The UPPSTART event

On 15^th November, I entered a startup event called uppstart. Uppstart is a relaxed conference for anyone interested in the European technology startup. It was organized inside the castle on uppsala city. Many startups joined this event. They had their simple booths in the castle. Not only there were many startups, but also they invited some company managers to give discussions about the future of the technical society. Spending a whole day listening to world class speakers, meeting startups and knowing how they start their company from an original thought. I was so impressed.

There are two startups leave me a great impression. One is Wehype. Through short discussion with this startup’s manager and listen their presentation. I know what the Wehype does. Wehype is an automated influencer marketing platform targeting the gaming community. The announcements are produced via a global network of broadcasters acting on the popular video streaming platform Twitch. They connect brands with Twitch streamers. The startup see there is a big market in gaming if they can reach millions of gamers. In other words, if you want to make your brand be seen in the public, maybe 10000 viewers, you may hire one ambassador to promote your brand to his 10000 viewers. Now, with Wehype, we can have 1000 ambassadors to promote your brand to their 10 viewers making totally 10000. I think Wehype is more likely an open innovation, I mean they use the Twitch platform (a live gaming video platform) to carry out the broadcasting. I remembered that during the open & user innovation course, we mentioned lots of open innovation cases. The open innovation means the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation.

Another startup called Moggie. The founder of the startup found that sometimes our lovely cat may lose when we go outside. And we may have enough time to take care of our pets. What is more, we may not know that our pet get ill. Meeting these problems, they develop this Moggie product. Mobile app and smart collar help to provide better care for your cat. The product has 6 grams of artificial intelligence that recognizes health characteristics and movement. This startup is more likely a user innovation. I mean the developer expects to benefit by using it.

Not only participants of the event can meet many startups and listening to their startup stories and knowing their product, but also there are several presentations and discussions. For example, Alok Alström a general manager of Uber give us an speech about what is uber and what uber want to achieve and also share something about the future transportation.

This event gives me understanding about how an idea comes into practice and broad my view about the fantastic startup world. It reminds me that everyone can be an entrepreneur. We should pay more attention to everyday small problems and use the open sources to solve it. Sometimes your idea maybe thought as a stupid one, others may think you are a day dreamer, just do what you want do and insist what you think.