Late night presentations, rounding off MEWEEK 2017
Recently I was honored and delighted to be invited back to this year’s Maastricht Week of Entrepreneurship to speak about the mistakes, the false perceptions and beliefs common with first time startup founders and wantrepreneurs; The Top 10 Startup Delusions.
Recently I was honored and delighted to be invited by USAID to help companies and startups in Moldova.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the United States Government agency which is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid.
I knew where the country of Moldova (not Moldavia – that’s the name of a region) was on the map (Hint: It’s just east of Romania), but I had never previously visited. I was surprised to find a small but capable startup community and a lot of familiar faces in the capital of Chisinau.
The entrance to the cool new iHUB Chisinau
First up, I had two workshops with Moldovan companies and their management about how corporations engage with startups and why; One at Starnet (the primary telco in Moldova) and one at the coworking space and startup center iHUB (also supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs among others).
The topic of innovation and growth is especially interesting in Moldova because one of the leading industries is outsourcing; building apps, websites and software for other western companies. This is a good business model for now – but for how long? What happens when other markets will outcompete them on price? So I talked a lot about the importance in experimenting with developing new products and how, before their business model may become obsolete and also how and why they could be reinvesting in local startups as a part of their innovation portfolio.
Back to back, I was also honored to be invited to speak about my startup experiences at the Startup Grind Chisinau in the evening.
At Startup Grind Chisinau, I spoke a bit about my startup experiences
And a day later I held my popular Lean Startup Crash Course for existing startups and people considering founding one.
In between everything there was also time to sit down with an Estonian startup delegation to learn more about the ecosystem there
My guide and help on the ground was Traian Chivriga of UnArtOras that I already knew from Cologne’s own Pirate Summit – And in the evening there was time for socializing… ;)
Lots of familiar faces…
I met this guy that I also knew from Cologne’s Pirate Summit already; Riccardo Fedeli
And Vlad Calus of planable.io – that I too knew from the Pirate Summit in Cologne already
And Livia Ţurcanu that I already knew from my work at University of Maastricht
These were the slides for my Lean Startup Crash Course:
These were the slides for the talk about why and how corporations engage with startups:
Recently I was invited by the city of Düsseldorf (the capital of NRW) and NRW.INVEST to be a part of a delegation with the Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf, Thomas Geisel and others, to spread the gospel about why the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW – where I have now been living for the 12 last years) is a great place for startups in Moscow, Russia (sister city of Düsseldorf).
Talked a little bit about why NRW is a good place for startups, the biggest exits we’ve seen and which startups who could be having the next big exits here
As you might know, this has been a pet peeve of mine for years and I was delighted to be able to help shed some light on why this region has a lot to offer and why I have been staying on here as a foreign startup founder all these years.
Some impressions:
Yup. That guy again…
Fun fact; Turned out Sigmar Gabriel was also staying at Ritz Carlton Moscow – so we photobombed his press conference
Gründerszene has interesting piece about the state of startups in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) where I reside and have been championing as a great place to found your startup in since 2011.
I got asked about my opinion about the startup scene in Düsseldorf. Is it all roses?
