What they offer: coaching by 99 mentors (successful entrepreneurs, CEO’s and experts in the field of finance, legal and IP), up to €15.000 of seed investment (plus a sponsor package that is worth over €250.000  euro’s), 6-months of inspiring office space in downtown Amsterdam, Demo day (pitch in front of 100+ investors, journalists and VIP’s) and a business trip of 25 days co-working in Silicon Valley, where you met successful US entrepreneurs, pitch in front of VC’s and explore different partnerships.

The deadline to apply closes on the 18th of January. The program starts on the 13th of March, 2012 in Amsterdam.

If you want to know more, have a look at their website:  http://rockstart.com/accelerator/

mark

Ondanks crisis gezond ondernemerschap in IT-sector

In het afgelopen jaar namen 181 ondernemingen met samen 615 medewerkers deel aan BizSpark. Het recordaantal bedrijven sinds Microsoft het start-up programma in  Nederland introduceerde. In totaal zijn er inmiddels ruim 900 bedrijven welke deel uitmaken van het programma. Deelname betekent onder meer dat starters drie jaar lang gratis toegang hebben tot software development tools zodat ze hun IT-business kunnen uitbouwen en professionaliseren. Naast ondersteuning bij het promoten van de nieuwkomers worden start-ups in contact gebracht met grote spelers in de sector en hebben ze toegang tot een wereldwijd netwerk van investeerders, adviseurs en mentoren. Ondanks de crisis ziet BizSpark het aantal participerende ondernemers sinds 2009 alleen maar stijgen.

Ondernemingen die in aanmerking komen voor BizSpark hebben een particuliere eigenaar, bestaan minder dan vijf jaar, ontwikkelen software en mogen niet meer dan een miljoen dollar per jaar omzetten. Aan het programma zijn geen kosten verbonden. Sinds 2009 zijn er in Nederland 744 nieuwe bedrijven ingestapt. 

Baten voor de kosten uit

Een van die startups is Autitouch, de software van de onderneming versnelt en ondersteunt de diagnostiek van autisme. ‘De deelname aan BizSpark heeft ons goed geholpen. Door de mogelijkheid om te pitchen op allerlei evenementen ben ik in contact gekomen met verschillende investeerders. Ook de feedback en de coaching vanuit Microsoft levert een waardevolle bijdrage’, vertelt Freena Eijffinger  CEO & Founder. Ook het in 2011 opgerichte ImgZine is aan boord. CEO Marijn Deurlo licht toe: ’BizSpark helpt ons om in de vroegste fases van ons succes de baten voor de kosten uit te laten gaan in plaats van andersom’. ImgZine biedt uitgevers de mogelijkheid om met bestaande content tegen lage kosten een realtime magazine voor tablets en smartphones in de markt te zetten.

Technische & strategische support

Lucas Tieleman, CEO van Repudo benoemt de betrokkenheid vanuit BizSpark: ‘We worden snel en op een leuke manier ondersteund, zowel personeelsmatig als voor  software zijn er goede resources beschikbaar. Uitstekend voor het start-up ecosysteem dat Microsoft een dusdanige rol wil en durft te spelen’. Met de mobiele Repudo app kunnen gebruikers een digitale boodschap (tekst, foto, video en/of audio) op elke gewenste locatie achterlaten. Bij onderneming Sentimention gaat het hard sinds de deelname aan het programma. ‘Het meedenken van Microsoft op technisch en strategisch niveau heeft ervoor gezorgd dat we eind van het jaar officieel kunnen lanceren. Dat we als relatief kleine nieuwkomer serieus aan tafel zitten met A-merken heeft ertoe geleid dat onze betaversie inmiddels door diverse grote organisaties gebruikt wordt’ aldus managing partner Remco Mercey.

–mark

With over 16,000 startups part of BizSpark in Europe and over 900 in the Netherlands you’d expect that people like me would think they’ve heard and seen it all. Yet, every day, I discover something new that impresses or inspires me.  One of the great things I love about my job is how I am witness to an impressive showcase of innovative technologies developed by European entrepreneurs.

