the people were maybe missing the news that 500,000 Android devices are activated every day . If you have already tried G+ and liked it, then here’s your guide on how to invite your entire graph from facebook.
We think you should also read this:
If you are in a startup and you are working 24/7 like most entrepreneurs then you might be doing your startup more harm than doing good
Mark Suster shares 10 Marketing Lessons for managing marketing at an early stage startup
The founders of Grinnit have shut down their business and as every entrepreneur should know how to deal with failure, every entrepreneur should read their 5 takeaways from folding a startup
Events coming up in Austria this week:
When: Friday, July 1st, starting 10 am
Where: Lindengasse 56, Top 17-18 (court entrance), 1070 Vienna, Austria
What: Join us on Friday and learn more about how community based energy systems can give access to electricity for people in developing countries!
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
June 20 2011
Hello folks,
It’s time for the latest Monday Mashup! From now on, we’ll also include the latest job offerings from our network – if you are a startup and want us to post your job offerings, just drop us a mail and we will happily support you.
So what’s hot this week?
Groupon Vienna offers a special deal to a Sales Manager: http://goo.gl/0Bqp5
Finderly hopes to find a Business-Allrounder-Intern: http://goo.gl/ig3w1
You are a Web Developer? Yasssu wants you! http://goo.gl/3ysYD
Garmz wants to dress up their website and is looking for a Junior Web Designer http://t.co/q4xaMTG
More at http://www.starteurope.at/jobs/
The internets:
Europe gets geeks: the EU is defining its digital future
How changing the name of a webapp can quadruple your signups
Privacy, Publicness, and the Web: A Manifesto
How to license your intellectual property
Must see: Mike Lee’s killer keynote on understanding product & design of successful apps
Events coming up in Austria this week:
When: Monday, June 20th, starting 7 pm
Where: sektor5 coworking spaces, Siebenbrunnengasse 44, 1050 Vienna
What: “Die richtige Vorbereitung zum Bankgespräch oder für den Förderantrag.” Bei uns plaudern Bankenprofis und Fördervergeber über die TO DOs und DONTs für erfolgreiche Kredit- und Fördervergabe.
Online Stammtisch
When: Tuesday, June 21 at 7:00pm
Where: Villon Weinkeller, Habsburgergasse 4, 1010
What: Gathering of online enthusiasts for good food, good drinks and discussing the latest online trends.
Atlassian User Group Austria
When: Wednesday, June 22 at 4:00pm
Where: Museumsquartier, Raum D – Museumsplatz 1, 1070
What: Quarterly meeting of the Atlassian User Group Austria.
Design Thinking Workshop
When: Monday, June 27th, 5-9 pm
Where: TU Wien, IKN Seminarraum
What: Do you want to learn how to create great user interfaces and an extraordinary user experience for your mobile products? For our next MoMo event on June 27 we have got a very special treat for you: Two fantastic experts from Germany, Ahmet Emre Acar and Werner Alexander Jansen, will hold a workshop at TU Wien and introduce a small group of 20 MoMo people to the process of “Design Thinking”, a method from Silicon Valley that teaches to balance analytical and intuitive thinking – the rational and the emotional – for the solution and prototyping process when creating products.
If you want to work with Ahmet and Werner you have to apply via email (contact@mobilemonday.at) until June 20th and let us know why you want to be part of this workshop. Applicants with the best answer will be chosen. We will let you know if you are in via email.g on tools, services and projects dealing with Visualization, Apps-creation and Portals/Catalogs for Open [Government] Data.
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
June 13 2011
Ladies and Gentleman,
enjoy the latest Monday Mashup by STARTeurope:
So what’s hot this week?
The internets:
Startup-Zen in a few words
Do startups really need to hire social media experts?
Peter Thiel on why there is no tech bubble
Embrace your competitors!
A must read: launch your site too soon
Events coming up in Austria this week:
MeetUp: Portals, Apps & Visualizations for Open Government Data
When: Wednesday, June 15th, 7-9 pm
Where: The Hub Vienna, Lindengasse 56, Top 17-18 (court entrance) 1070 Vienna
What: A MeetUp focusing on tools, services and projects dealing with Visualization, Apps-creation and Portals/Catalogs for Open [Government] Data.
