9 Things you need to Make the most out of a Y Combinator group Viewing

By Paul Chen

So Y Combinator has organized an one semester course in StanfordUniversity called „How to Start a Startup” (CS183B). It started last week and will continue until the beginning of December. It has been met with much praise from the global startup community. Startup communities all over the world are orgainzing viewings including here in Krakow. However, in order to add value to the viewings, it is essential to have these elements in place.

1. A studious viewing room

It cannot be too comfortable. Couches are discouraged. Remember, it is an educational occasion. The viewing should be taken seriously. A classroom or a open space at a coworking space is optimal.

2. A proactive host

This could make or break the viewing. The job of the host is not only to organize the space, but to make sure the event is successful and that the attendees took something away from it. It might sound counterintuitive, but it might not be a good idea to show the lectures as soon as it becomes available online. The host should take some time to view the lectures once or twice to come up with discussion topics, and a list of questions on each topics for the attendees to talk about. Remember, because it is online, people can just watch it at home in their pajamas. If you want them to put on pants and leave the house, you need to add value to the experience. The discussion adds plenty of value. The host should have a strong and commanding personality to be able to control the flow of the event.

3. Startup founders

It would be valuable to the discussion to have startup founders from your community to share their experiences and add comments to what the lecturers have said. They can share valuable insights about product and business development, hiring, execution, and fund raising.

4. If available, Y Combinator alums

Here in Krakow, we are lucky to have two YC alums in Estimote and Applicake. With over 700 funded companies, chances are your community might have a YC alum too. It would be invaluable to invite members of their senior staff, and if you are lucky, a founder to give you a behind the scenes insight. They went through it, here is your chance to live vicariously through them, even if it is retroactive.

5. Local VC and/or angel investors

As a startup, you will be knocking at a VC or angel investors' doors at some time. It is nice to get their opinions about that the guest lecturers have said. The viewing provides them with a point of reference to share their experience and a window into how they make decisions.

6. Don't watch it all the way through in one shot

Unless you are lucky enough to be sitting in the classroom when Sam Altman or Paul Graham is lecturing, you have the option to pause the video, use it! As a good host, if you did what was recommended in #2, you would know when is a good time to stop the video and have a discussion. Discussions are a valuable tool to make important points stick in people's minds. And it adds perspective. This is when the VIP guest have an opportunity to share their insights and experience. From what we saw from the first two lectures, they are chock full of knowledge. There are too many bits of valuable knowledge to watch it in one shot. You will be overwhelmed. However, by pausing and discussing, it gives the audiences' brains a chance to digest the message.

7. Mini group discussions

Rather than have a whole group discussion if the group is lager than 5, if say your viewing group is larger than 10, break the big group into mini groups of 2 or 3. Then more people will have a chance to talk in depth about the topic when the videos are paused and after the VIP shares his insights.

8. Food, tea and coffee

Since this is a cerebral exercise, your brain needs energy. Refreshments are important to break the ice. If you can get sponsorship for pizza or beer, that would be great. If not, chips, popcorn, soda, juice, coffee, and tea should suffice.

9. Networking time

As with any good startup event, a chance to network after the lectures is important for attendees to make meaningful business connections.

I believe with these in place, a startup community can benefit greatly from their viewing sessions of this great opportunity to hear from the giants in the global startup community.

I can see that there is a marked difference between the first and the second lectures. Sam Altman took time to answer questions. My personal feeling is that Y Combinator should remember that they are doing an university course now. It is not like a conference keynote, where it is a monologue. In most good university courses, there is a dialogue between the students and the one on the stage. Modern education methods are those that the teacher would draw the knowledge from the students using discussion rather than just showing how great and smart they are. I understand it could be an one-off thing, but still if it is an educational exercise, good modern education methodology should be implemented. I can imagine that if it is a success, it could become a normal part of Stanford's course offerings.

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!

How to crack the code of great customer service

MARK COLGATE

It’s no surprise that data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index shows that the stock returns on customer service leaders have outperformed the S&P 500 nearly five-fold over the last 13 years.

However, despite its enormous value to a company, providing great customer service can be an exceedingly difficult code to crack.

While the vast majority of companies would say that they strive to offer a great customer experience, few businesses are able to execute and deliver a world-class experience consistently. It’s not that CEOs and their teams don’t want to offer great service – no one sets out to disappoint – it’s that they have underestimated the challenge and have not spent the requisite time and effort to carefully lay the foundation of a great customer service system.

