13 teams pitched their products to an audience of over 100 people from the Tetuan Valley community

On Thursday December 15th Tetuan Valley hosted the 15th Demo Day, for the 15th edition of the Startup School in Madrid. This year it had a special theme to it: community. Alumni from various editions of the Startup School came to the event to see the new batch pitch and show their demos, and to welcome them into the community. Pablo Fernandez-Maquieira, co-founder of Videona, gave a talk about the importance of giving back to the community and invited other alumni to share stories of what they like most about it. Later on, Karel, our CEO, gave a presentation on the history of Tetuan Valley – where we’ve been and where we’re now.

These were the teams that pitched at the Demo Day last Thursday:

• By the rent:

It is the first 100% mobile application, which optimizes the process of renting houses, thanks to its user experience, calendar of visits and ratings system between tenant and landlord.

• Recogn.ai:

Artificial intelligence engine based on knowledge graphs to help companies manage and exploit their structured and unstructured content.

• Teem:

Teem is a project hub for communities where everybody can find collaboration experiences in inspiring projects.

• Kren4:

Kren4 is a software to manage renewable portfolios from a technical and economic perspective. It integrates all the plants’ information in one platform, so our clients save time and money in the management and increase the value of their assets due to a better analysis.

• Applicare:

Set of services that offers all the support that companies and research centres need to establish a successful and long-term collaboration, fostering applied research.

• Mi Cappital:

Independent automatic finantial advisor application, give everyone the chance to be invested in the best products of the market in order to planify their lifes no matter how much money they have.

• So easy to cook:

Connects people through gastronomic experiences. Professional or amateur cooks can organize and promote their cooking class, wine tasting, or other type of experience,  while travelers or local foodies can book and enjoy them.  

• Appcademos:

Multiplatform (web & app) where university students can search, compare and find the best academy for them, according to the price, schedule and location. Also, they can sign in to the course in the academy they’re interested, by just pressing one button, from the web or the app.

• Blablia:

Platform that put in contact users to practice a language through conversations directed by topics of interest between both.

• Art x science:

Vilnius-based startup changing the way people create and purchase customised apparel.They harness industrial knitting machines to unleash people’s creativity in creation of sustainable, accessible and personalised items.

We also had a guest appearance from three of the startups from our Startup School program in Cordoba, partnered with coSfera. These were the startups that pitched:

• Fontown:

A web platform for designers to find all the fonts they need at an affordable price. Through an easy and flexible user experience, they make available a selection of quality fonts, created in Spain, to help with choosing the perfect type for each occasion.

• Numo:

The app to help you fight old habits when quitting smoking.

• GeoWE:

Free GIS Platform for advanced editing of geographic data on Web. GeoWE tries to make editing of geographic data easy for all kinds of users.

Community time:

After the presentations and pitches there was, of course, time for catering from Chefly and beers from Mahou. The old members of the community got to meet the new ones over food and drinks. The take a away from the Demo Day for the graduated teams was:

“Today is not your last day at Tetuan Valley, it is actually the first”

We are very happy to welcome the Fall 2016 batch into the Tetuan Valley family!

This event was possible thanks to:

Last night, Tetuan Valley hosted the final session of this edition of our Startup School! Throughout the six sessions, guest speakers have spoken to the startup teams about topics ranging from product design to legal advice. The program, now on its 15th edition of the school, ended with a session that focused on getting investment.

The first guest speaker was Marcos Alba, Co-Founder & CEO at SocialBets, a platform through which friends can place bets and exchange money. Marcos spoke about his startup’s experience during their search to find investors. His presentation was called “15 lessons learned from our pre-seed round”

Marcos warned that the process is not easy and might take much longer than you think, but that it can also be fun. Honesty, persistence, teamwork and commitment are among the most important qualities to have when seeking out funding. He says to “ask everyone for money” but at the end of the day, you only need 1 solid investor to kickstart your startup. While you might be rejected by some investors, try to learn from every step of the process.