Stefan’s Usability Sprechstunde
When: Wednesday, June 15th, 4-6 pm
Where: sektor5 coworking spaces, Siebenbrunnengasse 44, 1050 Vienna
What: Our exclusive FREE USABILITY-SERVICE #3 for everybody who …
… needs an expert opinion on a website or product design in any stage of completion (from sketches on a napkin to finished websites)?
… has a functioning website (beta version or launched) and want to test it for usability problems?
… has doubts whether a design works and needs a neutral outside opinion?
… focuses on providing information and you want to make sure customers find what they are looking for?
… wants someone create wireframes for initial testing or reviews before building an app or website
register here
Social Gaming Mixer #1
When: Thursday, June 16th, 7-10pm
Where: Ronahi, Schottenfeldgasse 18, 1070 Vienna
What: Der erste Social Gaming Vienna Mixer findet statt. Social Gaming Vienna ist eine Plattform für lebhafte Diskussionen, spannende Vorträge und knallharte Workshops rund um das Thema Social Games.
You have an event coming up which should be featured here? Stumbled upon something hot (like really hot)? For suggestions and hints, please drop a mail to julian.sametinger@starteurope.at
June 10 2011
How has everything changed since the Dot Com Boom
The guest post was written by @thomasdoane, who is a freelance writer, consultant, and expert in International Shipping systems.
Groupon filed for IPO status on June 1st, a few weeks after LinkedIn’s stock-debut hit the ball out of the park, selling off their stock at 200% of the expected price per share their first day up to bat. Trading in LinkedIn stock that day has been described variously as a ‘feeding frenzy’, ‘an uptick’, ’an orgy’, ‘a triumph’, etc. The media has been buzzing with ominous forecasts about ‘the coming tech-bubble.’ Groupon’s filing for IPO status feeds into this dense admixture of excitement and paranoia. Surely Facebook will be next.
Groupon’s offering price is $750 million. But don’t be fooled: this number is just a place-holder that’s been tamped down to help calculate filing fees. To put things into perspective, LinkedIn’s asking price was $175 million and on its first day in the market it was valued at $9 billion, a valuation exceeding its penny ante by a multiple of 51. If these proportions are in anyway predictive of Groupon’s valuation—it is hard to say whether Groupon will fall short of or exceed LinkedIn’s exponential valuation—then, hypothetically, Groupon could expect to be valued at $38 billion once its brought to market. In that case it would certainly outrun the $6 Billion dollar offer that Google made to buy out the company last December. But that’s science fiction at this point. Certainly it hasn’t happened yet, nor is it likely to happen at that level.
Groupon’s debut is, however, likely to dwarf Google’s 2004 debut, when the search engine giant raised $1.4 billion on its first day. At that should be enough to give us pause. While Groupon has shown great earning potential can its functionality and potential profit be compared to Google’s? Probably not.
Nevertheless, I’d like to argue that whether or not we’re entering a bubble, we are not entering a bubble that has anything much in common with the dot com bubble. The difference is that the services that are now coming to market actually have proven strategies and are already seasoned, and profitable. That is a stark contrast from what we went into in 1995 and came out of—painfully—in 2000.
What is the essential difference? Groupon’s deal delivery system is incredibly sophisticated, highly functional, and its projections are credible. While rising competitors create some unknowns, generally speaking, Groupon is a known quantity. Like international shipping, it is a global network bringing packages especially intended for you to your door. And it provides a real service. Dot com’s expected people to come to them and all they provided when you got there was a bunch of cheesy ad-images and links. The sort of thing that doesn’t even fly on a self-respecting blog today.
A Problem of Perception: Dot-coms vs. Social Media Marketing
Ever since the buzz about the ‘coming tech bubble’ started – roughly speaking, sometime in the last month—I’ve noticed myself having this conversation a lot:
Some Guy: Where did you say you work again, man?
Me: I work at a locally well-known marketing and SEO company.
Some Guy: Oh, really! Wow, so that’s like a Dot-com, right?
Me: No. Actually it’s nothing like a Dot-com. We work for our clients in a close partnership. It’s not like we just host a bunch of advertisements on a site that has funny graphics of kittens or aliens.
Some Guy: Wow. If I were you, I would start my own company.
