Monthly Archives: October 2016

This Wednesday was a good day, a surprisingly good one…

Through a link found on the Linkedin page for KTH entrepreneurship I found out about a start up bar hosted by www.startaochdriva.se which took place yesterday (5/10). I went there with a few friends from KTH and ended up seeing a few more students from class and I also got to meet a lot of friendly, ambitious and outgoing people. To ease up the ambiance, everyone was to pick a sticker to put on their shirt, showing the purpose of their attendance or just a quality that could be offered to others. No one commented my sticker, but I like the thought even though it did not work… While my sticker was ignored and as I went there without any expectations or objectives I was surprised that the people were so friendly and interested. As a rather introvert person I was certainly not the conversation starter but a lot of people approached me and I ended up with a lot of new contacts and business cards. This trigged me a bit and made me start to approach people myself but most of them were trying to sell their services and products, -but they were also friendly and interested in me and my own interests.

The event took place at Scandic central, a hotel but also where they have established the first concept of continental apartments in Stockholm (This basically means that you can buy an apartment and also get some of the benefits from staying at a hotel http://www.esny.se/sv/new-development/view/klara-vastra-kyrkogata-stockholm-continental-apartments-540035 ). The event was held in a bar at the 8^th floor (of 16) and the view was great but I must say that the people were even greater!

The greatest thing that I learned from this is that these events must be great platforms for networking and getting to know the right people since all the attending persons are so outgoing and ambitious and not like classic engineers which was my preconception of people going to a tech-influenced-entrepreneurship-event. I can certainly recommend this event to everyone interested in networking regarding Start ups or entrepreneurship!

Good evening all together,

today I helped SUP46 as a volunteer during their ProductTank event. The topic was ““A day in the life of a Product Manager: what does the role look like in different companies, industries, and levels?”. All five speakers (e.g. Spotify) did a great job and give different insights.

I just noted a few things that I want to share:
It is all about: identify your stakeholders, solve their pain and show them why and how (Malin Cammack, Digital River World Payments).
As a product manager you are a peace maker. At the same time, you have to sell your ideas internally and externally and therefore have to stay informed about the latest customer demands. Some tips how to solve the latter issues are: Create a roadmap tied to the overall company’s goals, maintain the focus on this roadmap and communicate clear goals (learn to say “no”, too).

But today I don’t want to talk about the event. I want to talk what it means to volunteer at SUP46 and how everyone of us can help a huge number of Entrepreneurs and those who want to become so. By making events like today possible, where they can learn essentials skills for being successful with their companies you sometimes can help more then just giving them your opinion (which is definitely also an important task). I don’t want to praise myself for today’s work. But knowing that every move counts and that even a small gear is essential to keep the system running, is important. In fact it was my first time but definitly not the last!

If you think you will somehow have some free time just talk to Lana (the receptionist). She will invite you in the organization group on facebook. There every event for which they need help is listed. Just choose an event you are interested in and then it just takes you 30-45 min before and after the event to help making it happen. It doesn’t matter if it’s bringing chairs, preparing drinks or helping with the technique, everything is important and counts.

So I hope I see you at one of the events.

Have a nice evening everyone.

Tobias Paul

Just a short impression what you can achive as a part of the admin team:)

So just like some other classmates I also went to the start-up bar and will write a small blog post about my experiences. At the entrance of the hotel you could pick a sticker as a small ice breaker. So I picked one with the text “please talk to me” and boy did it work! When I was upstairs right on time 17:01 there where already quit a couple people. I saw some people sitting by there self sipping on a beer or chatting quietly with each other. The easiest thing to do was to order a beer and sit somewhere looking at my phone. But this would seem like a waste of my time so decided to step outside of my comfort zone and walk up to the first friendly face a saw.

This man was Armando Neves a really energetic front-end software developer who started a business in selling code for specific jobs in stead of hiring a developer for the entire project. To by very frank I didn’t quit understand all the software terms but after a while a other guy joined us who was launching a platform for commercial LAN parties. After 20 min of talking about there businesses and how I saw the difference between Holland and Sweden we decided to add each other on Linkedin. Only one problem the LAN-party guy didn’t have Linkedin so I explained the advantages of this medium and as he was here to network how it would really help him. Startup helped? Not sure yet if it qualifies as enough but it should really help him.

