seven reflections on starting lean

in the recent “lean startup vie #3” meetup at the sektor5 coworking space in vienna, andreas klinger from lookk summarized his startup experiences so far. let´s go along his seven reflections on starting lean.

1) go a small as possible with your product

2) launch several ideas at once

3) code as late as possible

4) care less about fund-raising

5) get two mentors

6) don´t take public money

7) choose team on gut feeling & check regularly

@1

in hindsight, their original startup idea, the austrian startup formerly known as gamrz, could have been broken down to six startups by itself. there is a simple check, if a startup concept is too complex: if there is an “and” in the explanation what a startup does, it´s too complex.

@2

while rigorous a/b testing for internet startups websites is an imperative, testing different ideas or products in the same metric driven way isn´t. there is no need to actually have the different products ready to ship. it´s just about offering mock-ups through the web and analyse the customer’s reaction.

@3

nothing to be explained about that. although the most tempting thing for technical founders, as that´s where their comfort zone lays.

@4

venture capitalists do not care about startups. they want to invest as cheap as possible, as late as possible. good venture capitalists look only for market traction in their investment selection.

@5

if entering into a new space with a startup, get two mentors from exactly this sectors. pay with convertible notes.

@6

“they are the worst”, stated andreas strong-minded. state funds are designed for classical small & medium sized enterprises. that is a too tight constraint for lean startups, which will change directions very fast in the early phase.

@7

trust in the “gut” feeling in selecting team members. writing down the thoughts about the newbie and checking those notes every two weeks to see how she progresses helps to structure.

startupweek2011: the four winners

the startupweek 2011 - a new startup conference including a startup competition held in vienna - had four winners: the conference hosts, the startup region vienna, mysugr & mysugr. and this is why.

for the first time ever a significant startup-conference was organized this very week (3. - 7. oct. 2011) in vienna. besides the startup competitions at leweb and europas the startupweek left a serious mark in the european internet startup scene.

empowered by the success of their startuplive events, the conference organizer STARTeurope , supported by initial factor, mixed four ingredients for their success. their very own entrepreneurial spirit, the professional network of inital factor with the announcement of their new fund speedinvest & the involvement of techcrunchUK, aka mike butcher (find his coverage here).

being overbooked with max. 1.300 paritcipants allowed, including 100 speakers, 500 startup applications with 50 invited startups from all over europe, STARTeurope delivered a professional managed conference.  the cross over of the monarchy style location with the future of european internet startups just added to the success.

while vienna is recognized for the quality of living, it does not have  the label as being a startup city -  like london, paris or berlin. quite to the contrary, there are some austrian startups which stated in private discussions, that they should have started their business directly in london and not in vienna/austria. one main reason being the lack of venture capital funding.

luckily for the growing vienna startup scene, speedinvest offeres now a initial funding source. one must not overlook though, that follow up investments will still require the startups to look abroad. with only one local private early-stage investor, startups in vienna do face a local monopoly. thanks to the mobility of new startups like egoarchive, which recently moved to copenhagen, this can be only considered as a problem for those not willing to follow the money. 

therefore combining quality of living, a growing ecosystems of startups with new funding possibilites, vienna just upgraded itself in the european startup landscape.

and then there is mysugr. their startup idea born out of their own personal experience with diabetes, the founders frank westermann and fredrik debong (also co-founder of STARTeurope) won the hearts and the wits of the jury and the audience. 

mysugr makes logging the daily diet easy and provides help for the diabetic on how to manage his daily nutrition with the help of their mobile app. unlike competitors like "on track diabetes" the app and the services around are a "medical device" grade. mysugr is in alpha mode, but take applications here. see also a video where fredrik explains what mysugr does here.

so why is mysugr a two time winner? 

not because they won both prices (€30.000, 3 weeks in silicon valley) of the startup competition. not because the rocked the audience to standing ovations including a champaign shower for mike butcher - the outstanding host of the startup competition finale. 

but (one) because the showed that it is worth to bring one´s very own startup idea to live and fight it through. and (secondly) for the exposure they generated by inspiring the audience & the jury at the pitching competition. this will turbo-boost them in their next steps towards customers, investors and industry cooperations. 

while the future of mysugr looks promising many challenges lay ahead of them. the same holds for the startupweek2012, as the organizers set their own bars high. being a startup by themselves, that will however only encourage them to make it even better in 2012.   

how to finance your (startup) dream

ideas on how to finance your startup dreams, proposed at the barcamp vienna 2010.

how to finance your (startup) dream

View more presentations from hannes.a.schwetz.

five things for startups to expect from mentors & the other way round

the estc2009 innovation seed camp will introduce mentoring sessions for the pitching startups. the diverse spectrum of mentors present at estc covers founders, investors & the industry - laying the ground for interesting feedback sessions. so what can startups expect from those mentors? and the other way round, what do the mentors expect from startups?

let´s break it down into two sets of five :