Me: Actually, it would be an act of insane hubris for me to start my own company and it would probably fail immediately unless I was extremely well-capitalized. We have an extremely complicated process that involves a lot of highly-specialized, seasoned people focusing on their mission-specific jobs. It’s taken us years to form business partnerships. And we still only get paid on a results-based system. You have no idea what it would take to go out and…
Some Guy: Yeah, but you should just go make your own company. You can be a millionaire! I wish I were in your industry! If I were in your industry I would be a millionaire!
At this point, I politely terminate the conversation or change the subject. I’ve had this conversation with two of the baristas at the café where I go for lunch. I’ve had this conversation with the guy who does landscaping for my landlord. I’ve had this conversation with tons of older folks from my father’s generation. They don’t get it. I work at a business that produces a reliable, scalable product by means of an extremely complex and refined process. It takes work. It takes elbow grease.
I’m guessing their perception is somehow connected to the buzz in the news lately: the Skype buyout, Groupon Now’s rollout and LinkedIn’s stock debut. All of which have happened in the last month.
Portents: LinkedIn’s Stock Debut & Big Skype Buyout
Thursday May 19th: LinkedIn’s stock debuted at twice its projected asking price. The company’s valuation shot up to $9 billion by day’s end, and shortly after the closing bell the blogosphere was abuzz with interpretations and predictions based on the day’s events.
A common sentiment appeared as the opening line in The Buffalo News: “There was an unmistakable echo of the Dot-com boom Thursday on Wall Street.”
The article goes on to recap the surge in LinkedIn’s stock prices over the course of the day. Issued at an asking price of $45, the price of shares jumped to $122 dollars before lunch and closed at about $95 dollars —better than 200% of the expected price tag – having sold 30 million shares.
Let’s see: 30m X 95 = $2.85 billion. That’s an impressive amount for anyone to rake up in one day. It’s the highest valuation for any internet company since Google’s 2004 debut. And let’s be frank: LinkedIn is no Google. The potential functionality and opportunities for monetization at LinkedIn—even at their outermost limits—do not approach anything like the revenue levels Google has achieved.
The company’s revenue for next year is projected to be a mere $500 million. These ratios, then, are admittedly tilted. Google trades at about 5 times their projected revenue. With a market value of $9 billion, LinkedIn is trading at 18 times their projected revenue. It’s going to be hard for their revenue to catch up with such an optimistic valuation, no matter how you slice it.
All of this happened just a few weeks after Microsoft bought Skype—a company that’s actually been running in the red—for $8 billion. Meanwhile Facebook is surging behind the scenes and Apple’s brand valuation grew by 81% last year. A cloud-based revolution is coming, we are told.
So it’s understandable that people are nervous about a bubble. And, indeed, I’ll venture an amateur forecast: whoever bought LinkedIn stock last on the 19th of May and is still holding onto all of their shares two years later is going to be experiencing some serious buyer’s remorse. I’ll bet you a round at happy hour, bottom dollar: LinkedIn’s valuation is not sustainable. Microsoft is going to have trouble making the money they spent on Skype back from Skype alone—although, depending on how they bake it into to their total brand package, I’ll bet their $8 billion gamble will pay handsomely in the end.
However, these two risky run-ups do not a bubble make.
I would argue that robust growth in the tech sector this year has not been a harbinger of another bubble anything like the one we saw pop in March 2000. To prove my case I’ll have to use anecdotal evidence. The main difference I find is that in the late 90’s the ‘Dot-coms’ did not actually produce any product or service.
Dot-coms relied on ad revenue projections. Their long-term performance—and even their short-term performance—were not measurable or quantifiable. They were not self-monitoring. In short, their business model and process had nothing whatsoever in common with the contemporary tech industry’s model and process. The only similarity is that ‘Dot-coms’ made use of the internet, and so do we.
And we’re going to keep doing what we do, growing in tandem with the recovering economy. So calm down, everyone.
June 5 2011
Knock, knock! Who’s there? It’s the Monday Mashup, delivered to you hot and fresh. We have some big things cooking at the moment and one is going to really blow your hat off: the STARTup Week, happening in Vienna from October 3rd to October 7th. Together with Initial Factor and TechCrunch Vienna we will celebrate a one-week startup festival that people will remember as the best startup event in 2011. Check by our facebook page to stay tuned for more and show us some love!
So what’s hot this week?
The internets:
How legal is content scraping?
