Privileged to be selected for the YTILI Fellowship, I travelled full with enthusiasm to the United States in June 2017 to join the YTILI program. I was ready to pitch the renewable energy solution that I am working on and eager to learn from the other YTILI fellows.

My name is Berend Jan Kleute and I am CTO and co-founder of Bluerise, developing technology and projects for generating reliable, affordable and 100% clean energy from the ocean. Driven by my curiosity to find solutions to our large problems, I was happy to find many other positive-impact driven YTILI fellows. This reinforced my positive belief that although time is running out, there still is hope in addressing the most urgent challenges of our time, like climate change.

The YTILI Fellowship started with an orientation program in Washington, D.C., in which fifty entrepreneurs, including myself, from the European Union participated. This program provided a useful insights in the U.S. entrepreneurial ecosystem and the similarities and differences with the European entrepreneurial ecosystem. It addressed, amongst others, the importance of open ecosystems connecting universities, businesses, and governments, and facilitating education, sharing, and scaling. In particular in difficult times, it’s entrepreneurship that can fuel innovation, employment, and economic growth.

After Washington, I stayed two weeks in Seattle, hosted by CoMotion at University of Washington, which is the hub for Seattle’s innovators. Working from this hub, I was able to learn from a wide variety of entrepreneurs, innovators, and researchers in different sectors, such as food, healthcare, education, and clean technology. Hearing their motivations to achieve positive impact in sectors where great need coexists with great potential, was truly inspiring. It’s the financial returns that will come because of, not in spite of, their positive impact. Also, the different meetings I had with the university and governmental organizations gave interesting insights in the local innovation ecosystems. I noticed many similarities with the innovation ecosystem in the Netherlands, where I work in the incubator YES!Delft in Delft. Both cities, Delft and Seattle, have excellent universities, renowned industry and local government supporting innovation. The similarities and complementary activities were reason for me to introduce the two incubators, CoMotion and YES!Delft, to each other.

A few days after my stay in Seattle, YES!Delft visited CoMotion and a collaboration was initiated. This visit was part of a Dutch delegation to visit Seattle, led by Prince Constantijn van Oranje of the Netherlands, who is special envoy for StartupDelta, an independent public-private partnership that supports and promotes the start-up ecosystem of the Netherlands. The delegation came to Seattle to connect with businesses in the Pacific Northwest and meet with executives of tech giants, like Amazon and Microsoft. They developed a plan to launch a Dutch Startup Mentor Network in Seattle connecting the Dutch and Seattle innovation ecosystems, helping companies to get access to the tools, resources, like capital, and the network to accelerate the impact of their innovations.

Apart from the support of innovation hubs and governments, it’s promising to see the increase in (quasi-philanthropic) investment funds in the United States, like Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, The Rise Fund, or PRIME. These funds share a willingness to build scalable businesses that drive meaningful, measurable positive impact, and fund capital-intensive technology, aware of the patience that it requires.

Noticeable, as well, is the increase in popularity of crowdfunding around the world, supporting many social ventures with impactful innovation. Also ventures deploying capital-intensive infrastructural solutions, like The Ocean Cleanup, made use of crowdfunding. Projections say crowdfunding has raised more funds than venture capital in 2016. It’s attractive to many people, because they can directly invest in ventures that reflect their environmental and social values, from clean energy to healthcare. For the companies that run a crowdfunding campaign it can serve other purposes beyond finance, such as community engagement, promotion, and market research, making it an interesting tool.

Summarizing, the YTILI programme helped me identify several support mechanisms for positive impact companies. Very important is an innovation ecosystem that stimulates international collaboration, innovation, education, and capital for scaling. The latter seems to gain volume with help of incubators, impact investors, and crowdfunding. Catalyzed by these forms of funding, companies can accelerate their growth, while addressing the urgent global challenges. Their financial success and social and/or environmental impact will reinforce one another, enabling true sustainable businesses.

Thanks to the U.S. Department of State and the German Marshall Fund of the United States for organizing this important program. It was an unforgettable experience.

About me

Berend Jan Kleute is CTO and co-founder of Bluerise, a technology provider and project developer of Ocean Thermal Energy systems. Bluerise is a certified B corp, with the purpose of creating an energy breakthrough by generating reliable, affordable and 100% clean energy from the ocean. Bluerise is starting a crowdfunding campaign soon.

It can be hard to tell when a story exactly begins. Was it when I was an eight-year-old joining Boy Scouts? Or when, with my mates, we won a start-up idea competition and we created GloVo (now ethelon)? I guess the starting point would be somewhere along the lines, or the dots, as Steve Jobs would put it.

What is for sure, though, is that nothing would have happened, had our lawyer (eternal mentor and now friend) not pushed the ‘forward’ button on a cold Thursday morning in January 2017. Perhaps that humble ‘push’ was the starting point, a disguised opportunity to participate in the YTILI Fellowship via the U.S. Embassy in Athens and the German Marshall Fund.

Four months later, Vasia (my co-fellow from Tesbit) and I, were landing in Washington DC, for what, we didn’t know back then, would turn out to be a six-week entrepreneurial mindset-changing opportunity.

