An Entrepreneurship marathon @ Create-Squared

Stockholm buzzes with hackathons and marathons and I stumbled upon one such entrepreneurship marathon called Create Squared- Closing the loop which was conducted from the 24th – 26th of March 2017. Although it was the first year for create squared, the event was one of the most well organised events that I have attended in Stockholm.

The event concentrated on bringing ambitious individuals from different backgrounds together to discuss ideas. We were given the opportunity to pitch our ideas, select teams and  develop the ideas on the themes of circular economy. The development stage of these ideas was the highlight of the event. We were provided with 15 amazing mentors who guided us throughout the journey. Every mentor was an entrepreneur him/herself as well as an expert in one of the many skill sets among pitching, forming a business plan, communication, design thinking, lean startup methods, problem finding, ideation,value based decision making, stress management, customer segments,social sustainability to name a few.

The mentors helped us polishing our idea, helping us pave our way through the clutter to a precise and clear business model. Below are the few tips that I learnt during these intensive 53 hours.

• When you are describing an idea, try to be precise. So much so that you should be able to explain the same idea in 30 secs, 1 min or 4 minutes.
• Focus on one small problem to solve to start with.
• Your idea does not have to be unique but should be clearly defined.
• Cut as many lose ends as possible.
• Choose early on if you want to go big initially or test the waters and work your way towards it.
• Have a plan B and C but focus on plan A and develop it completely.
• Don’t be shy to ask for help. You will always get it .
• A group with diverse educational and cultural backgrounds definitely makes a positive difference.

I personally learnt a great deal from this event and my team mates and our team even managed to bag the second place. I am now looking forward to the pre-incubation stage of this project with the Stockholm school of Entrepreneurship and looking forward to turn our efforts into reality.

                                  Team Delicut

From L-R: Shruti Kuber, Igor Panic, Alexander Nilehn, Jingjing Xie, Haonan Liu.