On my way to the bar for this now deserved beer  3 people tried to strike up a conversation. Did I already mentioned that the sticker worked? I ended up talking to a pension broker, Indian based software developer, entrepreneur looking for funding, consultant broker and in the end even the bartender.

On Facebook I saw that Lufthansa was sponsoring this event and where standing in a far end of the room. I was wondering why they where interested in this event. After walking around in the cockpit and business class with some VR-glasses they told my they simply wanted to show how traveling with Lufthanse looks like as entrepreneurs might travel a lot. After talking to people (mostly software developers) from India, Palestine and the USA they might be right.

I ended with a conversation with the organizers and permanently I wasn’t the first one because they told me they knew that there were a couple students from KTH here who all wanted to write a blog. Never the less I really liked to tell them how cool I think they bring so many people together with a team of only 3 woman.

Walking around here for just under 2 hours I was almost dizzy with all the new impressions but left with double the energy then I arrived. I know we are sepossessed to visit 2 start up events, and this was something I was not that looking forward to. But after this one I am really sure I would love to go to the next one and think I might even go to a couple more after this course ends. I made some great contacts and had a couple inspiring conversations. A good result for stepping outside you comfort zone.

Good day everyone!

I really believe that one of the key factors to become a successful entrepreneur is to connect the right persons to your idea. Therefore I found the Startup bar as a perfect opportunity to expand my network.

Last night, I attended the Startup bar evening at Scandic Continental, which was an amazing evening, The atmosphere was really entrepreneurial, where people from different business and academic backgrounds mingled around. What I found really interesting and clever during this event is that everyone who attended the evening got a sticker with a sentence describing their mood or situation. “ Please talk to me”, “ Looking for a partner”, “Thinking about to start my own company” are examples of these sentences on the tags, thus creating a social environment and facilitating the communication between the participants.

I had a tag with “ Working hard for many hours” which helped my networking with several people who looked for a partner. The output was really relevant, already next week I will have a meeting with an IT consultant who will give my guidance on how to build the web platform for Flyby (The idea that I pitched during the elevator pitch session). I’m so excited and really looking forward to the meeting.

Moreover I got acquainted with a person named Per Öberg, with more than 10 years of experience from the manufacturing industry in India and strong connections to municipalities and suppliers. This contact is very relevant for some friends of mine who owns a clothing boutique in Beirut so I sent them Mr Öbergs contact information. In my mind entrepreneurship is not only about my self, it is also about how can I help others with their ideas. Thus helping each other with small steps is more or less an essential factor for long-term success. I have attached a photo of Mr. Öbergs business card, and hope the contact might be helpful for you as well.

Looking forward for my next Startup event!

Yesterday I went to a Start Up bar at the hotel bar the Capital. The Startup Bar is an initiative from the magazine “Starta & Driva företag” and the idea is to let people network in a relaxed and modern way to get the connections entrepreneurs need for their start up. It’s open for everyone and it’s for free.¹

The StartUp Bar is located on the roof top bar The Capital at the Scandic Continental hotel.

The first person I meet in the elevator up to the rooftop bar was Josefin, the founder of the StartUp Bar. I had a chat with her about the StartUp Bar and she explained for me that she felt like something like this was missing in Stockholm. She works normally at the magazine “Starta och driva företag”. A magazine for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. Josefin gave me a couple of good advises how to start a conversation and told me not to be shy to start to talk to people.

Well, to start talking to people was never a problem. Right after I entered the bar a man confronted me and we started to talk. The man’s name was Ibrahim Tannira and was a sales and marketing manager from Palestine. He was in Stockholm to look for companies that wanted to outsource software engineering to the company (Asal technologies) he worked for in Palestine. We talked about the difficulties he had encountered and how he needed to persuade his clients that what he offered was better than to outsource it to cheaper countries as example Indie. He had been an entrepreneur before he started to work for Asal Technologies and we talked about the difficulties in the beginning to get founded.
Ibrahim had rented an apartment on AirBNB from a girl called Nina. She showed up at the bar and she was an entrepreneur too. She worked on her fourth start up project now, a dating app where the persons got connected true there mutual friends and the friends got to decide what the where going to do on their date. She told me about the importance of trying the product before launce and finding the right target group.  We had a really nice talk and I got useful information.

Ibrahim and Nina at the StartUp bar.

