Education, entrepreneurship, Events

First Ever Startup Weekend Cologne is an EPIC Success

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The very first Startup Weekend Cologne was held January 25 – 27 2013. And what a spectacular event it was. Sold out in advance, the event was a complete storming success which saw 125 participants and over 220 people coming by over the weekend.

We even had the founder of Startup Weekend himself, US American Andrew Hyde attending!

See for yourself:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

An interview with Andrew Hyde, founder of Startup Weekend

 

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entrepreneurship, startup

On NEXT Cologne Q4 2012

So we successfully brought Startup Weekend NEXT to Cologne! Here’s a little update on how that turned out.

Startup Weekend NEXT is an intensive three week educational program to help more startups survive by having the startup teams getting out of the building and into the real world applying customer development and business model generation to help validate their startup idea and find their product-market fit.

Teams, organizers and coaches hard at work

SW NEXT Q4 2012
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entrepreneurship, Events

From Startupbus Germany to LeWeb Paris

I recently was asked to help Startupbus out with arranging their local stop in Cologne on their way from Berlin to LeWeb in Paris. And as I couldn’t say no to a free ride to LeWeb, I somehow ended up on the bus as a participant too.

“StartupBus is an annual technological startup competition, described as a Hackathon, created by Elias Bizannes in February 2010. The competition is held across a 3-day bus ride where contestants or “buspreneurs” compete to conceive the best technology startup. The competition seeks to attract young top talents to compete, to search for the most innovative startup conceived by the groups, where the winners are determined by a panel of judges. Starting from February 2011, it has gone through many iterations in various continents from 2011 to 2015, with the first in Austin,Texas and subsequently in North America, Europe and Africa.” – Wikipedia

As I was in the Netherlands holding a talk, I couldn’t be in Berlin for the kick-off, but I skyped a pitch in for my idea, basically a rehash of what I’d previously won with at Startup Weekend Amsterdam.

Phoning it in - Literally.

Phoning it in – Literally.

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entrepreneurship, Little Known Fact, startup

On Startup Weekend NEXT Cologne

Startup Weekend NEXT is an intensive three week educational program to help more startups survive by having the startup teams getting out of the building and into the real world applying the knowledge we now have about what makes startups succeed or fail.

There are two personal stories behind my involvement in Startup Weekend NEXT Cologne that I want to take a moment to share.

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Continue to the two stories

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