Looking at companies that have earned a reputation as customer service leaders, five best practices emerge in providing an exceptional customer experience, day in and day out.

Make employee engagement a priority

It all starts with people. If employees aren’t happy, they won’t provide great customer service. WestJet Airlines Ltd. believes that highly engaged employees, or in its case owners, will go above and beyond to provide a truly memorable experience. Their strategy is spectacularly successful – WestJet has earned a spot alongside only five other companies in Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures Hall of Fame, J.D. Power has recognized them as a customer service champion, and they are one of the most profitable airlines in North America.

Telus Corp., another Canadian Corporate Cultures Hall of Fame inductee, reported world-leading employee engagement last year. Telus’ highly engaged work force helps to explain why the company receives about 75 per cent fewer complaints than its major competitors according to the telecommunications services complaints commissioner.

Define a clear vision and goals

In 2006, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia was that country’s worst-rated retail bank when it came to customer service. The bank set out to transform itself with a manifesto of seven customer promises and a clear goal of having the highest customer satisfaction rates of all major Australian banks by June 30, 2010.

This clear target and timeframe created a sense of urgency, and the need to provide better customer service became real. While they didn’t hit this specific objective, the team was focused and driven towards an inspiring vision. It took longer than expected, but by 2012 they reached the top spot and have now held it for 26 consecutive months.

Make customer service an integral part of your brand.

When Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, he set out to create “the earth’s most customer-centric company.” Mr. Bezos’ meetings were famous for the empty chair at the table to represent the customers’ point of view. When customer service is inextricable from a brand, it cannot be an afterthought – it must influence every decision.

Looking at Canada’s retail banking industry, Toronto-Dominion Bank has built into its brand the core concept of making banking as comfortable as a green leather chair. It’s not just clever advertising; for eight years, J.D. Power has ranked TD the highest in customer satisfaction among the country’s big five retail banks.

Build a system

Successful companies are able to hardwire accountability amongst employees. If there are no measures in place to represent what great service means to the customer, no process for identifying and fixing customer pain points, and no method for linking employee rewards and recognition for achieving customer-focused goals, then companies are reinforcing the wrong types of behaviours.

In the hotel industry, Ritz-Carlton is known for its fixation with customer metrics and process improvements. While on the outside, Ritz-Carlton employees seem to be extraordinary at personalized service, the reality is that the company has created a comprehensive customer service program that includes extensive onboarding and ongoing training programs, a robust customer relationship management system, as well as policies and processes that reward employees for going above and beyond to delight guests.

Create cultural norms, not rules

Customer service leaders must strike a balance between micro-managing employees and giving them carte blanche. Letting employees do what they think is best can be risky, but a rigid system of rules and scripts prevents them from being empathetic and creating a connection with customers.

At Telus, employees are guided by a set of commitments it crowd-sourced from its team. When a Telus employee picks up the phone, they know they should be “friendly, helpful and thoughtful” and “take ownership of every customer experience” – but from there they are empowered to let their personality shine through and deliver an unforgettable experience.

Most of us can think of at least one organization that has been so consistently impressive, we’ve been compelled to tell our family and friends about it. Behind that great customer service, there’s a clear vision, strong leadership and a perfect balance of goals, people and systems.

Becoming a customer service leader doesn’t happen overnight – it’s a long journey that takes focus, persistence and resilience. However, by taking the time to understand the necessary building blocks of a great customer service experience, along with the effort required to get there, companies can crack the code and turn customer service into a powerful and sustainable competitive advantage, creating satisfied customers and happy shareholders.

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!

This is a repost of an article that appeared on http://www.theglobeandmail.com/ on September 25, 2014

Y Combinator „comes” to Krakow

By Paul Chen

What does airbnb, Dropbox, reddit, Scribd, PayPal, and LinkedIn have in common? They are all graduates of Y Combinator. In Krakow, we also have a couple of startups that graduated from YC in Estimote and Applicake. This fall the people who brought you YC are running a course at Stanford University called „How to start a Startup?” (course number CS183B). Guest lecturers will include Paul Graham, Marc Andreessen, Dustin Moskovitz, Marissa Mayer, and Sam Altman himself.