From the first hours, we came to realise the multinational level of this fellowship. We hadn’t quite left the airport, and we had already mingled with our European co-fellows. We quickly came to realise that what was awaiting us was not going to be a walk in the park. Our planned visits to the State Department, Google, co-working spaces, and the GMF HQ had set the high tone of the program whilst the GMF & State Department staff were by our side, on a 24/7 basis, ready to assist in any given manner.

During our three-day stay in Washington, workshops (from project-pitching coaching to network building how-to) followed along with getting engaged into conversations around European and American ecosystems. We were ready to set our personal expectations and goals for the following weeks.

I was lucky enough to get a placement in Denver. Truth be told, prior to my departure, I wasn’t quite informed about the Denver entrepreneurial ecosystem. So, when everyone got so excited about my placement, I thought they were somewhat overreacting. Yet another state, I thought to myself, only to be proved wrong hours later. How little did I know.

From day one, I realised Denver was a reason in itself to keep someone excited. I couldn’t quite tell you if it was pure luck or we were guided by some dark forces, but we got hosted by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce (thank you very much!). Thanks to all the amazing people working in this major corporation, we managed to get a glimpse of all the reasons why participating in a State Department program has nothing alike.

At the Colorado Nonprofit Association, my task was to audit their communication strategies. I had the chance to meet their team members one-by-one and find out what they do in their everyday work life. I was determined to understand how a non-profit organisation can scale and maximise its impact, to document how employees manage their time and resources, handle everyday operations, design future strategies, and all of this while remaining happy and having real human conversations over lunch.

Denver is a fast growing ecosystem. Organisations, government agencies and companies collaborate towards Denver’s future development. The rhythm and the flexibility within which meetings get set up and ideas are generated went far beyond my expectations. Dozens of meetings and trillions of notes later, I finally had a clear image of what actually happens when each and everyone’s point of view contributes to the overall vision.

Had it not been for the organisers who enriched our stay with a series of cultural events and VIP moments… nothing would have been the same. Hats off for showing us backstage of the Denver baseball team on game day. Go, Rockies! And thank you for my baseball cap.

Now I’m trying to get Ethelon, our Athens-based volunteering platform, to work on a new project in Athens. It’s hard! Greece can have a tricky pace so everything we learned, including the very base case practises, is crammed into my brain. I am setting out an introductory training to my colleagues as I type this.

A million thank-yous to the U.S. Embassy in Athens for your support, and the GMF and YTILI Teams for taking care of everything up to the very last detail. Thank you to the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and you, Colorado Nonprofit Association, for teaching us and sharing your experiences with us.

And finally, dear new friend, Marcel, I couldn’t quite thank you enough, for forwarding me that email, on that cold Thursday morning. I owe you one.

//

The Young Transatlantic Innovative Leaders Initiative Fellowship is the flagship program of the Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative (YTILI) of the U.S. Department of State and is supported in its implementation by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). More about it at https://ytili.state.gov/.

My main motive for applying for the YTILI Fellowship was my desire to learn from the best available examples of successful enterprises in my field of work — the food industry. As a small enterprise that aims at a niche target of people dedicated to healthy, vegetarian, and vegan food regimens, Piper’s Green is facing a series of challenges that we can tackle only if we have the relevant know-how, and the capacity to apply the knowledge that we acquire. Thus, the YTILI Fellowship seemed to be the ideal opportunity to meet with people from the same industry, exchange experiences, and draft visions for future business growth. From my current standpoint, I can say that the experience was extremely rewarding and illuminating in many ways.

We aim at being socially and environmentally responsible, despite the fact that the very concept of social entrepreneurship is, to say the least, vague, and unrecognized as such by the relevant institutions in Montenegro. Therefore, you can only imagine my delight when I was introduced to the DC Food Policy Council, who shared their successful models of cooperation between the private and the non-governmental sector in the area of food, agriculture and environment protection, where they built a network for educational and green projects. The Taste Lab was equally inspiring in terms of sharing their business model for food incubators that strengthen small producers by providing logistical assistance, legal assistance, equipment, packaging, etc. The Good Food Markets was a perfect example of the need to make healthy food available to marginalized groups, and of how it can be achieved with the right kind of cooperation. All these examples, and many other companies that I had the chance to visit, provided me with the guidelines and the inspiration to establish similar models in Montenegro. I truly believe that this is the path to sustainable development in the country, which is why I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to witness how they thrive in a context where policies are created to facilitate healthy growth, and to provide innovative solutions for persistent problems.

It takes a certain amount of effort to be a functional enterprise and a great deal more to be a sustainable company which advocates views and visions that are beneficial for the society as a whole. Once again, from the perspective of a small enterprise, it may seem as a daunting challenge. This is an undeniable truth in underdeveloped markets, which is why initiatives like YTILI are such precious experiences. What I find particularly rewarding is the fact that I am part of a network of people who are more than willing to continue sharing their experiences, and providing assistance, whenever required, for turning the aforementioned visions into reality.

It is also worth mentioning that Washington, D.C. proved to be the ideal choice for learning more about policy-making and sustainable growth. As the hub of food incubators, healthy lifestyle education, food charities, volunteering, and urban gardening, it is a dynamic environment and a powerful source of information. Placing the successful examples in the context within which they developed was absolutely fundamental, as it provides the background to the results. Direct contact with the companies provided insight into that background, and I believe this process is essential for obtaining a realistic view of successful growth.

