European Startups And Entrepreneurs

European Startup Podcast 001

bcurdy@techme2.eu (bcurdy) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 08:00:00 +0000

This podcast was recorded for eu-startups.com

In this first episode of European Startups Podcast, we talk about what many consider the main weakness of the European tech scene: Investment opportunities. Our guest is Hussein Kanji, a London-based entrepreneur and investor. Hussein not only understands both startups and VCs but he also knows very well how the startup ecosystem works in the US and in Europe, for having worked on both sides of the pond.

We cover a wide range of topics during this show, from term sheets (and the new standard document issued by a bunch of European investors) to how to meet investors or where to set up a company.

The goal of this podcast is to deliver actionable information to European startups. My belief is that although there are loads of great sites about startups in general, we need to do a better job at sharing our knowledge about the challenges and opportunities inherent to the European environment.

In the next episodes, I’d like to talk about how to grow and hire in different regions, dig deeper into legal differences between countries and how to use them at our advantage as well as spend some time discussing how startups can collaborate with European universities to drive innovation. Suggestions are welcome, through commenting on this site or by contacting me on Twitter.

If you want to get more useful information about investment and economics in general, follow Hussein’s Twitter stream, which is a goldmine of great links on those topics.

Daniel Rus Morales: Witmeet

bcurdy@techme2.eu (bcurdy) — Wed, 6 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Daniel's idea to create a site for people who are looking for a social and free way to practice languages will sure be of interest for a lot of people. Creating traction in that space is a difficult though. And now that Witmeet is officially launched, Daniel faces the challenge of many technical single-founders: working on marketing, the side of the business he's less familiar with.

In this interview, we also talked about the framework powering the site: Django and why Daniel decided to go with his own server and Rackspace to host his service rather than choosing other cloud computing solutions such as App Engine. Don't worry, we kept the discussion to a level non technical people can understand ;)

Spread the word about Witmeet and don't hesitate to give Daniel feedback and tips!

Pietro Polsinelli: Licorize

bcurdy@techme2.eu (bcurdy) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Our guest this week is Pietro Polsinelli who just launched Licorize, "the minimalistic and fast to-do manager for sharing bookmarks, todos and work done." To get the best of this episode, I'd strongly suggest that you have Licorize open in front of you if possible, so you can test the app while listening :)

I came to know Pietro a few month ago through Devineu, a site dedicated to European developers. We've been talking to each other regularly since. And as talking to him always is always inspiring, I couldn't miss the launch of Licorize as an opportunity to invite him here! You'll hear that Pietro has a very interesting approach to development, which mixes a good dose pragmatism and just the right amount of theory.

Here are a few links that were mentioned during this interview:

The art of Game Design
Pomodoro, a time management technique
Evernote, the well-known/well-loved universal information collector
Joel on Software, a blog about software and software companies.
Open Lab, the company behind Licorize and many more tools

Enjoy the show and don't forget to share your passion for startups around you !

Keith Mander

bcurdy@techme2.eu (bcurdy) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

I had the chance to interview Keith Mander the day before he left Ireland to become a traveling entrepreneur. Keith could have simply enjoyed a nice career at Google or Facebook, where he has spent the last 4 years. After having learned a lot about online advertising in these companies though, he came to the conclusion that it was time for him to develop his side projects into his own startup.

Up to this point, we haven't dedicated much time to bootstrapping although I think that it still is the best way to start a company. And I believe that Keith makes a really good example of how you can leverage your current job to start your business. As this is only the beginning of the adventure for him, we'll need to get back in touch with him in a year or so to see how things have turned out. There is however much to learn already from the way he secured stable earnings before going solo.