Learn the fundamentals of starting up:

how to come up with ideas and evaluate them

how to get users and grow

how to do sales and marketing

how to hire

how to raise money

and more!

Hubraum and Colab is proud to be the organizers of viewing sessions in Krakow of the lectures that will be available online. The viewing sessions will be held at Colab every Monday starting September 29, 2014 until December 7, 2014. The viewing sessions will cover two of the previous week's lectures. There will be a discussion after the viewing with experienced startup professionals such as founders, VC's, angel investors, incubator/accelerator mentors, and journalists. It is still unknown if it will be catered. After the discussions, participants will be encouraged to network.

All are invited!

More information is available here: https://www.facebook.com/events/714998678579023

This is the only known officially organized and announced viewing event in Poland.

So suck it, Warsaw!

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!

Startup Sauna comes to Krakow

By Paul Chen

On Saturday September 27, 2014 Startup Sauna will make a stop in Krakow's own Colab for a coaching event. Startup Sauna is an accelerator that helps promising early-stage startups to get ready for taking the next step, be it entering their market or raising a seed round of funding. Our coaches are some of the most talented serial entrepreneurs, investors and other industry experts. 126 companies have gone through their program since 2010. These companies have raised more than USD 37 million in funding. They’ve done over 90 events like this one in Nordics, Eastern Europe and Russia, which has given them a good understanding what early-stage startups from the region needs. 

Startups could be invited to join the startup Sauna accelerator program which is a one month intensive sort of a „bootcamp” for startups focusing on business development. The best teams are brought to Silicon Valley to help them understand the US market and make good connections to investors and partners. The startup from the Startup Sauna program will also have access to Slush which is one of the premier startup event in Europe. With more than 6,000 attendees, 1,200 startups, 100 VC funds, and 300 media reps, it was one of the biggest in Europe in 2013. The next edition is on November 18-19 in Helsinki, Finland. The mentors that will be here are:

OskariLehtonen

Oskari is seed investor and accelerator at Finnish investment firm KoppiCatch Oy. Oskari has lived and worked in Silicon Valley, London, Singapore among other places. He has founded, advised, accelerated, floated, sold and acted as a chairman or a board member of various growth companies. Currently he is CEO of one edutech company called Tabletkoulu. Oskari particularly interested in media, education, commerce and analytics domains.

Pentti Karjalainen

Founding Partner and co-owner at T1Consulting Oy.  Pentti has worked on numerous CEO and other senior management positions during his career. He specialises in change management, especially changing company’s mindset from product orientation to client relationships and customer care. He has notable experience in advising small and medium-sized companies in generating new businesses and approve profit by increasing customers loyalty with better customer care. Pentti is a change manager with strong drive and significant strategic and administration experience. He works also as an executive business coach as well as helps selected start-ups with pro bono basis.

Jan-ErikNyrövaara

Jan-Erik is a managing partner and co-founder of Helsinki Ventures, a startup accelerator focused in digital innovation in Russia and East Europe. During his 15+ years in startup business, Jan-Erik has experience as entrepreneur, accelerator and early stage angel investor, including advisor and director seats in promising startups. Having lead innovative teams in professional services, technology, UX and marketing communication, Jan-Erik loves disruptive ideas, creativity and uncompromising execution.

You can apply to be a pitching startup here: https://www.f6s.com/startupsaunainkrakow-sep27th#/apply

More info can be found here: http://startupsauna.com/localevent/krakow-fall-14/

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!

Codewise Launches Voluum to help Performance Marketers

By Paul Chen

Hello Jeremy, How are you finding Krakow as the new base for Codewise?

Just to clarify, Krakow has been the base of our operations from day 1. With that said, we are a tech marketing hub that relies wholly on the quality of our technology – and Krakow [Poland] is a great place to find that talented developers and product people. Me personally, I have found Krakow to be a great community city, (for work and networking) and a great place to get a company off the ground.

How long have your company been at its current location?

We have been here at Lubicz 17 since April 2014. We love the location and the facility is second to none.

What exactly does Codewise do?

Codewise is a tech-marketing hub that builds tools for the performance marketing industry. What does this mean… if you advertise online you will probably find great use of our tools. ZeroPark is an advertising network, with a focus on domain and mobile traffic. Voluum is a tracking solution to help you target, optimize and scale your advertising spend. This is obviously the elevator pitch.

