Today I’ve been at the STHLM TECH meetup event which was held at Hilton hotel, Slussen.
A lot of people attending the event.
It was a very different kind of event compared to the last time i was at a startup event which was interesting to see. That’s why i wanted to share my thoughts of the event.
The event was held by Mr Tyler Crowley, who is the founder and organizer of the event. Initially he introduced the event, but quite early welcomed two investors that had been invited as special guests (H&M and Nordic Makers).
H&M making their presentation.
They got to present their companies, what they do and what interests they had in joining the startup scene. They both had the same general idea that they wanted to find new creative people alongside with their ideas which they could invest in and in the end become mutually beneficial.
But to exemplify, H&M were extra interested in finding some kind of material that could replace the most common material used out there today (cotton) as well as to learn how to produce their products more efficiently.
After some other investors also had the chance to present themselves, three different startups that were invited got the chance to pitch their idea. At any point in time, the invited investors that were invited up on the scene could interrupt the pitch to give any kind of feedback.
The three different ideas were:
- Questions on Wikipedia
Where the idea was based on an app where you would use the extent of Wikipedias knowledge in order to quiz yourself and learn more in a fun way. - Foodmarket online
Where you would use hashtags (e.g. #cheese, #soup, #vegitarian) as filters in order to see where your food that you would filter could be found. Either restaurants, foodstores or local people selling food in any way.
- An app to find office space
An app design to provide a service that grant a suitable office space anywhere. This app could provide spaces in restaurants, office buildings, cafes etc. The possibilities were endless it seemed…
Pitcher performing their ideas to the investors (and audience).
All of the pitches got a lot of criticism. Mostly constructive feedback, but also comments in order to entertain the audience. It was really amusing due to the fact that I would have similar thoughts about their way of presenting.
There were three things they all had problems with which was:
- Too long pitch
- Way too complicated slides
- Did not show the product/solution quickly enough
All of this resulted in that the audience and investors were left confused even though the majority of the audience thought that the ideas had potential.
I got to speak a few guests at the event. I asked a guy named Eric, who was into the app development business, what he thought about the pitches. He could actually relate to the difficulty of knowing how to perform in front of a big crowd with an idea that you’ve been working on for quite some time. I debated the main problems of the pitchers and thought that it was somewhat obvious. It might be due to the fact that the Entrepreneurship course have given me a new view, but a lot also comes from a long background of studies.
I would like to end by saying:
Nobody isn’t really interested in the idea until they can see what the actual product looks like and what the possibilities are.