Mark Suster on why startups should raise money on the top end of normal
Bitcoin tries to revolutionize the currency market
How Virgin became a part of the commercial space industry
Events coming up in Austria this week:
IncrediblEurope Summit 2011
When: June 8-10
Where: Kursalon Vienna / BM fuer Arbeit, Soziales & KS
What: At the IncrediblEurope Summit members of the IncrediblEurope network jointly work on the elaboration of Europe’s shared, sustainable future and specific actions for the following year.
It’s not in Austria, but this week we’ll also have our STARTup Live Casting in Pristina!
When: June 11-12
Where: American University in Kosovo, Germia Campus Nazim Gafurri 21 10,000 Prishtina
What: We’ll make Prishtina our basecamp for recruiting the region’s top teams from the domain of web and mobile technologies for the above mentioned STARTup Week!
You have an event coming up which should be featured here? Stumbled upon something hot (like really hot)? For suggestions and hints, please drop a mail to julian.sametinger@starteurope.at
June 3 2011
Key facts
- Date: May 27th to May 29th 2011
- Place: MS HQ, Vienna
- Participants: 110
- Guests: 82
- Mentors: 21
- Experts: 6
- Idea pitches: 27
- Venture teams: 19
- End presentations: 13
- Nationalities: 8
The fifth STARTup Live Vienna!
How come we are always amazed that this stuff works? Strange, after two years, but that’s how it is.
As we set out to organize our fifth event in our birth town, the third event in six weeks, we were tight on resources strapped for energy and rich in passion. We had all we needed. And oh lordy, did it kick ass? O yes it did. O yes indeed.
Out of the 27 pitches, 17 of the pitchers had been schooled during the pitch training. This showed and resulted in 19 groups forming on Friday evening. We had teams formed in the areas of e-biz, social, mobile, music, construction and dating. Most of them no longer “chilling alone” *snicker* but joining up with guys from all over the place: bizzies, techies, designers, vets(!), teachers…
Friday evening we were also joined by Markus Wagner and Oliver Holle who talked about their lives as entrepreneurs raising money, moving to the US and exiting their company 3 United a few years back. Also, Oliver has just launched Speed Invest, a new early stage fund of €10M! It was publicly announced for the first time at our event!
Their view on the subject is a tad different from what Daniel Mattes mentioned in Hagenberg:
- acting without a biz plan is not always the best way to go about it.
- But, before you try to plan, do get out of the building and TALK to the potential customers.
- Do not act upon your vision without validating the need, solution and willingness to pay!
- After that you plan.
- After that you execute.
To make sure it sticks: Verify your theories. Then do what it takes.
Sometimes plans help. But in most cases you can’t keep’m anyways so why bother with the details?
The scene in Vienna has changed over the last two years – peergroups, Steakups, incubators, us, Sektor5, media, funds… Blimey, it’s all coming along quite well! Every year it seems a Viennese startup wins Seedcamp. We have some of the biggest and baddest (in a good sense) VC’s investing in Austrian startups. This lill town is letting go of it’s crappy bureaucratic shackles and beginning to work it from the right direction: startups helping each other.
Saturday morning we were joined by Can who gave a presentation on the biz model canvas and after that by Andreas Klinger giving a talk about what he has learned in the last few years of building garmz.com. Check out the presentation here! It’s a good one.
Also, Jamila and Linda from mFarm, a mobile startup from Kenya visited us and told us what they have been doing since winning IPO48 in Nairobi in 2010.
The founders talk which took place on Saturday evening was full. We had three awesome people to pepper with questions, telling us their real war-stories. Bruno Haid (founder & CEO work.io, founder of System ONE), Alexander Kirk ( cofounded netvibes and now working on his own projects) and Chris Clay (CEO and cofounder of soup.me). Awesome knowledge to be gained from simply daring to ask more personal questions. How does private life and startup life work? Hehe yeah I still wonder that
Prizes
The winners were selected by the experts panel consisting of investors, tech geeks, CEOs and startup coaches. The prizes we managed to pull together this time were
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, design, backend architecture, social media marketing and many more.