For the noobies, what exactly is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is made up of three main aspects:

1. Advertiser – the person or company selling a product
2. Publisher – a person or company that promotes an advertisers product in exchange for a commission
3. Consumer – The person who sees the ad and makes an action (sign up, download, purchase)

Affiliate marketing is simply outsourcing or supplementing you or your companies marketing activities through a partner who takes the risk by covering the costs of marketing in exchange or a payout upon success.

How does it differ from just trying to get customers in the traditional sense?

In many cases you can say affiliate marketing is the traditional sense, in that affiliates use many of the same strategies that in-house marketers use to acquire leads or sell products. Affiliate marketing can be seen as outsourcing or supplementing your companies marketing efforts.

Codewise's first product, ZeroPark, was a big success. What was it about ZeroPark that made it such a hit?

1. It’s built on the best tech in the industry
2. Great partners
3. A strong network and customer base

What surprised you about the customers' reaction to the product?

Honestly there weren’t a lot of surprises with ZeroPark. We have been in the industry for nearly 10 years, both as affiliates and vendors, therefore we felt that we had a very good understanding of the industry. In this fast past industry if you can automate as much as possible with great technology you have a winner.

What is the USP of the product?

As an affiliate marketer you are always looking for quality traffic sources that fit your budget and work well with your offers. Secondly, can that traffic source scale, meaning, once you have found that key match can you acquire more traffic of the same quality to keep driving leads or conversions. ZeroPark and its insight tools (along with Voluum) allow for marketers to see exactly what traffic is working and where their money is being utilized the best. Because it’s an RTB system (Real Time Bidding) you can make instant changes to increase your ROI.

Codewise has a new product, Voluum, currently in the beta phase but is about to be released. Can you tell us more about this product?

Voluum is a tracking platform targeted at performance marketers. It allows our users to manage and track every penny that they spend, in real-time. This provides our users immediate feedback on their activity, allowing them to scale their campaigns up or down. More importantly, it’s one of the first tracking platforms in the cloud, meaning that our users know longer need to host and manage their outdated software on by themselves. What does this mean in everyday use; some marketers are running millions of impressions every day, which could result in server costs of $600 to $1000 every month. This cost is on top of the software costs, not to mention manpower to manage those servers.

An even bigger issue that we have solved by hosting our product in the cloud is the reporting. With the self hosted solutions many marketers would have to clear their data, sometimes weekly, in order to keep from bogging their servers down (or pay more for more space). Therefore, they would not have stats into their past activities from the time they cleared the data. By hosting our tool in the cloud and taking charge of hosting requirements are users are now able to hold their data for as long as they want – with no slowing in reporting.

How will it help businesses manage their digital campaigns?

Voluum allows for hyper-targeting and reporting. When you [a marketer] start to study your audience, whether it be a buyer or someone earlier in the process as a trial user, you will start to find trends of when and how people try/buy your products. For example; time of day, location, languages, internet browser, mobile carrier, wording on the page, different colors of the buy/submit buttons are just a few of the factors that a marketers looks at when trying to increase conversion rates. Voluum allows our users to watch these critical demographics to optimize their success rate.

Do you work with mobile?

Yes. In fact, both of our products are have very strong mobile functionality. ZeroPark, the ad network, sells mobile traffic. One of Voluums strongest selling points is that you have both mobile and desktop tracking in one place.

Back to Voluum. How does it differ from other products like it?

1. Pricing
2. Hosted in the cloud (SaaS vs. the typical software download)
3. Scalability – You can run billions of events through our system and still expect the same speed and quality
4. No down time! We have redundant servers in 8 locations around the world to secure 100% up time.

Anymore information about Voluum?

If you are a performance marketer you will definitely want to give Voluum a try. We just returned from Affiliate Summit East in NYC and the feedback was overwhelming. We already have thousands of daily users, and we are just coming out of beta.

Overall, as a company, we have seen tremendous growth over the past 2 years, especially in the last year. Team size have grown over 100% in the last 8 months, revenue is up 125% in the same time period and our user base has seen a spike of 265%. We are doing something right and we are very excited. With that said, we are constantly hiring as we are growing, so I would invite anyone to send us their CVs. You can find all open jobs on our website www.codewise.com.

Thank you Jeremy for your time.  

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!