The only adequate conclusion to this overview of my YTILI Fellowship experience would be an invitation to all those who wish to turn their business into an ideal they can believe in and stand behind, to apply for this Fellowship and expand their boundaries in terms of knowledge and expertise.

The story begins in early February 2017 when our team caught an eye on the Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative (YTILI), a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Without a second thought and almost close to the deadline for submission (two days before), we decided to file an application in the hope that we would be the lucky ones. In early March, the U.S. Embassy in Athens invited me for the first interview, having my application passed to the semi-finals. My joy and my anguish is great (but I had second thoughts such as competition among other applicants, as every young entrepreneur in our country struggling to create something new is commendable and he deserves such eminencies). But even more happy and proud for me and my team felt on March 24, 2017. The country was preparing to festive its Independence Day, and I was celebrating my ticket and my full fellowship to go for almost a month in United States, the country of real business, the “Mecca of the Startups”!

So, from the country of the crisis, I found myself at the Department of State in the United States, to represent Greece. I wanted to share the situation in our country, but above all to learn new methods, techniques, and ideas and to acquire new stimuli for how we can bring a revolution to the economy and business life in Greece.

I do not really know what I have to say first for this journey, it was a life experience. The people, the discussions, the presentations were amazing! In the United States, it is so easy to find people relevant to your activity and who are always willing to spend time not only to listen to you but also to advise and recommend you to others! That’s exactly what a startup needs! People who are years ahead of us, with a great business mindset and who can guide us properly by placing us on the world map and not just in the Greek context.

Through, and thanks to, the YTILI program I had the opportunity to be a member of the Ventureprise, an incubator at the University of Charlotte in North Carolina. Yes, an incubator inside the University! Something not so common in Greece, where the companies and the universities are not aligned, and they are working in different directions. I discussed and worked with other young entrepreneurs like us who have an innovative idea to offer and work with the same commitment. We look similar at a number of points, but we differ in many things, such as taxation system, opportunities for pilot testing and funding, experts’ guidance, connections in the real market, etc.

I can not say that everything in the United States is easy, it takes a lot of work, patience, and perseverance in order to succeed. But surely it is a country that even a crazy idea can be transformed to a real business. You do not need to be rich or to have a wealthy family. The ecosystem itself is the key that helps you get ahead!

As a conclusion of the trip, I feel really lucky for the opportunity was given to me! I came back in Greece with my suitcase full of experiences, advice, and new ideas in order to sit down with my team put them into practice. I really recommend it! And remember, define your own destiny! Go out, discuss your idea, and get feedback to move on! This is the only way to become better day after day!

This post was adapted from a reflection published by Vasiliki Ntampasi.

Written by Anna Toth, 2017 YTILI Fellow, Hungary 🇭🇺

As a young Hungarian social changemaker on a two-week fellowship in Boston, I learned that diversity is one of the key factors of building an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

I co-organized an entrepreneurship event in Budapest, Hungary, called 6:20ChiliNights, where we hosted two entrepreneurs bi-weekly. They shared three business challenges they had with an audience of experts in 6 minutes. Then, the audience took 20 minutes to brainstorm possible solutions with the entrepreneurs and think of steps of how they could move their businesses forward.

I believe that this event is unique because we don’t talk about success stories, but we create an atmosphere where entrepreneurs can honestly talk about what they struggle with. The saying goes: There’s no point in struggling alone, when we can succeed as a community.

As a YTILI Fellow, I had the chance to explore some of the coolest startup and entrepreneurship events in the United States to inspire me and implement some ideas in Hungary. The Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative (YTILI) 2017 Fellow — a program of the U.S. Department of State in partnership with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, allows young, innovative leaders to gain experience in the United States.

First, I arrived in Washington, D.C. with 46 other innovative European Fellows, where we had the chance to participate in a three-day orientation organized by the German Marshall Fund (GMF). The orientation was packed with extremely useful workshops and meetings. We learned how to ‘Perfect our Pitch’ from Carrie Hutchison, Director of Corporate Communications at National Geographic, and learned professional networking tips from Videesha Kunkulagunta, Smart City Intelligence Investor, just to name a few. One of my favorite parts of the orientation was that I could meet many talented entrepreneurs from all over Europe. We shared inspiring stories and created valuable connections.

Before arriving in Boston to spend two weeks exploring its startup ecosystem, I knew that it was the ‘startup capital of the East Coast’. But without seeing and experiencing it, I couldn’t imagine what it looked like in reality.

During the two weeks, I visited more than 20 startup and entrepreneurship events, such as Impact Hub Project Open Night, Epicenter Community Pitch Competition, 99th Mass Innovation Night, Summer Café Night at District Hall, Office Hours, Youth CITIES Mini Hack, Lead Boston, and Mentor Exchange at the Boston Chamber of Commerce.

I explored entrepreneurship hubs like Roxbury Innovation Center, District Hall, and Cambridge Innovation Center. I attended Collaborative, a three-day social impact and non-profit conference with the most reputable players of the sector.

I had meetings with many people including Small Business Administration representatives and went to a Red Sox Game!