Among the mentors:
- Bruno Haid – product, strategy, grants, design
- founder & CEO work.io
- founder System ONE
- Andreas Klinger – social software
- cofounder garmz.com
- cofounder Die Socialisten
- Christof Strasser- Lawyer
- hvk.at
- Alex Pinter – marketing, sales, strategy, negotiations, grants
- founder & CEO insposo.com
- Isabella Frey – Grants
- Coach ZIT
- Martin Sirlinger – finance (grants), marketing & sales
- Founder ciinvest.at
- Coach mingo.at
- Lukas Bürger – design
- cofounder De White Sign
- Michael Handler – tech- payolution.com
- Thomas Friedschröder – Enterpreneurship, Innovation, Businessmodels- phantasiemanufaktur.at
- Michael Kamleitner – social media, web, technology in general
- cofounder & CEO Die Socialisten
- Helge Fahrnberger – product development, social media, social software, maps, online journalism
- cofounder Toursprung
- Dietmar Dahmen – marketing- Creative director DDB
- Niko Alm – Media – www.mikromischkonzern.eu – www.super-fi.eu
-
Gerald Stangl – UX and Design – co-founder & chief’o'UX @ mySugr.com
-
Sebastian Heinzel – Marketing, Team-Building
– co-founder and CEO of tripwolf
-
Matej Ftacnik – Developer
– Co-founder and CEO of iNOVA sys
-
Alexander Trieb – Finance, Mobile, Technology, Management – co- founder of tripwolf
-
Manfred Wuits – tech, web-developer, backend – CTO of adverserve.com
-
Can Ertugrul – Business Development, Presentation Coaching – Business Analyst at i5invest – Business Development at payolution
-
Stefan Kalteis – Finance, Business Development, Startup valuation – Co-Founder and Former CEO of 123People – Business Angel & Partner at i5invest – Co-Founder and CEO of payolution
Expert Rated
The guys that decide on which team wins the weekend is always a mix of different disciplines.
Two of the original experts couldn’t make it due to missing flights and disease. Stefan and Marius joined the panel instead – Stefan actually cancelled a flight to come join the panel. Wow! Thanks!
On the experts panel of STARTup Live Vienna #5 were
Companies and Ideas
Winner of the best STARTup Award
- Name: Roof Node
- Pitcher: Franz Böhm
- Tagline: Rural Broadband
- Description:
Roofnode is a wireless broadband technology. Wireless station on customer’s rooftop. High-performance, robust and secure wireless mesh network for internet, telephone and television services in rural areas.
Getting to the event Franz had a patent, idea and prototype. What he totally lacked was biz and design. This was supplied. During the mentoring rounds he proved time and time again how he was able to adapt. Respect. He also won the respect of the panel of judges!
Congratulations! Enjoy STARTUP WEEK 2011!
Winner of the best new venture
City Pulse
- Pitchers:
Michael Rottman
Daniel Horak
Benjamin Bachhuber
Alexander Quast
- Description:
Using location services and aggregating checkins et al they will make you able to see where the hot stuff in town is going on. NO, not like foursquare does (I KNEW you’d ask that, so did we!). Network is there, designers, techies, the team is set to go.
We were really happy to welcome these campers into Sektor5 for two months! Congrats!
Winner of the crowd’s choice
- Name: Finderly
- Pitcher: Katharina Klausberger
- Description:
By connecting you with experts, department stores and geeks as well as your friends these guys intend to make it easier for you to find products which suit you. We’ve followed this team over the last year (they approached us as they had the idea) and they have made immense and fast progress. Respect.
The crowd’s favorite is chosen via SMS-voting and the team (very fitting) for a new multi-function printer by Konica Minolta! Yay you!
Winner of the medias darling award
- Name: Teenage Rockstar
- Pitcher: Christof Straub
- Description:
These guys have been around for about two years. Born out of passion for music and the realization that his daughter didn’t really have a good place to show their talents Christof launched TRS. All content is screened by him and his guys’n'gals and they have achieved their goal of building and helping the young musical geniuses of Austria. And you know what? They used ~no friggin social media. What does it say in your own marketing plan? Oh, facebook group? HA!
The presentation shown on Sunday was great – the progress working on social media integration in their service was too. Hope to see it launched in two weeks.
The fit with the price is almost too good to be true – €30k in marketing budget to work with young enterprises!
Newsletter Platform
- Pitcher: David Lehner
- Description:
There are a gazillion newsletters for every lill thing out there. Many suck, a few are good. How can you keep track of the best ones?
The team is developing a platform for managing, rating and suggesting newsletters suitable to your needs.