And it is this ‘out of the box’ thinking that is behind a whole new generation of startups who, if we give them a chance, could bring revenue into Europe and create jobs. But there is a huge leap between having a great idea and having a successful business and this is the big challenge faced by most start-ups.  When I’m at an industry event, whether taking part in a judging panel or just there to provide advice and mentoring, I often get asked “what is the most important thing that startups should remember?”

The problem is there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ answer.  Every business is different, with its own strengths, weaknesses, products, services and management team and they are all at various stages of their evolution.  Sure, they read around the subject (and there is a lot of great content out there, such as authors like Steve Blank and Eric Ries) but that’s often not enough on its own.

That’s one of the reasons I’m a fan of accelerator programs like BizSpark Network Partner, Startupbootcamp. They provide a tailored advice and support that can help startups find a fast track to success. From my own experience, I’ve seen many startups being matched with the mentors and coaches that not only provide the best fit in terms of experience, but also are the right match in terms of personality.  Feeling like you have the right connection is hugely important because this is very much a ‘people’ based experience, which requires a lot of trust and could be a relationship that lasts for many years.

Startupbootcamp is an organization that appreciates and does this very well.  As a central part of the upcoming accelerator program in 2013, mentors can receive training to further improve their own skills, including learning about the technology jargon that startups are using.  I already signed up for this first-hand experience because I am a mentor myself, as just one element of how we support startups within the BizSpark program.

So, I’m hugely looking forward to the upcoming training session for mentors, taking place in February, ahead of working with the next batch of great entrepreneurs in in 2013. If you’re a startup and you didn’t sign-up yet I have only one advice for you, DO IT NOW!

–mark

And it certainly made a difference – all the startups who took part in the prep day worked very hard and I could see the results when they went on stage!  It was a good reminder that while a lot of startups don’t prepare properly, the ones that do will see the benefit.

But, back to the main event.  I missed most of the keynote presentations because I was so busy judging and mentoring startups, so I’m going to focus on them (and for me, they are always the most interesting aspect of these events anyway).

Tawkon, SnowCiety, ZapStreak, PlayerDuel and AppMotion made up the First Round on Day One and what a diverse range of ideas they presented!  Twakon helps people minimize exposure to radiation, while Snowcity connects ski-ing and snowboarding friends on the slopes.  ZapStreak offers a mobile SDK for pushing content to Web-connected TVs(no extra hardware needed) and Playerduel can turn any single-player game into a multi-user game, with minimal effort.  Last but not least, Appmotion builds a framework that streams motion-based content to your smartphone, effectively turning into a games controller.  How cool is that!  SnowCity took winning position (the giant video screen showing ski-ing and snowboarding was definitely a crowd-pleaser).

Round two brought BellaDati, Tripl, Waytag, Babelverse and Shelby.tv on stage.  There’s not enough room here to describe everyone, so I’m going to call out just two Shelby.tvand Waytag.   I admit that Shelby.tv is  BizSpark member but I can’t be accused of bias, because my fellow judges also agreed they were the winner of this session. Shelby is your place for video. It’s all the video your friends share, in one place… then Shelby gets smart, to give you personalized video on web, mobile, and smart TV.  Clever stuff.

My other favourite startup from day one was Waytag is to GPS coordinates what DNS to IP addresses.  It is so much easier to share your waytag than trying to share a street address or GPS co-ordinate. You name it, your control it and you choose who to share it with.  I love it!

First up on day two was Robin, also a BizSpark member.  Consumers are looking for trust when shopping online and Robin is today’s retailer’s sidekick for delivering that trust, helping to ensure great service, both online and offline.   Other startups who presented on day two included Between, Six3, Hojoki and Nuji.  Again, what a diversity of ideas!  In brief: Between provides a secret online service for lovers to communicate intimately.  Six3 makes it incredibly easy & fun to create and reply to video messages on any device.  I liked the idea behind Hojoki, which is to make all cloud apps work as one, by building one newsfeed that basically creates a productivity dashboard.  Nuji is doing well for itself: with over 250,000 stores and 300,000 products, it is creating a new type of social retail platform/

So much choice, so who were the ultimate winners?