Why are Europeans interested in the New York Startup Community

By Paul Chen

New York City is the city that never sleeps. As startup founders know all too well, building a product then a company is something that never sleeps as well. Therefore, these two activities fit each other perfectly. As New York, or as they like to call themselves: Silicon Alley, is growing rapidly. It is starting to gain lots of interest from European startups. Next Wednesday, September 24, 2014 in AOL HQ on 770 Boradway, PolishTech Boom: The 1st Ever Polish Startup Demo Day in NYC will take place. Tickets sold out almost as soon as they were released, however you can still get waitlist tickets. I had a chance to chat with a couple of the organizers. Here is what they have to tell us:

How did this idea come to pass? 

Tytus Cytowski: I have been involved with Polish tech companies coming to the USA for several years and noticed that most startups forget to stop in New York City and miss out on funding and business development opportunities here. I told this to Daren and we decided to launch an event.

Daren McKelvey: I had actually worked with Beata Adamczyk from the Trade and Investment Section of the Embassy of Poland for the 2014 LAUNCH Festival in February, via Tytus's introduction. Things went really well and when Tytus told me about the idea, I jumped on board.

Who was involved in the organization of the event?

Tytus: Beata, Daren and myself. Also some of our good friends from the tech ecosystem in NYC helped with social media. PARP helped with promotion in Poland.

Daren: Yeah, lots of people helped us along the way to make this come to life and we're very thankful for the support.

With Silicon Valley on the other coast, why do you want to connect with the NYC startup community? 

Daren: NYC has been always known for diversity and it has made NYC business and culture strong. We believe the event will bridge innovation from Poland to NYC. In terms of practical things we hope that it will create jobs, partnerships, investment opportunities and a unique exchange of ideas between attendees.

Tytus: The NYC tech ecosystem is focused on sectors that are mostly ignored in Silicon Valley. For example enterprise, finance, fashion, education and advertising are super hot in NYC. It is only natural for Polish companies to come to NYC to explore opportunities here and discover clients, partners and investors. The reality is that you can potentially get early stage funding in the valley, but the customers and later stage investors are on the east coast.

What do you hope to achieve from the event?

Daren: The thesis is that NYC is a natural hub for Polish tech startups to grow in a way that is mutually beneficial for the city and Poland. We want to put Polish tech companies on the map in Silicon Alley.   

Tytus: Concretely, more and more top angel investors and funds are considering Polish startups as viable investments and we would love to translate leads into closed business after the event. As Daren said, it is about jobs, signed contracts and relationships being formed.

Who will be attending the event from the Polish side?

Tytus: We have been fortunate to have secured the Deputy Minister of Economics, Ms. Ilona Antoniszyn-Klik.

Daren: About 10 polish government officials from the Embassy in Washington, D.C and Poland.

How was the Polish Embassy involved with the organization?

Tytus: They were responsible for selecting the startups that will be presenting. They also assisted in securing finances to make the event a success.  

Daren: the Embassy's trade mission in SF, led by Beata, runs the Polish Silicon Valley Acceleration Center (SVAC) and they run an acceleration program to select the startups who are ready for the spotlight.

What are the Poles bringing to the table?

Tytus: Passion, fresh ideas and out of the box thinking that New Yorkers love.

Daren: I've spoken with a bunch of the founders and really impressed with their business acumen, backgrounds, and drive to make it here in the US. They want to contribute to the Silicon Alley eco-system by creating jobs here and open doors to anyone wanting to do business in Poland.

Among those representatives, which ones would you like the attendees to watch out for?

Tytus: Social WiFi and Brand24. Excellent founders, good product, traction with clients globally and clear vision.

Daren: Definitely those two and also Momentum by Atsora, great founder and making solid revenue this year so far. One of the startups was invited by a prominent investor to pitch a week before the demo day in NYC.

I see that there will be 8 Polish startups making pitches, who will they be?

Tytus: Monster & Devices, Biotrustis, Momentum by Atsora, Evercode, Realdeal, Social WiFi and Brand24. One can't make it last minute. After we announced the event we were approached by more companies that wanted to demo, but unfortunately we could not accommodate; they will be participating in the second edition though!

I can see that the press release says that the guest list will be highly curated, why is that?

