barcamp blinks

a great location, a huge crowd of around 150 and a multitude of sessions made the barcamp vienna 2009 a thriving event. so lets have some blog-blinks on the event.

organized tightly from beginning to end, leaving out the intro round of the participants as well as not discussing the sessions took out part of the barcamp essence. the same goes for the general call to blog about it. let´s have that next time. participating day one of barcamp, those were the highlights:

freewave presented their wlan concept. the session was on the line between marketing pitch and sharing their motivations and experiences. their engagement to protect users against the ever growing data collection lust of public authorities impressed. that smart phones already account for 40% of traffic on their hotspots and they expect 50% throughout the year as well.

the cloud made it possible for dctp.tv to bring 21 years of tv shows online. at 10% of the costs of a conventional (=buy hardware) solution. fabian topfstedt held a interesting session on this project.

Cloud Computing and WebTV (English)

View more PDF documents from topfstedt.

the media watch on climate change project of module university, the thank worthy host of the barcamp, show the next step of data monitoring and analysis. the origins of academic research are still dominant. see also the idiom project. there is also their start.up "weblyzard" to monetize their work, which is in strong need of a internet strategy makeover though.

the jolicloud session of alexander kirk showed a visionary approach on netbook os. jolicloud= nebook oriented os=classic os+socially enriched. e.g. one sees which apps one´s netbook peers installed and proposes to do the same. looks promising.

more pictures of the barcamp can be found at the start.upICT flickr stream. finally the top quotes of the barcamp:
"....die usa ist ein problem..."/ „..the u.s. are a problem...“. totally taken out of context. and finally "mein rechner hat keine windows taste!" / „my computer does not have a windows key!“. cu at the next barcamp!

how to win seedcamp & other pitches

start.ups compete all the time. for customers, money, press attention, employees. how to win such competitions was in the spotlight at the opening event of the mini seedcamp laibach.

the most minimalistic approach for a successful pitch is to a) show your product, then b) show your google analytics metrics and finish by c) shutting up. then wait for questions from the audience. to be clear, this also means d) not to talk about technology and e) all the rest.

this is the essence of the introductory talk of dragos ilinca from ubervu, 2008 winner of seedcamp on “how to win seedcamp” and other pitches.

a crowd of 50 people was gathering together for the pre-opening of the laibach mini seedcamp 2008 at kiberpipa. spreading out all over Europe, this was the 6^th out of 7 mini-seedcamps taking place all over Europe, from paris to ljubljana.

having lost count of all the pitches held around the world, be it 20 or 50, dragos was blunt in what to expect from venture capital. “90 percent of the start.ups fail, most do not fit into the venture capital criteria."..."start.ups not solving a critical problem will get no funding!"

How To Win Seedcamp

View more OpenOffice presentations from Seedcamp .

the same holds for those which don not know why customers will spend money for their products or do not have an excellent team. those things sound common. still, most start.ups do not practice it in real life.

thanks to the folks from kiberpipa , there is a complete video coverage of the opening event:

How to win Seedcamp? from Kiberpipa on Vimeo.

read on about seedcamp laibach in the upcoming post “venture capital is not fast food”.

let the pictures talk: mini seedcamp laibach 09

ahead of the upcoming in depth coverage of the mini seedcamp laibach, let the pictures talk. feel free to use the pictures, all under creative commons attribution-sharealike.

interview with christoper clay of soup.io, part 2

Image via CrunchBase

this the 2nd part of the interview with christopher clay.f ounder of soup.io. where christopher sees the need for new start.ups and if austria is a good location to start are in the center of part 2. if you missed the 1st part of the interview, look here.

christopher, which areas do you find most in need for new start.ups?
translations services are in need. translation is annoying us right now, the work flow of translating takes a lot of time. that´s a problem of all european [internet] start.ups. it is an opportunity for a start.up if you can double your market with being available on more markets, it is worth money for them. however, i do not want to say too much right now on that.
actually good opportunities are found by doing your first start.up. you itch on a certain problem, you feel the pain and then you can go after it.

you have successfully won yeurope and seedcamp and those investors are now holding 43.3% of the company. what can start.ups expect from such incubators, what not?
their main idea is that they give you just enough money to work on your product for three month without having to worry about living expenses. it makes a difference if can do a project in your spare time or just focus on it.
with seedcamp it was more about introductions. at seedcamp week we got to talk so many people. industry icons like the founders of bebo, photolog, last.fm, mysql and skype. venture capitalists like holtzbrinck or accel ventures of which you normally you would not even get a meeting with. seedcamp was putting you in front of all this people with initial credibility. seedcamp funds project further along then yeurope. it is like a compressed version of silicon valley in one week.

also there is the network of relations you build up. although you meet 100 people in one week and you can not remember all of them, you clearly can get in touch with them afterwards. if i would have a new idea, i could call to get some feedback.

what you do not get is solutions and answers. you get contacts, inspiration, what worked for others and feedback. but nobody will tell you what will work for you, no one will tell you how to get rich. it does not work like this. no one knows your product like you do.

soup.io is working in a crowded space. which three things did you do, to position yourself to become a seedcamp finalist?
at soup we want to give average people their space online. other then sites likes friendfeed, it is the user which is in front, not friendfeed. it is the one place you can put on your business card.

you spend a lot of time in uk and u.s./bay area. what´s your thoughts on start.ups in austria vs. europe vs. us?
austrians mainly did not understand what we did, which is probably why we did not find investment here. london was much more open to new ideas, and not just wanting to copy what was successful elsewhere [like germany].

in the u.s. it is just a hugely different scale. in silicon valley there are events where hundreds of people working on start.ups meet every day. so while the spirit is similar to london, the scale is still a difference.
people in the u.s. did not stop to believe in start.ups while in europe it got even worse. in the u.s. they see the cheap valuations of start.ups as opportunity.

what are your 3 recommendations for new upcoming founders?
first thing is to select your idea to found a start.up on a clear understanding on how to earn money. secondly apply to start.up competitions like seedcamp if you are in europe.
and finally, like already mentioned choose your location wisely.

stay tuned for more interviews with innovative start.ups, right here, on the start.upICT blog.