-       Overall winner (jury) – Shelby.tv

-       Best Mobile Startup –  Between

-       Best Web app – Nuji

-       Most remarkable pitch – Frommees

-       Best B2C – snowciety

-       Best B2B & Public choice – Babelverse

I’m happy to have been involved in an event that shows what a great collection of startups there are in Europe today.  I’m looking forward to “The Next Web – The Next Year”.

–mark

What they offer: coaching by 99 mentors (successful entrepreneurs, CEO’s and experts in the field of finance, legal and IP), up to €15.000 of seed investment (plus a sponsorpackage that is worth over €30.000  euro’s), 6-months of inspiring office space in downtown Amsterdam, Demo day (pitch in front of 100+ investors, journalists and VIP’s) and a business trip of 25 days co-working in Silicon Valley, where you met successful US entrepreneurs, pitch in front of VC’s and explore different partnerships.

The deadline to apply closes on the 31st of January. The programm starts on the 23rd of March, 2012 in Amsterdam.

If you want to know more, have a look at their website:  http://rockstart.com/accelerator/

mark

But, when I could be torn away from mentoring, I did manage to catch some of the conference, including our own Chris Capossela, Senior Vice President, Microsoft Corporation, talking about the enormous opportunity for startups and developers to make an impact in the world.   As he said, given the devices running on Windows, can you imagine the potential if you land your product or service on them?  Of course I’m biased

So back to why I’m really here – to meet more cool start-ups, one of my favorites today being sponsoringsolutions.com.  This French company is working on a platform that helps companies find the right event to sponsor or use as a Launchpad for new products, as well as match-making event organizers with potential partners.  Given how much time I know some people – including myself! – spend researching the best events to support, this could be a great time-saving solution.

Looking forward to day 3!

–mark

So, with day one almost over, what do I think so far?  Certainly, in the conference, I’m very happy to report that the importance of design in slowly getting the recognition it deserves. As many people who know me already know I’m a real believer of design as it is equally important as the underlying technology and the business case in a good startup (and yes in any enterprise too ). After all, if an product or service isn’t easy and fun, then people won’t want to use it.  Right? Right.

With that in mind, it was great to see LeWeb kick-off with keynotes from Karl Lagerfeld (no introduction necessary) and Dave Morin, Co-Founder & CEO, Path, both  elaborating on the importance of design.  So it was very apt that my next appointment was at the startup competition where I saw a great pitch by 23minutes.to (BizSpark member) who when I talked to them afterwards,  also talked about the importance of design – even though they’re small, they already have one person focusing solely on the product design.

Just to put it out there once more before I wrap up for today “We are deluding ourselves if we think that the products that we design are the “things” that we sell, rather than the individual, social and cultural experience that they engender, and the value and impact that they have” – Bill Buxton (Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research).

–mark

Whatever the reasons behind that (are fewer women pursuing career in ICT, or starting their own businesses?) there are an increasing number of organisations worldwide focusing either on female entrepreneurship, or women in technology, or both.

Interested in reading the rest of this post? See my guest blog on the BizSpark Team Blog: What’s Next for Female Entrepreneurs in Europe?

–Mark

As a rough estimate, I’d say that 99% of all monetization models I saw so far are not innovative at all. In the contrary they are all very ‘1.0’ – such as licensing modes, freemium/premium or depending on subscriptions, and advertising.

Luckily I also talk to the 1% and there is great upside potential for the startups who extend their innovation to monetization. I’m not going to give away the brilliant innovative ideas of the guys and girls but here’s one example:  the traffic to your product or service might make interesting business intelligence for other companies to make a heatmap of usage of products, services, interest, etc. (and no, not selling your user database of course!). I could tell you about others, but I don’t want to give away other people’s secrets!

I hope you get what I’m trying to say here and I challenge you to go and think out of the box on monetization of your new business and try to find innovative ways to get that revenue coming in. For example, take your kids for a walk, start brainstorming with them. . Or invite a bunch of creative friends, give them a few beers and pick their brains. I’m pretty sure you’ll get great ideas and directions you never thought of before that might actually work!

Thoughts? Feedback? Bring it on!

–mark

Applications are open and close on January 6, 2012. The program starts March 1, 2012 in Amsterdam. Got your interest?

Find our more about Rockstart Accelerator here: http://rockstart.com/accelerator/

–Mark