Here are a couple of websites that Keith manages and that will help you understand the kind of projects he's focusing on:

Just-Pooh, everything on Winnie The Pooh
BusSongs, a site about children's songs

Enjoy, share your passion for startups and don't hesitate to recommend entrepreneurs to interview :)

Bjoern Lasse Herrmann: SuperCoolSchool

bcurdy@techme2.eu (bcurdy) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

We're back from holidays with a new website (that still needs a bit of polish) and a guest who has been traveling the world quite intensively. A few months ago, Bjoern Lasse Herrmann stopped in Silicon Valley to work on SuperCoolSchool, an online school platform which allows anyone to start their own online classes. SuperCoolSchool is also the startup behind Startup School, a site where you'll be able to learn from other entrepreneurs through classes and interviews. If you're into startups, you have to check it out...

Bringing education to as many people in the world as possible is obviously no small endeavor but finding disruptive answers to current challenges seems to be in Bjoern DNA. That's why he recently contributed to launch Emergent Transformation, a blog about trends that are deeply changing society (think odesk, innocentive, kiva and the likes). If you follow the show, you'll notice that contributors are mostly members of Sandbox Network, a very active community of young entrepreneurs. (Kushtrim Xhakli and Luis Rivera, both former guests, are also members... I'm telling you, those guys are everywhere :).

Among the organizations Bjoern suggested us to check at the end of the show, you'll find Palomar5 and Singularity University, two very interesting initiatives that are transforming the way we look at the concept of community, education and innovation. So as you can read, you'll find many opportunities to get inspired during this episode!

Enjoy and share with us your passion for startups!

Fredrik Debong: StartEurope

bcurdy@techme2.eu (bcurdy) — Mon, 2 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

For the last episode of our first season, there couldn't have been a better guest than Fredrik Debong from StartEurope. STARTeurope was founded a year ago by students from the Vienna University of Technology and University of Economics and Business. They organize a lot of different events for startups in Austria and they already started expanding to other Europeans markets. I believe they really illustrate the strong energy and high passion level existing at the moment in the European startup scene.

In this show, you'll see how StartEurope focuses on making things happen instead of complaining about what they'd like to see happening. To understand better what it is that Fredrik (and other people at StartEurope) organizes, see this list of projects presented at Live Vienna #3.

Also have a look at the Austrian startups listed below. If this is the first time you hear their names, it's probably not the last. Those are all great companies:

Garmz, the fashion site (that Radu Ticiu already mentioned in a previous show)
Letsannotate, a way to share and annotateyour documents online.
Play.fm, the internet radio...
Qriously, a (fast-growing) quantified barometer of real-time public opinion.

Next show in a couple of weeks, with some big announcements and of course: more startups ;) Stay tuned!

NothingGrinder Interview: Flash And Pay-To-Pitch

bcurdy@techme2.eu (bcurdy) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

I met Aaron Franco and Gabriel Ortiz, NothingGrinder co-founders, after reading a post on StartupDigest. Both are curating its London edition and they had put in their list a pay-to-pitch event by Angels Den. I wasn't happy about it, at all, and I let them know. Aaron kindly got back to me and we decided to discuss the issue on the air. During the interview, you'll learn about their own experience with this organization and how participating turned out to be beneficial for their startup.

In a nutshell, NothingGrinder is developing a flash-based web framework (the outcome also works on platforms that don't support flash though). This is arguably a very interesting topic in itself. Flash having such a bad press in this day and age, I was curious to know what is motivating them to use and push for this technology. Here, you'll hear how they are bringing back some sanity in the Html5/Flash debate .

We also discussed the Seedcamp selection process, which didn't leave Aaron and Gabriel very satisfied after their latest submission. They raised the interesting point that even rejections should be useful to startups. Comparing their Seedcamp experience to the ones they had with other organizations, like The Open Fund (Greece), made them wonder if Seedcamp has not become too big for its own good.

As you can see, we discussed a lot of controversial but highly fascinating topics :)

Here are a few other links that Gabriel sent me after the show and that you should visit:

MyCake, an online toolkit to help you manage the financial side of your business
Winterwell, a team of experts in mathematics, statistics, computer science and artificial intelligence.
EPIS.org.uk, the newly defunct Edinburgh Pre-Incubation Scheme that first funded NothingGrinder (the site is still up)

I really enjoyed that Aaron and Gabriel were not afraid of expressing their ideas and I have a lot of respect for their work on Startup Digest. I don't think I would do the same technological or funding choice than they do but I will definitely keep talking to them about technology and startups. Altogether, I often feel that people in Europe aim for the average and try hard to avoid controversy, at least that's not their case.