Daren: Anybody in NYC that goes to tech events knows there are dozen events to choose from each night. It can be confusing for a startup visiting to know which are the good events, so we want to make sure they are getting the most out of this. The type of people who are invited–and who we've attracted–are the ones that can open doors and accelerate community support and infrastructure for Polish startups in NYC. This is a huge opportunity for the companies to make a splash in front of key influencers, potential customers, partners, investors, and press. 

Who are you looking for the startups to meet and connect with?

Daren: This goes back to curation, but the companies will connect with investors that are open to foreign startups who want to set up offices here, as well as potential customers and vendors in various different verticals. Outside of the demo day, we are organizing educational and informative workshops, co-working and accelerator space tours, and intimate networking opportunities for the startups throughout the week. 

What would make the event a success?

Tytus: You can look at the success metrics two ways. First, you can look at the business relationships that will be formed for the years to come and the non-tangible benefits for the startups from Poland and NYC investors and the tech community. Second, you can look at closed business that we hope to facilitate through the event. Most New Yorkers want concrete things out of the event.  

Daren: At the end of the day, it's about people meeting people that want to add value and make each other more successful. But taking action after the event, that's essential. Everyone's got to follow up! Things move so quickly in NYC, so face-time is great, we will urge them to manage their new relationships for the long-term. Success is relative to the feedback we get from the startups and the audience. Was it worth everyone's time? What was the vibe? Did everyone meet great people? Beata, Tytus and I really love to build community, match-make, add value and this is an experiment we're excited about undertaking. 

What will make you want to make a second edition later on?

Tytus: We have been overwhelmed by the NYC community’s positive response and the feedback. The event got waitlisted in an hour after our initial email announcement went out. The second edition hopefully will be announced soon. We will be looking for hot startups and sponsors for the next one.  Stay tuned.

Daren: Ha yeah! I wish we had more space! AOL has been gracious enough to sponsor and let use their space, but we can only fit so many people in one room. People with Polish roots are really coming out of the woodwork wanting to get into the event and it makes sense to do another one since there's already high demand. 

Daren McKelvey runs his own consultancy that helps companies strategically partner with and market at top tier tech and innovation events. He also does Business Development for NYC-based mobile app design and dev agency Blue Label Labs. You can follow him at @darenmckelvey

Tytus Cytowski is an attorney and founding partner of Cytowski LLC a law firm specializing in representing startups, entrepreneurs and tech investors in the US and Poland. He is admitted to the New York State Bar and finished Harvard Law School. You can follow him at @tcytowski 

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!

Seedcamp Invests In 11 New Startups After Its Annual Event

Mike Butcher

European ‘venture accelerator’ Seedcamp has announced it has made 11 new investments, out of the 21 drawn from around Europe that pitched at their annual event in London last week.

It made 11 investments, 7 directly from Seedcamp Week applicants, and 4 from the new Seedcamp Fund.

The companies are:

● Carbon Voyage, London, UK – “Creating technology that makes transport more efficient.”

● Homeshift, London, UK – “A home moving service that enables you to organise your move hassle”

● Make Works, Glasgow/ Edinburgh, Scotland – “Connecting the design industry with the ability to manufacture work locally.”

● Medefer, London, UK – “Improving patient safety and reducing unnecessary hospital referrals by providing telemedicine consultant advice.”

● Newsfixed, London, UK – “An international journalism marketplace allowing media organisations and information-heavy businesses to commission content far more efficiently than before.”

● Shoprocket, London, UK – “Feature rich eCommerce that integrates seamlessly into any application with a single line of code.”

● Wriggle, Bristol, UK – “A mobile-app that connects users with unsold spaces at local businesses”

It also announced additional investments as part of the companies seed round into:

● eMoov, Brentwood, UK – “The UK’s leading online estate agent.”

● Mailcloud, London, UK – “A secure, cloud based service that organises your emails and files”

● Property Partner, London, UK – “Democratising investment in buy-to-let property”

● Teleport, Palo Alto, CA / Tallinn, Estonia – “A search engine for Digital Nomads.”

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!

This is a repost of an article that appeared on TechCrunch.com on September 18, 2014

Polish Tech Boom: The 1st Ever Polish Startup Demo Day in NYC

By Paul Chen

If you happen to be in New York City next Wednesday September 24, 2014, be sure to stop by AOL Platforms office on 770 Broadway.  You will be able to meet Polish entrepreneurs and founding members of some Polish startups.  In attendance will also be members of the Polish government.  The aim of the event is to create bridges between Poland and the New York Entrepreneurship community.  The event is between 6:45pm to 9:45 pm. 