Jose Maria Hernanz was the next speaker at the session. Jose is an investment associate at JME Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on making investments in early-stage technology startups. They have completed over 3000 investment projects and are very active within the startup community in Madrid. After speaking about his company and their investments, Jose talked about what JME Ventures is looking for when investing in startups. He said that the strength of the entire team is incredibly important and that they want to see that the startup has a high capacity for execution.

The Startup School will culminate in the Demo Day, an event where the startup teams make their final pitches to investors and other members of the startup community. The Demo Day will take place on December 15th at Campus Madrid. 

This workshop was supported by the WELCOME project from the Startup Europe group.

Last night, the entrepreneur teams, guest speakers, and Tetuan Valley gathered in the Campus Madrid auditorium for the second session of this year’s startup school! Karel opened the night with a brief introduction before presenting the three great guest speakers of the night.

The first speaker was Xander Pollock, co-Founder of Punchd, former Google employee and designer of the Google’s Gmail inbox. He now runs a company called Sprint Designer that specializes on Design Sprints. He has helped develop over 100 products, so his presentation on how to most effectively design and validate products was backed by experience. Instead of adopting the traditional product development model, Xander suggested shortcutting the process and going straight from developing the idea to receiving feedback on it. He then gave advice on how to best obtain feedback on the product – through problem interviews and solution interviews. By creating interview scripts, sampling different demographics, conducting interviews, then analyzing the feedback, the creator has everything he or she needs to effectively modify the prototype.

Xander warned of interview bias, and emphasized that being nice, present, curious, and courteous were essential to conducting good interviews.

The next speaker was Alejandro Artacho, CEO and founder of Spotahome. Spotahome, the startup competition winner of the South Summit, is an online platform used for booking long-term housing. Alejandro spoke about how they differentiated themselves in the competitive industry; Spotahome’s goal was to build trust with their consumers. To accomplish this, Spotahome displayed accurate representation of the homes by creating videos that showed the reality of every home/apartment. Alejandro then answered some questions from the audience about the expansion and investment process for Spotahome.

The final guest speaker, Javier Escribano, spoke about his current work with Ontruck, a transportation startup. Before talking about Ontruck, Javier told his story about the trials and tribulations he had while working for Selltag, Lonely Planet, and TouristEye. Javier emphasized the importance of market and user research, for they give insight into how to best modify each prototype.

After a brief break for pizza, the teams reconvened for another round of pitch practice. Fellow teams, alumni, and the Tetuan Valley team all gave constructive criticism on how to best improve each presentation. Once again, we cannot thank our alumni enough for their involvement and help with the sessions! With such great guest speakers at this session, we are excited for more to come. 

Following the introduction, Carmen Bermejo gave a presentation on “The Way of the Startup,” in which she gave advice on startup practices. Creating or modifying one specific thing and testing it is essential during the early stages of the startup process so that the teams don’t stretch themselves too thin by trying to reach out to every market or client. She then emphasized taking advantage of the community’s help and effectively using the feedback received from the community. Carmen also spoke about the LEAN methodology, clarifying its meaning and encouraging startups to put it into practice. She highlighted the importance testing and validating every action, retrieving feedback on it, and improving the product with this feedback.  

Alex Barrera, the founder of Press42, spoke next about how to stand out by giving effective presentations. His lighthearted but knowledgeable presentation received a lot of laughs from the teams. After a pizza break, the teams reconvened and each startup performed their pitch to the audience. Our alumni gave constructive feedback on how to improve the pitches during this session, but the other teams will be participating in the feedback process as well in future sessions.

In addition to the 10 selected teams enrolled in the program, a few other teams that went through the interview process came and listened in on the session. The entire Tetuan Valley team attended as well as about 8 alumni. We cannot be thankful enough to our alumni who participate and offer their advice to the teams! They have gone through the program and have knowledge and insight on how to best take advantage of the sessions.

While our Madrid program just got under way this week, the Startup School in Cordoba kicked off last week. This program, partnered with coSfera, is led by mentors Carmen Bermejo and Pablo Rodriguez and follows a similar format as our program here in Madrid. We are excited for the upcoming sessions during the following weeks!

