Uncategorized

Made it to the Nordic Startup Awards Finals in Copenhagen

Watch the speaking hands - Pitching on stage at the Nordic Startup Awards Finals, Copenhagen

Watch the speaking hands – Pitching on stage at the Nordic Startup Awards Finals, Copenhagen

No rest for the wicked. I recently pitched 3 stages in 3 countries in 3 days. From Cologne, to Paris and LeWeb to Copenhagen. And to get there for free directly from Paris and LeWeb – I simply hitched a ride back with the Danish Startupbus. What drives down must drive up again.

As my startup getGauss.com already won the People’s Choice for best startup at the Norwegian Startup Awards, I was invited to the Nordic finals in Copenhagen to compete for the Nordic awards.

The view from the stage

The view from the stage

Look ma, I'm being interviewed on TV

Look ma, I’m being interviewed on TV

Standard
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.

Continue reading →

Standard
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.

NEXT_Logo_RGB

Continue to the two stories

Standard
books, Lessons Learned

Books I read since [LIST]

At the end of 2010, I posted a list of the stuff I had been reading (or mostly listening to as audio books) in that year. People seemed to appreciate that kind of content, so I thought I’d share what I’ve read since.

i.chzbgr

As Black Friday is upon us and another merry season coming up, you might find some excuses on the list to stock up on brain food for yourself or gifts for family, friends and colleagues.

This is the list of the books I read in 2011 and 2012 thus far. I can recommend all, except where otherwise noted…

Continue to the list of books (it’s a long list with videos to boot, so give it time to load)

Standard
entrepreneurship, Events, News, startup

Announcing the very first Startup Weekend NEXT Cologne ever!

W00t! The startup news of Cologne just keeps on rolling. Only recently Startup Weekend Cologne was announced and it seems we (Lukas Strniste (@yeromee), Puja Abbassi (@puja108), Till Ohrmann (@tohrmann) and me (@blacktar) together with Startplatz (@StartPlatz) were stupid crazy enough to bring Startup Weekend NEXT to Cologne too. And that already NEXT WEEK!

Startup Weekend NEXT is a non-profit, but there’s tickets you’ll have to book to help cover the costs of this 3 week intensive educational program.  We do however hope to be able to join up with some of the local startup patrons to subsidize your tickets.

Startup Weekend NEXT is only open for teams of 2 or more people and is a 3 week intensive educational programme involving a lot of hard work for the participants. This is a program for dedicated startup entrepreneurs.

So what the heck is Startup Weekend NEXT?

tl;dr – Something freaking awesome for startup entrepreneurs!

Now read on to find out why!

Standard