You can register for the event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/688219697926395/
 
You can get tickets to the event here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/polish-tech-boom-the-1st-ever-polish-startup-demo-day-in-nyc-tickets-12701100333

Here is the Official Press Release: 

Come join us in showcasing the most promising startups from Poland pitching to a panel of prominent venture capitalists, angels and a select audience from the NYC tech and investor community. 

The tech scene in Poland is booming, and Silicon Valley and European investors are convinced this is the next hot startup market.

In the last 12 months alone, Polish tech companies have won prestigious awards at Tech Crunch Disrupt for Best Hardware, LeWeb in Paris for Best Startup and the LAUNCH Festival in San Francisco for Best Technical Achievement, as well as raised money from top tier investors  in Silicon Valley, with one startup landing in Y Combinator.

Now, many Polish tech founders see New York City as their best opportunity to go global. These startups have great talent, traction, and solid product.
This event aims to create a bridge for innovation for Polish entrepreneurs looking to expand their ventures to NY and the US.

Attendees, sponsors, and partners can tremendously benefit from this vibrant emerging tech ecosystem by supporting, embracing—and associating with—the next technology superstars, plus develop relationships with the Polish government on ground floor of a brand new footprint in NYC. There will also be opportunities to meet privately with startups during the week. 

If you'd like to elevate your brand in front of a very unique and connected audience, please email us at polishstartupsnyc@gmail.com.

The attendee list is highly curated, with ample, quality networking opportunities abound throughout the evening, as well as food, beverage and delicious desserts.

Space is extremely limited!

Agenda:

6pm – 7pm: Networking, Drinks, Food
7pm – 7:15pm: Polish Gov. Officials Welcomed
7:15pm - 8:45pm: 8 Polish Startups Demo for 4-5 Minutes Each w/ Investor Feedback
8:45pm - 9:30pm: Networking, Drinks

Emcee

John Biggs, East Coast Editor, TechCrunch (@johnbiggs)

John is a Brooklyn-based journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Laptop, PC Upgrade, Surge, Gizmodo, Men’s Health, InSync, Money, Linux Journal, Popular Science, The Stir and has written Black Hat: Misfits, Criminals, and Scammers in the Internet Age and Bloggers Boot Camp. He is also the former editor in-chief of Gizmodo, and runs the BWL family of blogs, SlushPile.net and WristWatchReview.com, and records the HourTime Podcast with Ariel Adams. Look for his forthcoming books about Marie Antoinette’s watch and a YA fiction book, Mytro.

Opening Remarks:

Hon. Ilona Antoniszyn-Klik, Deputy Minister of Economy, The Republic of Poland (@IlonaAntoniszyn)

Hon. Bożena Lublińska-Kasprzak, President, Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (@B_Lublinska_K)

Investor Feedback Panel
 
Jon Ason, Angel Investor / Founder, Kewpie Associates (@kewpster)

John Ason is an early seed stage angel investor who has funded 60 companies and currently has 22 active companies. Notable exits include Xlibris, LiveLook bought by Oracle and Diapers.com bought by Amazon for $545 million. AlleyWatch has selected John as one of 20 awesome people in the New York tech scene you need to know about.





Susan Naci, Partner, 32 Laight Street Partners (@susnac)

Susan is a Private Equity and VC Partner at 32 Laight Street Partners, whose chief investments include Cuurio, Eloquii, and Light Tape. She is also the former CEO of Glossybox US, with a background in publishing, beauty, e-commerce, sales, and operations, having worked at AMEX, Condé Nast, and Vanity Fair. 





 Julian Counihan, Associate, Red Sea Ventures (@NYCounihan)

Julian started a career in technology at Fortna, a logistics firm, where he helped develop distribution & supply chain CAD software that is still in use today. After leaving, Julian joined Citigroup where he designed portfolio analysis systems and later transitioned to advising technology companies on M&A and capital market transactions. Julian holds an MBA from the MIT and a BSc in Systems Engineering from UVA.

Thank you for reading another one of my posts done just for you!  If you liked what you read please share it by using one of the buttons up top and check out other posts in this blog.  I don’t want you to miss out on future posts so please follow me on Twitter @Eurodude23.  If you haven’t done it already, please like my fan page by clicking here!  See you next time!