World Taxi
- Pitcher: Filip Boskovic
- Description:
This gang of two set out to change how taxi drivers pick up guests and to help their customers communicate where they are going. To be able to use the service abroad, they intend to work heavily with SMS and offline maps.
Looking at the developments of Uber, http://www.uber.com/learn, we know that there is a very valid although dangerous market here. You don’t wanna mess with the cabby union 
Lingibli
- Pitcher: Milan Schnorrer
- Description:
In three simple steps, which take no more than 5 minutes of your time, you will start learning a foreign language.
The team came together a few weeks before the event, but realized they kinda needed a designer. Supplied. The new slide deck and app sketches look amazing. Looking forward to seeing more from them!
- Name: dreamaTV
- Pitcher: Manuel Gruber
- Description:
This was the second time the gang attended STARTup Live Vienna. Since last time much has changed. The team of 8 has set out to give you, me and all other innovative people their own show. The experienced media producer team has developed a number of formats which they intend to spread via among other formats digital TV.
At the end presentation they demoed their newest format “ Laber’s Lab ” which had been shot during the weekend. Oc these guys brought their own equipment including a 50″+ TV showing their stuff!
- Name: Circus Offers
- Pitcher: Jorge Luis Rodriguez Morales
- Description:
A promotion management tool which enables you to keep track of your facebook, groupon, twitter, dailydeal, meindeal+++++++++ promotions without the headache of visiting them all.
The group was represented by one guy, but 3 others are working in other parts of the world, the furthest away being in Paraguay. They already have a pretty damn big customer called mmmmm nah I can’t say that!
Sign up to be informed of their progress!
Default Detection – D2
- Pitcher: Domagoj Dolinsek
- Description:
The handling of documents, images, comments, tasks and recordings which you have to live with being an engineer at a construction site is idiotic.
Domagoj who has experience in the field and know the problems personally set out to change this with a tablet app. It would integrate with the existing documentation and comms platforms but simplify the process – seeing to it that building projects do not succumb under their own weight in red tape.
- Name: Tarif Agent
- Pitcher: Philipp Etzlinger
- Description:
TarifAgent helps people to distinguish between the many options mobile carriers provide and find the best option for you, minimizing communication costs to the minimum by analyzing your personal (Smart-)Phone-usage.
Philipp has joined us before, but this time we got really impressed with what happened. On Saturday they got the feedback that the process of getting your stuff optimized was too long. Took it to heart and reduced it from a month to 4 days. Backend, process, frontend. The update of the app will be launched soon!
Well done guys!
GetInspired
- Pitcher: Adam Okruhlica
- Description:
We all know situations where we definitely need to be creative, but we simply can’t get to the right mood. Are you a writer who needs some inspiration to evolve a story? Or a designer who needs to come up with a fresh idea or spice up an existing one?
Let the diversity of inspirers work on your hitch, or become one of them and inspire others. Simply submit your hitch, in a few words or images, lay back, and follow the mind-stream of the community. Once you feel inspired again, share out kudos to those who inspired you most. The more kudos you have, the more hitches you can have solved.
Over the weekend the team put together the central parts of the system. Still lacking a kickass UI, but they’ll get there.
Another Live is over, but we are happy to announce that the next event is taking place in Pristina in a few days, another couple of events are planned for Porto, Hungary and Germany. Requests are dropping in like crazy. At the end of the summer, we will be ready to handle them well enough to go forward with these hundreds of requests!
We intend to launch our stuff at STARTUP WEEK 2011 which we are organizing with Initial Factor and TechCrunch EU! Be prepared!
Thanks to our partners
Thanks to all our partners who made this possible. Supporting a crazy bunch like us cannot be easy Nah honestly, you rock. Without supporters such as these guys below, we wouldn’t have been able to reach 1800 people, help in the formation of over 20 startups and have such an impact in the Kosovar, Austrian or Portugese startup communities. Thanks.
Co-working space partner
Internet powered by
And special thank you goes out to our friends Martin Seimen of planetm.at and Axel Blank of blanck.at for helping us with keeping the participants alive through the weekend. Also a great hugh to Stefan Dworak who shot us a ton of wonderful pictures.
[foldup title="Ressources"]
Presentation by Andreas Klinger
Presentation by Can Ertugrul
[/foldup]
