Interested in improving your pitching skills?

by ⋅ 3 Comments

Hi there, hope the final exam went well and that everyone had a good weekend. I’m directing my feedback to the course evaluation, right now I just wanted to do a quick shout-out to anyone interested in learning more about how to do an elevator pitch. If so, you should really order tickets (they are free of charge) in the link below, since SUP46 is hosting another exiting event this week. There will be eight innovative Swedish startups attending, and they all have to convince a qualified jury to pick them, in only 90 seconds.

Since a big part of this course have been linked with delivering an idea/product in a convincing and selling way, I think that it could be very interesting to see if any of these skills will be practiced by the contenders.

Following every single elevator pitch, there will also be a  short Q&A where the entrepreneurs will be answering questions from the judges.

/Isac

http://www.eventbrite.fr/e/handson-startup-tour-2015-stockholm-registration-18629123209?aff=erellivorg

Networking is key

by ⋅ 3 Comments

Since we discussed the importance in developing professional relationships and networking during todays lecture it was a bit striking to directly stumble across two articles on the subject. The first one got me thinking about all the different types of social media we explore in this course, and that they really fill a purpose – especially considering promoting startups.

The second article is a bit humorous, but I like the new angle in social networking between entrepreneurs.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/251620

http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/12/pif-is-tinder-for-networking-entrepreneurs/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=twitter

 

/Isac

Ways to finance a startup as a KTH-student

by ⋅ 5 Comments
There are a lot of organizations, which by extension to KTH help students and scientists to successfully implement their innovative ideas. Some of these organizations are focusing on financial grants by choosing projects they think possess great potential. I have put together a selection of a few of them, with some basic information.
KTH innovation is an organization that focus on the commercialization of business ideas of KTH students and scientists. The funding occurs by an internal process where KTH innovation decides if your idea is worth investing in. The funding is gradually, with a ceiling at 300K SEK, to ensure that some key issues are being answered and that the product/service has commercial potential.

STING stands for Stockholm Innovation & Growth and is basically an ecosystem for innovative startups in Stockholm. They have contributed with development suport to over 100 startups since 2002. STING evaluates between 150-200 projects and companies and then starts a thinning process which ends with 20 projects getting business development support. STING is an integrated part of KTH’s innovation system, and is since 2005 operated by an incubator on the KTH campus. STING is a non-profit company owned by the Electrum foundation with partners (see attached link below)

http://intra.kth.se/forskning/2.8090/inkubatorer-1.33809

KTH Opportunities Fund was started in 2013 as an extra support so students of KTH could develop in areas like teambuilding, innovation and creativity. The fund is financed by donation from KTH alumni, and provide grants based on three focus areas; enrichment of the study-time, investing in talented scientists and an increase of the global exchange. All students of KTH are competent to the grants.

https://www.kth.se/en/opportunities

KTH recently started a collaboration with the american site founder.org. Founder.org is working to inspire and to help students across the world to start innovative companies. The challenge $100 K Competition is held annually together with the parent-universities. The ten finalists are awarded $100 000 and a spot at iFOUNDER.org university, wich is a 12 months long training-program where they are tough how to succeed as a startup, both short and long-term.

https://founder.org/about/

How to hack slush

by ⋅ 1 Comment

Hi everyone, hope you had a great weekend. I just want to post a link to the next SUP46 event this Wednesday. This time, Slush pays a visit to promote their two-day event where new startups meet with large investors. Also, the best team will be awarded with flights and tickets to Slush 2015. If you’re interested, see the link below

https://www.facebook.com/events/416791658506068/

I know that the deadline for participation is set to October 2nd, but last time you were able to sign up later anyways. Hope to see some of you there

//Isac

Increase in payroll tax – good or bad for Swedish startups?

by ⋅ 2 Comments

In Sweden we recently had an increase of the general payroll tax for adolescences, with the main reason to stimulate unemployment rates. As an example, employers earlier were obliged a payroll tax of 15,49% if employees were  born later than 1990, this number today is corresponding to 25,46% – a rise in over 60%.

My question/thought is regarding how this is affects the Swedish startup-climate. Can we consider this an advantage, in terms of seeing a rise in new startups due to fewer employers hiring youngsters- forcing them to try business on their own? Or is this negative –  in the aspect that it’s becoming more expensive for employers to hire.  I’ve been involved with a few smaller organizations that was solely employing people under the age of 26. This I think, not based on any statistics, is the case of a lot of younger employers. Thoughts?

//Isac