Events, News

My Startup Wins People’s Choice Award at Nordic Startup Awards 2012 Norway!

W00t!

Yesterday I was in Oslo, Norway for the national Nordic Startup Awards where our startup Gauss – The People Magnet were nominated in three categories; Best Bootstrapper, Best International and People’s Choice.

I was amazed and humbled to take home your award, the People’s Choice Award. It means a lot to us to know that there is a lot of people like you out there who believes in us and find what we do meaningful. It keeps us going! Thank you so much!

So see you in the Nordic Startup Awards grand finals in Copenhagen, December 7th!

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Events, News, startup

I need your VOTES!

Our startup Gauss – The People Magnet (@getGauss) has been nominated for Nordic Startup Awards in no less than three categories: Bootstrapper, International and Startup of the Year! Wow! We’re humbled and amazed! Now I need your help by voting *every single day* until October 27th and spread and share the good word all over them Internets.

To vote, simply go to http://startupawards.co/startup/193, scroll down to below the video and click one of the “Vote” buttons with orange text below left – every day (new vote each 24h for you) for the next week.

Be advised that “liking” the page is not the same as voting for us, so make sure to hit those “Vote” buttons in orange *once every day* – and then return and “like” the page too for extra karma points! :) The red circle below shows where the “vote” buttons are located.

And then for more bonus karma points, remember to click the “like” button on the voting page *in addition* to voting. :)

You can additionally help by retweeting this tweet:

Thank you!

About The Nordic Startup Awards:

An Award show like none before, Nordic Startup Awards is a series of events that happen throughout the region in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden to recognize and celebrate the startup eco-system based in the Nordics. All of the events will lead to a grand finale in Copenhagen in December 2012 to crown the startup kings and queens of the Nordic region.

The main purpose behind the event is to consolidate the Nordic startup scene and place Scandinavian startup ecosystem on the map as a leading center for innovation in Europe, against London and Berlin. We all know we do things here a little different. And probably a little better than others. This is an opportunity to show the rest of the world how vibrant our community is and how successful Scandinavian startup genome is.

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entrepreneurship, Events, News, pitching, startup

Startup Weekend Amsterdam

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I recently attended Startup Weekend Amsterdam because:

1.) It’s just a whole lot of damned good fun!
2.) SWAMS has got to be one of best Startup Weekends anywhere
3.) I recently founded Startup Weekend Cologne so I had to attend a Startup Weekend as a requirement – Stay tuned for more!

James Digby (@digbyj) kicking it all off:

James Digby kicking off Startup Weekend Amsterdam #swams

Then the awesome legendary Steve Blank (@sgblank) made a cameo appearance and I just had to ask him if he invests in European startups – On which he retorted I should first take some of his classes. Hah, so we meet again, Steve! I think I’ll have to take you up on that one! :)

UPDATE: I did take Steve up on that one. :)

The AWESOMENESS! Steve Blank surprise keynote at Startup Weekend Amsterdam! Hi again @sgblank :) #swams

So exiting that we’re all standing on our chairs!

And now we're so excited we're standing on our chairs! #swams

The amazing SWAMS location, Pakhuis De Zwyger:

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Easygiving.co winning the grand prize for thinking big; A non-profit charity where 100% of your donations go to the cause:

Check out http://easygiving.co non-profit for 100% of your charity going to the cause! #swams

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And of course I couldn’t help pitching myself and accidentally ended up winning the Startup Weekend Spirit award for our team http://lunchroulette.co for completely p0wning the judges and capturing the audience but also by telling the story of the learning made, how we invalidated the business model of some other guy’s idea I had originally joined, how the team then collapsed and the idea owner going home, leaving us basically a couple of hours on the last day to come up with this.

@blacktar: Never lunch alone again! Meet new people over chow: http://t.co/mOjUtEU0 Sign up and we'll match you with a lunch date near you! #swAMS

W00t! Good times!

I’m incredibly excited about bringing Startup Weekend to Cologne!

Here are the slides I used:

UPDATE 2013:

Almost exactly one year after i presented Lunch Roulette at Startup Weekend Amsterdam, I was visiting the new Facebook HQ in Menlo Park and found out that they had implemented some of the ideas for their staff internally.

Hah! Even the logo looked uncannily familiar! I’ll take that as validation, thank you.

See for yourself:

Internal Facebook memo on the wall at the HQ in Menlo Park,  June 2013.

Internal Facebook memo on the wall at the HQ in Menlo Park, June 2013.

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