Related articles by Zemant

• 7 Start-Up Competitions Help Entrepreneurs Get Off Ground (vccafe.com)
• London Calling - Mini Seedcamp London Calls on Tech Talent to Apply! (seedcamp.com)

inside barcamp innsbruck 09, part 2/2

in part 2 of "inside barcamp innsbruck 09" let´s have a look at usability, twitterish and more coverage on the barcamp. if you missed part 1, look here for different ways of barcamp sessions, iphone development or mobeedo.

usability
olivia haider, aka "olidax" delivered practical hands on examples about website user interface design - gone wrong ones and how to make them better. just to look at user interface design differently, look also at the evolution of websites, eg. tiscover way back in 1999 vs. 2009. or at the self declared design masters of apple here.

if ready to tackle a huge but well worthy slide set (87!), lisa reichelt also held a full house session at web2.0expo berlin 08 about improving website usability, titled "what users really want", but first have a look at olivia´s slides:

Usability Grundlagen

View more presentations from olidax.

twitterish
finally, unavoidably and highly appreciated, the latest and greatest in the twittersphere by luca hammer.
with all the services around twitter, one might already forget the original twitter. and yes, there were non-twitterer (two!) around at the barcamp, which for obvious reason are not to be named here. ;-)

there were two core aspect to the tiwtterworld in luca´s session:
one, to use twitter as "the" social filter to read and find interesting things on the net. gone are the days where newsgroups, email, bookmarks, feedreaders an the like where sufficient to manage the web-info-stream.

secondly, there are plenty of tools out there, which make this possible. although twitter might almost feel like a horse carrying a pyramid around - with all the services which "ride" on the back of twitter. be it twist to discover trends, monitter to monitor the twitteruniverse, tweetree a nice visualization or tiwtturly, which tracks and ranks the urls of fellow twitter"ers".
there were many more services and tools so luca promised to make a session/blogpost about it.

more on barcamp innsbruck
for photo coverage head over to here or here. thanks to takarina there is audio coverage, to be found at the bottom of the barcamp site. by the way, congratulations to takarina for her "tirolercast", best national podcast winner 09!
only for the barcamp hardcore lovers, there is the the twitter stream of the innsbruck camp to get the realtime gossip, right here.

so much from the barcamp innsbruck. there are plenty of more barcamps coming up, so participate and blog about them.

inside barcamp innsbruck 09, part 1/2

on the way back from innsbruck to vienna, the lazy train speed lets the thoughts about the april 09 edition of the barcamp innsbruck april 09 float freely. let´s have a look on the surroundings of the barcamp and then into selected sessions.

thanks to the organizing forces behind the 2nd edition of the barcamp in tyrol, christop dolar & astrid millebner. they organized a great location at the „zukunftszentrum“/ future-center right in the center of innsbruck. thanks!

a big open space, with room to hang out along the windows and the presentation area right at the heart provided the open atmosphere one would like to see for every barcamp.
there was plenty of good coffee and the omnipresent twittering and taking pictures with and of each other. and well, quite some good sessions. while the not-so-standard-conference format may seem anarchistic to outsiders, the sessions itself appear almost like magic in an ever aging surprisingly disciplinary style. barcampers hang out serious style. let´s look at some.

pichting bad and well done
weisswo, a local map based start.up held a "sales" presentation. obviously the did not think about the audience ahead. that never works. not at all.

mobeedo was also pitching their product, but what a difference. [update] richard spindler was proudly presenting their product, delivering a „wow“ effect and looking for feedback made the crowd come in front to see what they can do on the g1 android phone with mobeedo.

their video is worth watching.

what else? what about: iphone app development
well, well, an interesting practial and down to earth slot about iphone app development by thomas katzelberger. albeit the 1 billion downloads money printing machine for apple, anyone wanting to provide an application at the apple itunes store?1.800€! that´s how much it costs the tempted developer.

99€ per year for the right to put the app on the store. around 700€ for an iphone to test apps that use gps and the motion sensor. and well, best thing last, to run the free sdk, a hefty 1.000€ for an apple macbook. that´s because the sdk only runs on apple machines. 1.800€, well that is serious stuff.

after that said and ignoring the ever appearing stories about instant american millionaire richness of some developers, there is one magic thing to remember: top 100.

if your app is not in there, there is no attention. no attention, now money. wanting to make money via apps means using the short time frame which every new app get´s on the store. after that, a hefty release/update schedule can help to stay on the front page and so make the uphill battle into the top 100.

and no, do not even try to spend advertising for your iphone apps, that is just a waste, according to thomas katzelberger , who also says „do not expect anything, do invest only the minimum“.

thanks also to the live streaming efforts of luca via mogulus, quite some sessions (depending on the mood of luca´s wintel machine) were streamed out to the interested barcamp follower.

so much for the first part. more on this years barcamp innsbruck coming up soon.

all about "start.up competitions", fresh from barcamp innsbruck 09

ahead of the upcoming in depth look at the barcamp innsbruck 09, which took place last weekend on the 25-26th april, the slides of the session "start.up competitions" are already online.

startup competitions

View more presentations from hannes.a.schwetz.