What I Learned at Epicenter Community

My host was the amazingly dynamic and passionate Malia Lazu, President of Epicenter Community, former Executive Director of Future Boston Alliance, and former Adjunct Professor at Emerson College. Malia, Leora, Arielle and their team at Epicenter Community welcomed me with open arms, and I’m very grateful for that.

I love their mission of bringing people of different communities together. I never thought that income inequality was such a big problem in Boston. According to the Brookings Institution, “Boston suffers from the worst income inequality of any major U.S. city”. Boston Magazine reports, “those in top five percent of earners make $266,224 a year, compared to the $14,925 earned by those in the bottom 20 percent”.

I realized is that it’s possible to transform the minds of people by bringing them together and encouraging them to have fun together, and show that in reality, we’re not different at all. And you can only do it with passion and by understanding what the community needs.

Malia and her team seem to know everyone in the Roxbury neighborhood. The city asserts that it “serves as the heart of Black culture in Boston.” (Roxbury, 2009). Each time when we went out for coffee or a meeting, we randomly met people who were eager to share what they were working on at the moment, or how they were doing in life. In the big city of Boston, it was heartwarming to see that these people are so close to each other in this community.

My biggest takeaway? I have a confession to make: Although I’ve never thought about it before, most of our 50 speakers were successful, white men in their 20’s from Budapest. Now I see that if we want to create a country with higher living standards, we have to create more opportunities for women, minorities, members of the younger and older generations, and people outside of Budapest to start their own businesses. Because they’re probably the ones who need it most.

Source “Roxbury.” City of Boston. Retrieved on May 2, 2009.

Anna Toth is a Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative (YTILI) 2017 Fellow — a program of the U.S. Department of State in partnership with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and should not be attributed to the staff, officers, trustees, or partners of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

When I was selected by the Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative — YTILI program, I thought about the opportunities that would open for me and my startup. I imagined myself in San Francisco or New York, living the experience of being in the global epicenter of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

My first surprise came when my assigned city was Charlotte, North Carolina. I had to search on Google where it was and what that city had to offer for entrepreneurs. My second surprise came as I discovered the enormous ecosystem that Charlotte had created, especially in my sector of interest, financial technology (aka fintech).

The weeks I was there, I learned that there is life for entrepreneurs beyond the big cities, and that small environments like this often make it easier to launch and carry out your own company.

Charlotte brings together all the features that make an entrepreneurial ecosystem successful. It has a building dedicated to fintech entrepreneurship, supported by the main U.S. banks, co-working spaces for entrepreneurs, daily events of networking and investment, a university with its own startup accelerator, and a government that supports and encourages these activities.

After these three weeks in the United States, I can say that I’m glad to have been assigned in Charlotte, since I discovered that you do not need to be in Silicon Valley or New York for your company triumph in the United States. There are a multitude of cities, big and small, that harbor that same opportunity, with standards of living that are similar to Europeans and with not-so-frantic rhythms.

From the personal point of view, the experience also served me to not only know the enormous differences between the U.S. entrepreneurial ecosystem and the Spanish system, but also to strengthen ties with other European entrepreneurs; the fellows of the YTILI program.

The first week in Washington, I was able to learn about the American ecosystem in general and the links between government and business in order to support entrepreneurship.

I was surprised by the huge cooperation between universities, large companies, investors and startups in the United States, which is certainly a good breeding ground for the business ecosystem. They have been able to put together all the ingredients to make a recipe for success.

I also got to know firsthand other experiences and other environments, as well as listen and learn how the different ecosystems of entrepreneurship work throughout the different European countries.

In Charlotte, I enjoyed a quiet city with an enterprising soul and where people were willing to help and meet, in order to explore businesses beneficial to all.

The days passed between events, meetings and work.I always took time to stroll around the city and enjoy the safety of its streets and its beautiful parks.

As a summary of my experience, I can say that I have learned a lot in these three weeks of the program, and now I am trying to implement some of the experiences acquired in the Spanish ecosystem, especially in my city, Madrid, where I participate in initiatives to support local entrepreneurship such as Madrid Startup House, or the leading company in finance for entrepreneurs SociosInversores.com, which I founded 7 years ago and today finances 54% of crowdfunding operations in Spain.

The YTILI program allows us to make a unique cultural exchange with the aim of maintaining and improving transnational relations between the United States and Europe and facilitating our generation of young European entrepreneurs the possibility of learning from one of the most effective business systems, leaving us with the duty and responsibility to promote good business practices in our respective countries; and in Europe, trying to add large companies, universities and governments to this initiative. Only then, our companies will be able to compete in similar conditions with foreign companies in an increasingly globalized world.

It’s hard not to know anything about U.S. startup ecosystem. From the news in the media to the TV series, American startups seem to rock.

When I saw the opening of YTILI program, it was impossible to resist applying: a chance of first-hand learning from the market leaders is not something to ignore.

I was really honoured to be selected among 100 entrepreneurs from all around the Euroasia to join the fellowship. In summary, one of the best things I learned during my time in States is about the differences and similarities of startup ecosystems in different countries and cities.

Being a YTILI fellow has so far been one of the most insightful experiences and definitely one of the most memorable. Almost three weeks, two vibrant cities, and international community taught me a ton, so here are my top 7 lessons.