Luis Rivera: Tetuan Valley and Okuri Ventures

bcurdy@techme2.eu (bcurdy) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Luis Rivera is one of the men behind Tetuan Valley, the Madrid accelerator program that will run its third edition in Fall this year (application deadline is currently set on October 15th 2010). He's also a partner at Okuri Ventures, a company that offers professional services to startups, ranging from co-working space to entrepreneur training.

During this interview, you'll learn what characteristics Luis is expecting from people applying to Tetuan's Valley Startup School and how, although the program is completely free for startups, it benefits him and his company.

Luis has a sound approach to business, he's very focused on companies acquiring paying customers early on in their existence. This topic in itself could have been a half hour discussion as it often comes up when comparing the European startups mentality to the Silicon Valley model, which is seen as more focused on growing first and monetizing later. Don't hesitate to give us your opinion on the matter ;)

Here are a few promising startups Luis mentioned during the interview:

tinksecurity.com (mobile + security)
inkzee.com (intelligent news reader)
perplenu.com and letmecallu.com (click to call solution... Yes, like Sitofono in the previous episode!)

We finally talked about United Accelerators, a Seed Accelerator Programmes Association that is a really nice example of collaborative spirit.

Enjoy the show!

Luca Filigheddu: VoIP and Twitter Client

bcurdy@techme2.eu (bcurdy) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Our guest, Luca Filigheddu, is an Italian VoIP expert, CEO of Abbeynet. He' also a regular contributor on Voyces, a blog about the communication industry.

Sitòfono, provides a way for people visiting websites to immediately get called by an operator if they want more information about an offer. It also provides analytics to publishers who then know which keywords help them generating leads.

Twimbow, a Twitter client which colors tweets that are important to you. Starting a new Twitter client is a big challenge and Luca explained what his strategy will be to grow this business and why he' not afraid of other big players in that space.

The first startup is Funambol, that build solutions to "keep phones and devices in sync with personal computers, email systems and social networks via the cloud". (Its CEO is Fabrizio Capobianco)
The second startup is WhereIsNow, which focused on finding up-to-date documents wherever they are...
And the last one is Paperlit, a company that creates mobile monetization solution for online content.
Luca also mentioned Mind the Bridge, an organization aiming to ” create the conditions to foster a sustainable Italian entrepreneurial eco-system” by “providing new entrepreneurs with direct exposure to potential venture capital investors from the most experienced, entrepreneurial eco-system in the world, the Silicon Valley”

I think Luca represents the kind of entrepreneurs Europe needs more of, in that he' passionate, he makes things happen and he' not afraid of tackling big ideas.

Radu Ticiu: Timisoara Software Business Incubator

bcurdy@techme2.eu (bcurdy) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

In this interview, Radu Ticiu (twitter) helps us understanding the similarities and differences between incubators and accelerators, in terms of what they offer and what they cost, based on his experience running the Timisoara Software Business Incubator. You'll hear examples of startups that graduated from or are currently part of this program and you'll see how they highlight the strengths and challenges of Romania as a place to start a company.

In the second part of the interview, speaking about hiring in Romania, Radu confirms that the country definitely has a lot to offer to companies looking for a strong development team. He warns us however about the dangers of working remotely and against overestimating the salary gap for skilled coders between Eastern and Western Europe .

In the last part of the show, Radu mentions a few European startups we should check out, for instance:

Ubervu, the London-based but Romanian-powered social media monitoring service.
Garmz, the Austrian fashion startup that just launched officially a few weeks ago!
A list of companies who took part in Mini Seedcamp Zagreb

You'll hear that from now on, I'm going to add a short summary of the episode before it begins. This will help people who listens this podcast through iTunes to know what is going to happen. It caused some repetition in the introduction this time, which will be fixed in the next interviews :)