The startup industry is growing rapidly in Europe, but just how big is it? The Startup Europe Map seeks to capture the incredible breadth and depth of the startup ecosystems throughout Europe. It provides one with information about which startups, accelerators, investors, and other enterprises are within a certain area. The information from the startup map gives insight and knowledge about the startup world while facilitating collaboration and networking within the European entrepreneurial community. We have added over 100 startups and 10 accelerators to the map, mostly in Dublin, Berlin, Madrid, Salamanca, and Milano.

After mapping over 100 startups and reviewing more than 110 in total, a trend is clear. Technological innovation and the online world are dominating the ecosystem of startups. The world was drastically changing by the year 2000 when the technology boom and Dot-com bubble of the 90s altered the course of the worldwide economy. Silicon Valley was booming, and the internet’s popularity was steadily growing. Laptops, mobile phones, and later, tablets, were becoming commonplace in many households. Fast forward 16 years, and now four of the top six S&P companies are in software technology, e-commerce, or social media. So maybe it is no surprise that over 45% of our sample of 110 startups consisted  of online/internet services startups (startups directly innovating and problem-solving within the online world), social media startups, and technological innovation startups (startups that are producing new technological devices and designs).

Technological innovation startups occupied 15% of that chunk, and while that statistic may not be overwhelming, be mindful that less than 10% of Fortune 500 companies are in the tech industry. A wide diversity in new technology was seen amidst these tech startups; one could find products ranging from a wearable broadcasting system that immerses fans into an athlete’s field of vision (First V1sion) to a hydrogen generator that provides sustainable energy (Drage and Mate International). One specific sector within the technology industry that is growing is the medical technology field. Startups are seeking to find solutions to health problems through technology. For example, Aria Wearables has patented a smart insole that provides heating and cooling for the feet, improving comfortability for athletes and those diabetic nerve damage in their feet.  

Online services/social media occupy another 30% of our sample of startups. Today, people are just as likely to ask for someone’s Snapchat or Instagram username as their phone number. However, not all of the social media niches have been filled. Startups like GirlCrew, a social media site that connects women seeking to form friendships and connections with other women, are still finding new social media uses. Meanwhile, startups like Kopjra are finding ways to solve internet problems. Kopjra is a legal tech startup that provides protection on intellectual property and privacy protection online. Dozens of other startups are offering assistance with website creation and maintenance, yet another sector of the online world where new enhancements are always being created. 

The remaining 55% of the startups are still heavily influenced by technology and the digital world. Nearly every startup has an online platform through which customers can buy products. For example, the startup Wayook is a cleaning company in which customers book a professional cleaner online before the company sends the cleaner to the residence. The importance of technology can be seen in many of the graphic design companies; for example, Artomatix relies on advanced technology to create design textures with high resolution.  

We do realize that our sample size was limited to only 110 companies, so needless to say, it may not be entirely indicative of the entire European startup ecosystem. However, the importance of technology and the online world is undeniable, especially in the world of startups.

Adding your own company to the Startup Europe Map is very easy. You just have to register at http://startupeuropemap.eu and add your company details. The map looks to connect all of the stakeholders of the European Startup Ecosystems, as well as to show all of the opportunities and initiatives available for entrepreneurs.

IAB Spain and Campus Google are collaborating for the final phase of this year’s Startup contest at the Inspirational Festival ’16!

This contest will give a chance for the three most innovative technological startups of Spain that have been launched within the past 2 years to be recognized in front of a large audience. The contestants will be judged on the company’s that stands out from digital communication, innovation, publicity, creativity, and Internet.

There will be a variety of programs like keynotes, workshops, and the International Awards, which will take place in Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, on November 16 and 17. Because of the variety of events the festival will be taking place in two places.

Fingers crossed for the top three!

From all the contestants there will only be three startup finalist, who will have a final expose of their business projects at the Campus Madrid, a Google installation.

Contestants will be judged by a panel that will include:

-Rufo de la Rosa: Program Manager at Campus Madrid of Google

-Fermin Lozano: Expert in entrepreneurship and CMO in Global e-Accelerator

-Jon Oleaga: CEO of VisualBox and special consultant for Tranformacion Digital

-Lourdes Álvarez: Investment Associate at JME Venture Capital (Foundation Jose Manuel Entrecanales)

Make your startup stand out! Judges will be looking for the following:

1) Originality of product or program

2) Viability of themselves

3) Cost and plan of debuting the project

4) Time spent negotiating with investors

If you are the winner you will become a member of IAB Spain with free subscription for a whole year. Winners from past editions include; Wazypark, Videoky, and Womenalia.