1) Set it Right. Goals.

As a football coach may say: “You can only score a goal if you know where the gates are.” Literally, everyone is talking about the importance of setting the goals. Not so sure, how many people actually do that (including me) meaningfully.

From the filling the initial application to the closing meeting in Seattle, YTILI has been about the goals. Program managers did their best to help us set the goals, convincing to spend time on it and evaluate yourself accordingly.

Prior the traveling date, we all were supposed to draft the goals for the fellowship. And work on the goals during orientation in Washington, D.C. I was skeptical about spending that much time on goal setting.

What I realised during the fellowship is that there is nothing to be skeptical about. If I am to spend days and weeks working on something and if there is no clear goal, then chances are I will just waste my time and not pay attention to something important.

Goal setting may seem straightforward at the start, but it’s actually not. Goal setting is probably one of the most difficult things to do and once it is set right the action plan will follow.

Especially for grand things, like YTILI fellowship and my own business.

2) The Power of Network

At the orientation in Washington, D.C., we spent time discussing the power of a network. People do business with people. People invest in people. As a rule of thumb, be nice to people. Pretty easy, ha?

The complexity and power of this advice becomes evident as your network grows.

‘How many people are in your network?’ And surprisingly, it was not easy for me to answer. To be honest, at that stage it was more of a guess rather than the knowledge.

The important lesson I learnt that sunny day in Washington, D.C.: know your network, in all details possible. The more you know, the easier it will be to build it up.

And as simple as it can be — be nice to people — it may get awkward if you are not really aware of what’s going on. Nice questions like ‘How is your family?’ asked to a person who doesn’t have one is a disaster.

Your network is the most powerful asset a startup can have, so manage it wisely.

3) Seattle startup universe

For the work placement, I was chosen to go to Seattle. How exciting is that! Seattle — the home of Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks. Seattle — Guinness-record holder for the loudest fan crowd at a sporting event, in fact, it was so loud, that they recorded it as an earthquake down in California (look at the map, it’s almost unbelievable if it weren’t true).

Seattle is the biggest city in Pacific Northwest, stunningly beautiful and astonishingly friendly. Seattle ranked 6th best place to live in the United States. People choose Seattle for work and life, over hundreds of other places, bearing in mind that it rains in Seattle pretty much nine months a year.

Half of Seattle works (or used to work) for Microsoft, the other half — for Amazon. (just kidding, or not).

Seattle is growing super fast, with a strong focus on their startup ecosystem. There is healthy ecosystem growth, where start-ups, corporations, and universities ‘feed’ each other and help each other grow.

4) Time is money

Time management is not specialised work in America, but rather a necessity and lifestyle. Every minute counts and if you don’t make use of it, someone else will.

I guess that’s common across the country, though I’ve been to Seattle only. Let me tell a story to illustrate the value of time in America.

We had a pre-arranged group meeting on one of the days during the work placement. Part of our group had more meetings scheduled before that and were running few minutes late for that one. So there we are waiting with our guest for everyone to arrive.

— We are so sorry, they will be here in less than 10 mins.
 — No problem at all, I’ve been already paid for my time.

No fuzzing around, every minute counts. Life is too fast-paced, so you are either fast and in the market, or slow and out.

5) Shake but don’t mix

It’s important to be a visionary when building transatlantic relationships, to have a clear picture in your head of how you going to make it work.

I guess everyone heard of openness and friendliness of American people. And that’s true, it’s relatively easy to arrange a 15-minute coffee meeting with anyone you’d like to meet. Being based in London, I have nothing to complain about in terms of the startup ecosystem and investment landscape. Still, I met more investors in two weeks in Seattle than I did in a month in London.

But easy to meet doesn’t mean easy to do business with. Especially if you are not local.

Most of the people will think local, it’s easier to digest, faster to try, and cheaper to start. Investors don’t like taking a plane every time they need to see a portfolio company, which means most of them have a regional focus. The United States is a huge market (no wonder it is so attractive for businesses around the world), so investors and clients probably have a choice. And being based thousands of miles apart is an additional challenge.

That being said, finding investment and/or doing business across the Atlantic is not impossible. But it will be your task to find ways of making it work.

That’s why it’s so important to be clear on what exactly you want from them, how you want it, and when. If you are able to show them the picture of that and demonstrate it’s not going to be hard for them, you stand a chance of getting that deal signed.

6) Everything is Branding. Branding is everything.

Working in sports, I couldn’t miss an opportunity of attending a game in Seattle. God Bless MLB with 162 games for each season :)

I wrote a blog post about my experience there.

Sports is something we grow up into and Americans are very proud sports fans. Sport is a reflection of the society; it’s easy to pick up trends in the 60K crowd gathered for few hours in a single location.

The live match has become a single advertising billboard. Sponsors and branding are literally everywhere in and around the stadium. Even touchdowns are sponsored by brands. I was trying to imagine sponsored goals in English Premier League, but that’s too surreal.

There is so much advertising noise during the game, that fans learnt how to mute it, making brands scream even louder.

American sports teaches a lot about basics of branding and attention-grabbing, showing the challenges and power of creativity.