¹ http://startaochdriva.se/startupbar/

/ Birk

Yesterday I went to a Start-up Bar with some my group mates. It was in a really nice location in the center of Stockholm at the 8 floor with a sun set view. Has been a nice event to attend. There we meet different kind of people each one different background, ideas, personalities, motive but all were there to meet other people, talk, share ideas, link and find opportunities and also just chill out and see what the life give to them.

I meet several people, each one with his peculiarity that give us some helpful advice.

The most interesting was a discussion created with 4 people about start up. One guy called Marco founder of Time Village web application, another guy selling design possibilities, Valentin and me. The discussion was really interesting they give us a lot of entrepreneurial advice. Some of them are: Test always immediately your product;

Sell your product before you have it, make a call and sell something that you doesn’t have yet is fun;

There are different type of entrepreneurs, 100% percent in to it, or just make it for fun and test your self, just for help;

The ideas is just 5% execution is all;

Enjoy what you are doing;

There are different approach to entrepreneurship, put all your life possibilities on it, do it as a second job, do it to challenge your self, share a journey with your friend etc;

Experience start-up weekend if you have the possibility;

Speack and make friends, they are part of the journey and the success.

Marco explain us his story, he start with a friend to try to develop a web applicatio for share knowledge. He decided to open a web application to help people to socialize and share knowledge and capabilities, his application Time Village allow people to offer teaching in a passion field. Moreover you can find some one that tech what you are interested in learning. He told us that now the platform work but not as it should work, this because there is some issue that people not really use it due to some problem of confidence. He said aslo that there is a key somewhere to open a big door just he didn’t find yet that key. I give him some suggestion of get some inspiration from other applications.

Three years a go I had the same idea with some friend but we never start and implement it. I notice that when you have an idea that idea is in the air if you don’t act to realize someone else will realize it.

I went home I try the web page and I realize that have many issue so, since he leave me his visitcard, I wrote him an email about some feedback. I advice him to make some change, redesigned the web page and change a bit the model by put the possibility to let the people pay or ask money for their teaching offer.

Check it out the web page if you want use is a great tools to share knowledge, learn something from someone, interact and have fun, moreover try to challenge your self by try to teach what you know.

This is the web page:

https://timevillage.org

Earlier this evening, just like a bunch of classmates, I decided to take the leap and go for the very first time to one of these Start Up events: the Start Up Bar, which probably rings a bell for many of you. This event took place at the Scandic Continental, in the heart of Stockholm, and hosted, in a rather fancy and classy rooftop bar, dozens of people with different jobs, backgrounds and exceptations. Here’s a short summary of my experience there.

To be completely honest, I was not that excited about it in the first place, but I have to admit that Kevin’s recent experience at a similar event had made me kind of curious about it though. I thus went there trying to keep my mind as opened as possible, willing to discover what this meeting really had to offer.

As soon as I got in there, I noticed a first thing: it was absolutely not a “suit up” event! Everyone looked pretty relaxed, and the general mood was actually nice. So I got right into the crowd, trying to bear in mind the different pieces of advice read on previous blogposts: “being present”, “dare to stand alone”… And that’s when a second important fact struck me: it was incredibly easy to meet new people in that place! Beyond the fact that I was given a sticker basically saying “please talk to me” in Swedish, I just couldn’t stay alone for more than 1 minute without seeing a new person coming to me to introduce himself/herself. This led to several interesting meetings, among which a young entrepreneur who had just launched his website, the co-founder of a business development firm and a former KTH student who was getting ready to launch his nanotechnology-based revolutionary top secret product!

During these talks, my main goal, rather than “making friends” or pitching an idea, was to get both their professional and personal feedback on their entrepreneur experience so far. The main thing I got out of it is actually surprisingly (or maybe not) close to what Serdar has kept saying for weeks now: the idea is only 5%, execution is what matters, it’s up to us to move and make things happen… The young entrepreneur I mentionned before even talked about lean start up, something that we were discussing in class just yesterday! I actually had decided to take Serdar’s advice and to doubt everything he said even if he was the teacher, but I have to admit that I heard tonight most of the things we’ve been told in class, from several different people (which were obviously not Serdar!).

I’d like to conclude by saying that all the people I had a chat with this evening also said the same thing about their entrepreneur life: it’s not easy at all, but they’re all totally enjoying themselves. It’s only a choice that you have to make for your life: stay on the easy comforting path and take the risk of getting eventually some regrets, or just go for it!