Tetuan Valley has always been committed to fostering an entrepreneurial spirit within university students, so we are excited for our newest university program! Tetuan Valley, in collaboration with Universidad Camilo José Cela, will be working with the communications departments to develop the entrepreneurship of these university students. Our goal is to provide the students with the necessary tools to effectively present and launch their ideas into the startup ecosystem.

The program consists of ten sessions, each covering a set of specific skills valuable to the success of a startup. The sessions’ content covers a variety of themes and subjects, from effective presentation building to digital marketing. We realize that many of these students are not be engineers or web specialists, so we also provide knowledge and guidance when the students are building their prototypes and websites. Furthermore, Tetuan Valley brings in successful entrepreneurs and business experts to give talks and offer advice to the university students.

In the past, Tetuan Valley has been approached by universities to help students, and our previous programs have always accentuated the importance of practical application of knowledge in the business world. While the theory one learns in university is important, we encourage the students to “go outside of the building.” We push students to adopt a more hands-on mindset and apply their knowledge to the world outside the classroom.

Promoting their prototypes to investors or clients, interviewing and networking with others in the startup world, and speaking to customers about product evaluations are valuable skills students can gain only through immersion in the entrepreneurial community. The startup world is rapidly growing, and Tetuan Valley hopes to expose these students to this entrepreneurial world, for it is an alternative to the traditional career path that many students follow.

During the initial years of our Startup School, nearly half of the startup teams consisted of university students, so we were able to closely work with these students. However, the Startup School has recently seen an increase in participation of full-time entrepreneurs. Therefore, the amount of university student teams in the program has dropped in past years. With this change, Tetuan Valley has created alternative methods to continue our involvement and close relationship with university students.

In the future, we hope to work with more universities like Universidad Camilo José Cela, so we can share our skills and expertise to those who find it valuable. We enjoy collaborating with universities and are happy to bring our hands-on, entrepreneurial mindset to university students.

Three days filled with activities, meetings and awesome entrepreneurs in Salamanca’s Startup Olé

Last week one of our staff members, Lucia Salem, attended the Startup Olé conference in Salamanca. Taking advantage of the event, which was sponsored by the WELCOME-Startup Europe project, during those days there was also a workshop with the leaders of all the Startup Europe projects.

Startup Olé was held on the 7th and 8th of September, but the workshop started on Tuesday September 6th.  During the 3 days there were various activities for networking as well as opportunities for presenting and understanding each project.

On Tuesday Lucía participated in the Startup Europe workshop representing both the LIFE project and the WELOME project. The workshop was meant for the representatives of the 10 projects of Startup Europe to come together and explain the future of their projects that will end in December 2016. It was very fruitful to get together with the leaders of the other projects and discuss our visions of the future of Startup Europe as a brand, a foundation, and a network.

After the 7 hour long workshop, Lucia and the rest of participants of the workshop joined the other conference attendees for a ‘Tapas tour’ of Salamanca.  This was a great opportunity to get to know everyone from the Startup Olé who was there, while going from bar to bar trying different tapas and drinks.

September 7th was the busiest day of Startup Olé. Panels, workshops, and a lot of networking were awaiting everywhere one looked. Lucia attended the Latest Acceleration Trends panel early in the morning. Because Tetuan Valley is a pre-accelerator, it was very informative and interesting for Lucia to listen to what other accelerator programs and organizations are doing around Europe.

Lucia also attended the Salamanca Investors Club meetup that afternoon, which brought together investors from Salamanca and Spain to talk about the current state of startups in Salamanca and on how to move forward. It was a very lively event held at a beautiful patio in Hospedería Fonseca.

On September 8th, Lucia went to a workshop hosted by Alvaro Buesa (Director of Business development en Arvato Bertlesmann), which discussed how to enhance customer experience. It was a very insightful talk, with heavy emphasis on how important team experience is in making a good product for customers.