7) Enjoy the ride

The main beauty of my experience with YTILI was about people. I met amazing bright people from all around the world and am proud to call them my friends. At the end of the day, however hard the journey is, it’s worth it with supportive surroundings and a bit of fun

About the author:

Olly (Volha) Paulovich is a serial tech entrepreneur and co-founder & Creative Director of Snaptivity — Smart Stadium technology company for live events. Snaptivity is on a mission to transform the way people enjoy live sporting events using IoT and AI to understand, analyse & predict audience behaviour, as well as capture the brightest fans’ emotions. Snaptivity is named among 50 most promising companies in the creative sector by Creative England, top 5 sports tech companies by Sportel Monaco, won numerous local and global awards and competitions.

Olly is a recognised public speaker and blogger. She writes monthly blog on sports marketing and innovation. Speaks at universities to attract more young people to entrepreneurship, devotes time to mentorship. In 2017 Olly was awarded Young Transatlantic Innovative Leaders Initiative fellowship from the U.S. Department of State and German Marshall Fund.

To begin with — if I had the option to pick from other U.S.-based hardware companies I could not have made a better choice. Whoever from the German Marshal Fund team paired me up with the guys from Power Practical did a great job!

My host company Power Practical, based in Salt Lake City, grabbed the attention of Shark Tank in 2014. (Shark Tank is American reality TV show that promotes aspiring entrepreneur‑contestants as they make business presentations to a panel of investors.) After some “intense back and forth with the Sharks” as they say, they finally received investment and were able to launch its product line on Amazon.

Two weeks in Salt Lake City turned out to be a tailor made mini-acceleration program, both for me and my team at Chargebrella startup. The path Power Practical has been through at the very beginning is very much like what we are going through now. The company experienced everything that a successful business must go through in order to bring its first product to the market. Meeting people from Power Practical (which is now successfully growing company) and asking them countless of questions felt like finding a short-cut in the startup maze.

Honestly, as much as I was very delighted to be among 100 European entrepreneurs selected for the 2017 Fellowship of the Young Transatlantic Innovative Leaders Initiative, I was also surprised to learn that I will be heading to Salt Lake City (SLC). Before my visit, I never heard of SLC in connection with startup world. As I learned later, there is a lot I did not know about entrepreneurial ecosystem in the United States from my European point of view. SLC turned out to be one of the top emerging startup hubs in the United States hosting many startups focused on the development of hardware outdoor equipment (just like Chargebrella). And that is what I liked the most about this program. It enabled me to explore the places I would be unlikely to find on my own.

In total, I spent two and half weeks in the United States. Before traveling to Salt Lake City, I attended an orientation program in Washington, D.C. where I had a chance to meet half of the group of young European entrepreneurs (the other half will come to the United States in autumn). It was pleasing experience to meet people from different parts of Europe, listening to their stories and compare differences and similarities of the overall ecosystem. The German Marshall Fund of the United States, which implemented the program, did a great job preparing activities that not only aided in networking and getting to know each other but also helped us to understand specifics of startup world in the United States. This experience widened my horizons, as I was unaware of many emerging startup hubs nor the many differences in comparison to Europe.

To wrap up, as I have heard many times while being in the United States, entrepreneurship is in their DNA, and I can only agree with that. What I liked the most is how supportive people are when giving feedback, how they truly welcome innovative ideas and how they are not afraid to try — and even fail. Simply because they truly embrace one of the basic startup rules — fail fast. And then try again.

What I was taking back home with me, in addition to lot of new knowledge and experience, was more confidence in facing challenges, even in cases when I do not feel completely ready (keeping in mind many successful people just felt the same at some point).

Our entire group is gathering in April 2018 in Berlin, Germany for the Closing Conference. I cannot wait to see how everyone progressed, and I truly hope to bring a bit of an inspiring story to the conference with me.

About two and a half months have passed since I returned home from the visit to United States as a ‘Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative’ (YTILI) fellow. Still, I feel I have not fully processed this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

As mentioned during our orientation in Washington, D.C., whatever you do in entrepreneurship — and not only there — needs to be measurable, in order to prove its value. Thus, starting with numbers might make it easier to describe this experience. The YTILI 18 day (May 31st — June 17th) visit to the U.S. consisted of: a 3-day orientation in Washington, D.C., 8 city placements (Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Denver, Detroit, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Washington), 2-week placement in a U.S. company, 42 fellows all around Europe (June cohort), 1 team from the German Marshall Fund and their collaborators, and 1 goal. The goal was twofold; first, to connect young European entrepreneurs and innovators, and provide us with the tools, networks, and resources to grow our enterprises; and second, to build a transatlantic network of innovators that contributes to an ongoing policy dialogue that strengthens the transatlantic relationship.