5 things startups can expect from mentors
1) critical questions - no answers, no solutions.
2) instant feedback on how each and every startup gets its story across. if the pitch is bad, it will be made obvious instantly. that´s a good thing.
3) the impression a startup has on a mentor will be based 95% on pitch, 5% on executive summary et. al.
4) mentors have contacts (businesses, investors, lawyers,...) and some will help you with them - if they value the startup. if not, not more then polite friendliness can be expected.
5) not every mentor will be interesting for every project (and the other way round). that´s ok.

and now, let´s flip sides:

5 things mentors expect form startups
1) passionate, enthusiastic open entrepreneurs are welcome. self centered show-offs looking for adulation will not feel served well.
2) feedback can be direct & rather blunt - better from mentors then your customers, investors or potential employees. so startups must not be offended but take the feedback as is its & do with it what they think is best for them.
3) mentors will want to get ideas on what´s happening in the markets. some will search for investment.
4) mentors invest their energy for prepared teams. startups using the "next best" slide set available, preferring the check their tweets et al. rather then to get the most out of the sessions will receive what they seed.
5) and finally, mentors look forward to critical, even controversial discussions not yea-sayers. so let´s give them a good time!

for more on mentors see also the intersting interview of dave mcclure by mike butcher of techcrunch europe. for an overview of pitching opportunities head over to the finance mindmap. finally, to refresh the memories, find enclosed the start.upICT blog intro on start.up competitions.

startup competitions

View more documents from hannes.a.schwetz.

interview with Andraž Tori of zemanta: part 1/2

inspired by jessica livingston´s highly recommended book, founders at work, interviews with local start.ups will become part of the regular start.up blog entries. the interviews will be split up in two parts. while the first will focus on general start.up topics, the second will look deeper into the company in focus.

the first company in line is zemanta. founded by Andraž Tori and Boštjan Špetič, zemata provides an intelligent blog extension which automatically generates context sensitive proposals for pictures, links & tags. their firefox plug in can be downloaded here. a live demo can be tried here. winning seedcamp brought zemanta wide media attention as well as reputable vc funding. the interview took place at this year's web2.0expo berlin with Andraž Tori.

Andraž, tell me about the (three) most exciting things about start.ing up your company?
first it was really exciting to see that we had something not many people in the world were doing. the second great thing was winning seedcamp. this was a big achievement, since there are not many start.ups in slovenia.
finally it is great to do stuff that usually can only be done in silicon valley. to do something which is really for the whole world and to see that we here in europe are on the same level [as silicon valley]. that is exciting.

what about the most unfortunate things about start.ing up?
we did not have any big misfortunes. there were hard bits, like getting calls in the middle of the night, when the service [of zemanta] went down and not getting to sleep all the night fixing stuff.

on the business side there are long negotiations about funding. you are of course not happy with all the conditions you get.

there are times when it is hard and tiresome. it is exciting, but not just fun.

what are your lessons learned until now about technology?
prepare to re-do things. you will create solutions to problems, learn that you misjudged things and rebuild. and you have to listen to other people. the collective intelligence of people is always better then a single mind. one has to be persisted and stubborn, but just in the right amount.

when you hear the words "exit" and "shut down", what comes to your mind?
that's t the life of a start.up.

how do handle private life vs. work?
i put a lot of myself in zemanta, but i enjoy it. you have to observe and listen to yourself. when you are over-investing yourself just step back a little. sometimes you have to push to the maximum, but you can not always work in that mode.

this was the fist part of the interview with Andraž Tori. stay tuned for the 2nd part, where a closer look on zemanta will be taken.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Seedcamp '08 finalists announced
• Reuters: Refresh and fresh funds for Zemanta
• Zemanta

mindmap start.up finanzierung update nr. 3

wesentliche erweiterungen der mindmap zum thema start.up finanzierungsmöglichkeinte im bereich inkubatoren:

mindmap start.up finanzierung

mindmap start up finanzierung

mind42 hat soeben ihr system gepatcht: die mindmap ist somit online.
die mindmap ist offen für inputs und erweiterungen:

mindmap start up finanzierung

für die bearbeitung ist ein gratis mind42 account erforderlich.

UPDATE (15.06.07): die mindmap wurde um links erweitert.

barcamp track "start.up finanzierung"

anbei die im track entwickelte mindmap als jpg, bis die verlinkung auf mind42 funktioniert. auf mind42 sind dann auch kommentare zu den einzelnen elementen ersichtlich.

look, listen, learn & execute

wer ein high tech start.up gründen möchte tut sich was gutes, wenn er davor ein wenig nach:

rechts: was machen andere im umfeld
links: wie werde ich mein ziel erreichen
vorne: wo will ich hin
hinten: wo liegen meine kompetenzen, was fehlt
schaut.

strukturierte anleitungen gibts genug. empfehlen kann ich:
guy kawasaki, the art of the start
staths, the startup company bible.

das spart viele leere kilometer.