Like all the other events there was a lot of networking after the workshop. During these networking times, Lucia took advantage of the moment to network with people from Spain’s startup ecosystem. It was great to get to know the Salamanca ecosystem in particular, because it is not so well known as the community in Madrid but it is a thriving ecosystem that is generating a lot of exciting startups with great and unique ideas. The Scientific Park of Salamanca hosts many young entrepreneurs every year.

Startup Olé was a successful event, where attending the presentations, workshops and networking sessions was very useful. One of the highlights of the conference was the app, which made scheduling events and meetings so much easier. The app informed every attendee at what time the activities will be and it allowed them to contact anyone who was attending the event. This is very useful for networking after the activities; for example, Lucia contacted two people through the app who might be collaborating with us in future projects.

Startup Olé ended with the presentation of winners of the pitching competition. Overall, a wonderful three days filled with activities.

We are excited to announce the 15th edition of our Tetuan Valley Startup School in Madrid!

After 14 editions of our startup school program we are happy to announce we go for the next Tetuan Valley Startup School in Campus Madrid!

Not to lose the habit, sessions will be having place on Wednesdays, starting at 19:00 and ending at 23:30. Mentors talk in the first part of the session, then there’s Pizzas and Pitch Practice.

The Startup School workshops will help you get started with your idea. You can find more information about the Startup School here.

When and how do I apply?

Applications to register into the program end on October 10th and the program will begin on October 26th.

If you didn’t apply, don’t worry. This year you don’t have to have been accepted into the program to attend the talks – they are open to everyone! Just get your tickets using the links below.

Sessions

These are the talks that our amazing mentors will be giving each week:

Session 1 (October 26th) Effective Presentations

• Welcome & Course introduction – Karel Escobar 
• Entrepreneurs common mistakes / The way of the startup – Carmen Bermejo
• Effective presentations – Alex Barrera

Session 2 (November 2nd) Value Proposition Tickets Here

• Product Market fit – Alejandro Artacho 
• Customer validation – Javier Escribano 
• Problem and solution interviews – Xander Pollock

Session 3 (November 7th) Metrics Tickets Here 

• Startups business models – Katelyn Melan
• Metrics – Justo Hidalgo

Session 4 (November 16th) Product Development Tickets Here 

• Product Development – Jose Ignacio Fernandez
• Product UX – Carlos Sanchez

Hackathon (November 19th – 20th)

Session 5 (November 23rd) Legal Tickets Here 

• Legal – Ignasi Costas 
• Finances – Alfonso Sainz 

Mentors to be confirmed

Session 6 (November 30th) Investment Tickets Here 

• Investment basics – Guillem Sague
• Investors: startup point of view –  Jaime Sánchez-Laulhé

If you have an idea or a product that you want to develop, this is the place for you! All are welcome!

This program is made possible by:

This program will have the same structure and methodology we’ve developed in the last years. Some familiar faces from Spain startup ecosystem and the support of local mentors will join forces to create the best program in Andalucia this fall.

Apply now

6 Week Pre-acceleration Program + 4 months residence program.

This formative program is planned out to last 6 weeks with 1 session per week

• Intense pre-accelerator program that will help you go from idea to prototype.
• The mentors will guide the teams step by step as well as share their first hand experience as startup founders.
• Pitch Practice: Teams will present their projects each week so they can improve and accelerate their learning path.

How much does it cost? 100% Free

The cost to participate in the program is 0€. We’ll make very difficult to make excuses not to register

Click here to apply.

Sessions:

11 Oct:  Introduction to the program
13 Oct:  Problem Solving
20 Oct:  Product Market Fit
27 Oct:  Marketing & Channels
3 Nov:  Product Development
5 – 6 Nov:  Hackathon, each team will work on the development of their project during this intense two-day sprint.
10 Nov: Legal & Finances
17 Nov: Investment

Where?

Cosfera

Avda. Cervantes, 6 · 14008 Córdoba

You can see more information about the Startup School and the Resident Program here: http://startx.cosfera.es/