Many experiences during the U.S. visit were measurable, while others were not possible to be measured; however, their impact was tremendous. During the orientation days in Washington, D.C. after the insightful presentations of speakers like Videesha Kunkulagunta, David Zipper, Carrie Hutchinson and others, I grew as an entrepreneur, a speaker, an innovator, a leader, a person. I am still experiencing this growth as I reflect every day on what we learned in the United States.Thus, I can’t say I can measure this growth, but for sure it has affected me in countless ways. I understood that entrepreneurship is a lifestyle, and in order to be successful, you need to grow first as a person, self-reflect constantly, improve your soft skills, and try repeatedly to do your best, even after failures. During the orientation days in Washington, D.C. among the biggest lessons was the realization that in the United States failure is considered a good thing! It shows resilience, which is much appreciated in the United States. Failure is teaching us what to avoid in the future. Failure offers experience on how to protect and prepare better for our future endeavors. The situation in Europe (at least from my experience in Finland and in Greece) stigmatizes failure as something that remarkably lowers your credibility.

For the next two weeks, four other fellows (George Jibladze, Rebecca Weicht, Anna Toth, Shalva Shalashvili) and I were placed in Boston, Massachusetts. What a journey! First, I developed so much after the daily inspiring discussions with these fellows. I appreciated their openness and willingness to share their entrepreneurial stories and experiences, their advice and encouragement. We reflected, we shared, we learned, we taught, we motivated, we laughed, we experienced, we grew.

The biggest highlight of my stay in Boston, was my placement at the company PatientsLikeMe (https://www.patientslikeme.com/). When I was informed that my placement was at that company, I could not be happier, as I already knew the company and its great mission. Flavia Gnecco, who was my host in the company, made my placement there not only very enlightening, but also very pleasant. The first day of my placement, Flavia explained to me the basics about the company: its story, mission, the work groups, how groups operate and collaborate. She introduced me to numerous colleagues who were more than happy to discuss their work, include me in their meetings, advise me about my entrepreneurial endeavor, and even invite me for lunch and drinks after work. I felt very welcomed. The biggest lesson during my placement in PatientsLikeMe was the realization that a company can produce great results and offer high quality services in a relaxing work environment, where employees have endless opportunities to interact and collaborate, and have fruitful discussions over lunch or coffee, or even while playing ping-pong. I think this is the ‘secret’ of U.S. companies. They invest in hiring highly qualified people, while they provide them the environment and the resources to express their ideas and collaborate with their colleagues. Creativity, inspiration, openness, kindness, collaboration, and freedom. This is what I experienced during my two-week placement at PatientsLikeMe.

Overall, I call it an once-in-a-lifetime experience because it empowered me to make my next career step. To expand outside academia and to pursue also my entrepreneurial endeavors. The people I met there, the discussions we had, the knowledge I acquired, the experience of living and working in the United States, led me to start my company. So, in September 2017 ‘Knowledge Unicorn’ was created which aims to empower people by sharing reliable educational content in the fields of mental health and special education. Founding this company was not an easy decision to make, as I felt very secure and competent being a researcher. However, the YTILI experience taught me to be courageous, encouraged me to follow my dreams, and in the end, even if I fail, I will simply be a wiser entrepreneur and a more experienced leader who can try again!

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to: 1) the U.S. Embassy in Finland for selecting me to represent Finland in this program, and especially Jeanie Duwan and Iida Jaakkola; 2) the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the U.S. Department of State for covering the expenses of the program; 3) the team of the German Marshall Fund of the United States for organizing everything related to the program, and especially Geraldine Gardner, Anne Marie Brady, Christoph Schmid, Divya Khandke, Dakota Dougherty and Zack Tarrant) 4) all the speakers and fellows I was privileged to meet in Washington, D.C., who inspired me deeply; 5) the special people of the Boston team (Anna, George, Rebecca and Shalva) from whom I learned so much and Mike Lake who took very good care of us in Boston; 6) the PatientsLikeMe team for the warm welcome, for sharing their expertise and for making me a part of their team, especially Flavia Gnecco, Ravi Ramachandran, Kris Engdahl, Jamie Granskie, Hannah Saltzman, Maria Lowe, and Jeremy Trelstad.

For more visual material from the YTILI experience:

U.S. Department of State: https://tinyurl.com/YTILIWashington
Arrival in Boston: https://tinyurl.com/WelcometoBoston
Boston:
https://tinyurl.com/BostonLove1
https://tinyurl.com/BostonLove2
https://tinyurl.com/BostonLove3
https://tinyurl.com/BostonLove4
https://tinyurl.com/BostonLove5

In the beginning of spring, I was accepted to the YTILI Fellowship. I was surprised and happy, since I don’t usually participate in some kind of competitions or programs. But YTILI is something more than that, so I tried my luck.

Young Transatlantic Innovative Leaders Initiative Fellowship (first launched in 2016) is the flagship program of the Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative (YTILI) of the U.S. Department of State and is supported in its implementation by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The idea is to bring together around 100 European entrepreneurs from about 50 countries to the USA and help them build a network of European and American contacts and explore the U.S. market.

The program consists of two main parts: a three-week trip to the USA and a final fellow meeting in Berlin next year (2018).

This time, I want to share my experience during the three-week program in the USA. The trip was split in two parts: the first part was a few-days-long orientation in Washington, D.C., and the second part was two weeks in another U.S. city. Our batch of around 50 people were split between cities like — Boston, Seattle, Austin, Denver, Charlotte, Salt Lake City, Detroit, and Washington, D.C.. I was lucky to go to Austin (Texas), which is a great place for startup founders. In fact, it is ranked 1st among best-suited cities for startup activity. I will share my thoughts and tips for Austin later in this post. Let’s keep this chronological :)

So, once we arrived to the Capitol, we had an opportunity to meet the majority of our batch participants. I should conclude, that I have not seen so many motivated entrepreneurs at the same time in the same space. There were professionals from totally different industries-from a CEO who builds cool apps for hotels and a CMO of one of the largest taxi apps in Russia or a co-founder of interesting software for capturing emotions of fans during, for example, El Clásico. From the very first moment, I understood that I was in the right place.

Throughout the next two days, we had an interesting orientation program to prepare ourselves for the second part of our trip. Networking, pitching, exploring the city and building connections with other Fellows and government representatives are keywords for these few days.

The orientation program for me was like a stretching before a run, and I knew that the main activities would take place in scorching Texas. A few weeks before my trip, I prepared a list of people I wanted to meet and connect with during my stay in Austin. The list included mostly restaurant chain managers, investors, and industry experts. A few days before the departure, I started to organize meetings and tried to find main startup events during my stay in Austin (thanks to Meetup app and Eventbrite, it is easy to do).

In total I had about 50 people in my list, and I was able to meet with about 20 of them. For me, the main goal of the trip was to receive feedback from potential U.S. customers on our product and receive feedback from U.S.-based accelerators and venture capitalists.

I also wanted to explore the local startup ecosystem, including startup events, co-working spaces, incubators, and understand how they are different from what I saw in Europe. Overall, I can say that the I achieved about 50%-70% of my goal, which is good since it was my first U.S. trip, and because of my lack of connections ittook me more time than I expected to get in touch with the right people. So far, it is too early to talk about results, but the trip definitely affected my product and execution plan. In addition, we received an invitation to participate in New York based accelerator, but declined it since right now it is not the best time for expansion.

My first week in Austin can be named “Howdy, Austin,” since we were with other YTILI participants who went to Austin (four total) were actively engaging with everybody — attending meetups, visiting co-working spaces, pitch sessions, etc. This gave me a good understanding of why Austin counts as a perfect place for startups.

In the early morning you can attend Coffee Club meetings (organized every Wednesday morning) — it is short 30–40 min networking event, where people introduce themselves and are looking for partners. Unfortunately, these meetings are usually held in cafeterias outside the city center, so it is hard to get there in time.

Almost every evening offers some event for startups in one of eight Austin co-working spaces (there are maybe more, but I have not explored them). Capital Factory is the most active co-working space I have ever seen. They also run an Accelerator and an early stage fund. You should follow their activities to not miss opportunities they provide for startups in Austin. Also worth to visit: Industrious, Galvanize, WeWork and Tech Ranch (usually Tech Ranch organizes pitching events once a week).

During the weekend we had time to explore the city and I was surprised by the amount of cafeterias, restaurants, food trucks and other places with super tasty food. You can find dozens of nice places almost on each street nearby the city center. The second surprise is how fast Austin is developing — you can see many freshly built skyscrapers and there is more to come considering the current construction running across the city. The city has much to offer, starting from old hipster-style Paramount Theater, kayaking on the river and ending with perfect running spots nearby parks and the river.

During the second week, I concentrated on TOP priorities from my CRM (actually, Google Doc) to achieve goals of the trip. Connections from the first week and my understanding of what’s happening in the city helped me organize a couple of meetings that I really wanted to attend. I met restaurant chain owners and managers, venture capitalists, Techstars managers, and business angels.

If you are looking for business angels, then CTAN is the perfect place. They run open sessions, when you can meet several angels during a 90-minute meetup. They are very valuable meetings since you get direct feedback on a product and strategy. Also worth mentioning: CTAN is the most active single-chapter angel group in North America.

You can find around 10 early stage venture capital funds in Austin, so there is capital for your startup. Most active ones — LiveOak, Capital Factory, ATXseed ventures, NextCoastVentures, S3 Ventures, Nextgen capital, Silverton, Austin Ventures, Mercury fund. Some of these venture capitalists are more than happy to meet you and provide with the feedback.

People in Austin are nice and friendly, so networking is fun and easy there. However, the amount of startups and the status of the city (one of the best cities to launch your startup in the USA) makes this place more and more competitive, so you need to be fast and clever to reach your goals :)

I would like to share some notes and recommendations, so future YTILI Fellows can learn something from my experience:

• Start to email and message (LinkedIn) people you want to meet at least three or four weeks before departure. It takes more time that you think.
• Have a list of activities you want to attend and plan meetings according to these activities. In Austin, there are so many events happening that sometimes they overlap.
• Visit local business angels networks because they can introduce you to almost any person if they think you are good.
• Look for connections. Usually you know people, who know people, who know people… this helps to organize meetings much faster, than approaching directly.
• Use the Meetup app to discover events you should visit to build your network.
• Always be among first for the baggage claim :) (I had a small accident on my arrival to D.C. Before I took my luggage, someone decided that I need to look for new watches and sunglasses).
• Have fun, nothing happens immediately!

Big thanks to GMF and all YTILI team for such an opportunity!

P.S. Just take a look at a super nice house, where we lived together with my Macedonian friend.

P.S.S. All above is my personal opinion only and is not representing the official position of any organization.

This article is adapted from a story by Arturs Burnins.