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Diving into Vienna’s startup scene: Afterworx PitchDrinks

Published on June 14, 2011 in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Useful resources and Venture capital. 1 Comment

The Vienna-based startup cluster InitialFactor employs a relaxed approach to bringing startups together with startups and investors: Each month the office invites up to 100 people to join in for 30 minutes of pitches, followed up by a small office party with drinks, snacks and music.

The event is very international – usually at least one pitch is presented by a team from abroad, especially from close-by: Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

InitialFactor Afterworx always takes place on the second Thursday of each month, starting at 6.00 p.m. at Spengergasse 37, 1050 Vienna.

If you’d like to be invited, write a short mail containing your full name, your organization as well as a 1-sentence-statement about why you are interested in startups to afterworx@initialfactor.com .

The 12 Entrepreneurs want to shake up Europe

Published on June 14, 2011 in Business innovation, Current events and Venture capital. 0 Comments

If you’re looking for a little inspiration with your morning coffee, this video would be a good way to start the day.

The 12 Entrepreneurs are a recently-formed group of European entrepreneurs that want to shake up the EU startup scene. As the narrative goes, they met each other in Silicon Valley, but rediscovered Europe.

Each of these young entrepreneurs had come to the United States because the opportunity wasn’t sufficient at home. Rather than accept the status quo they decided to change it.

If that video whets your appetite, you can also read this five-page interview (links to a PDF).

Here’s a pithy quote from that interview:

Europe doesn’t believe in its own assets, Europe is not a risk-taker; there are multiple barriers to capital and growth for European entrepreneurs and no culture of failure. - Emmanuel Carraud

Naturally, you can also find The 12 Entrepreneurs on Facebook and LinkedIn.

STARTup live Vienna

Published on May 28, 2011 in Austria and Current events. 0 Comments

I’m blogging from STARTup live, a three-day weekend workshop for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs-to-be in Vienna. Taking place at Microsoft’s spacious headquarters, 100 participants work in 27 teams developing business models, prototypes and design for web and mobile ideas.

Friday’s kick-off speech was given by serial entrepreneurs Markus Wagner and Oliver Holle who are about to launch Austria’s new Angel fund ’InitialFactor Speed Invest’ this Monday.

Disclosure: As a member of STARTeurope, I’m one of the co-organizors of STARTup live.

That said, I want to state that this has really been among the two best startup workshop I’ve seen in CEE region (the other one was IPO48 in Prague). We sold out all tickets.

In hosting startup events, I believe it pays off to concentrate on one sector – in this case web and mobile ideas – because that brings together the smartest brains interested in one area, setting free enormous creativity.

Raffael … who?

Published on May 23, 2011 in Austria and Slovakia. 0 Comments

This is my first blog post to you on nowEurope – thank you for your interest! Let me first introduce to you what I do and how I intent to write for you here.

I’m a German biz graduate, 26, living in Bratislava, almost daily commuting to Vienna and thus connecting the startup communities of Austria and Slovakia. And that’s what I want to write about because I believe there are very attractive opportunities in transnational entrepreneurial action and more people should know about them.

When publishing, I’m dedicated to the KISSS principle – Keeping It Short, Simple, Sexy. That’s why I want to only cover one thought at a time and try to keep each post between 100 and 200 words. Hope you like it and I’m always happy about straight feedback :-)

Having a fresh look at things: Raffael Kellner

Published on May 7, 2011 in Current events. 0 Comments

I just finished a Skype call with Raffael Kellner, with STARTeurope. He’s a bright, young guy with an interesting perspective on things. He’ll be joining us shortly as a nowEurope contributor.

I especially like how Raffael introduced himself by email:

I’m a frequent reader of nowEurope and I love it! I think you are doing a great thing that very much reflects my own transnational reality since I’m a German, living in Bratislava, working in Vienna, being an active member of STARTeurope from Austria and Startupcamp Slovakia.

Welcome, Raffael!

The view from ICT Centrope in Vienna: wrapping up the CITT project

Published on March 25, 2010 in About CITT, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

All good things must come to an end. I was in Vienna last week with Vlastimil Vesely and our CITT partners to present our results at “ICT Centrope”, the project’s final conference. The event was well attended. I’m pleased to say we ended the project on a high note.

Featured in the photo from left to right are me, Zuzana Lettner and Katharina, and Vlastimil Vesely. Zuzana (VITE) was our original project coordinator, but roughly halfway through she project she left for her maternity leave. Christoph Henrichs took her place and did an excellent job of finishing up the project. Thanks also to Bernhard Schmid, who took the photo.

My colleagues did a good job of summing up the conference and so for that, I will refer you to the ICT Centrope web site.

Notes from Boston: the state of US venture capital

Published on March 21, 2010 in Current events, Facts, figures & trends and Venture capital. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

In Boston, I recently attended the Annual VC Outlook Dinner, hosted by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), the world’s largest not-for-profit organization for entrepreneurs. The evening provided a snapshot of the investment climate here in the United States. Some of these insights may be applicable to other parts of the world, including Central Europe.

The evening included a panel discussion and dialogue.  The panel was made up of representatives from six leading US venture capital firms:  Highland Capital Partners; Battery Ventures; TVM Capital; Atlas Venture; Bain Capital Ventures; Commonwealth Capital Ventures; and Greylock Partners. These investors offered their views on the health of the US industry; what makes the investment climate in Boston different than Silicon Valley; and the importance of talent in the investment.

Here are some panel discussion notes. These views were shared by the majority, but I provide this recap with a disclaimer that these are opinions and interpretations.  Perception may not match reality, but can influence reality.

Continue reading ‘Notes from Boston: the state of US venture capital’

Central Europe: the view from Boston

Published on March 18, 2010 in Hungary and Innovation policy. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

[This post introduces our newest nowEurope contributor, Toby Elwin, writing from Boston - a regional US tech hub once on par with Silicon Valley, but recently finding themselves fighting for relevance. Toby also has deep career experience working in Hungary and China. He'll be looking at Central Europe from a comparative perspective - Steve Carlson]

My interest in Hungary and the region stems from an opportunity to study an advanced business degree in Budapest.  After living in America and China, two countries that dominate both their region and much global news, Hungary, the size of Pennsylvania, was a distinct change of perspective.

In 1999 I arrived in Hungary, straight from China.  The country and many of the seven countries that border Hungary were shaking off decades of planned-economy paralysis.  The region was entering a renewed sense of opportunity and Hungary was stabilizing its voice in the region, in Europe, and in the world.

The opportunity, and the challenge that lay ahead, for Hungary and others in the region was to set the proper goal.  The more I worked and studied at Central European University, the more I discovered a region, from the Czech Republic through Mongolia, full of immensely brilliant, able people to have an impact on a global scale.  With a brilliant work force, many in government chose a low-wage competitive strategy.  I felt then, as I do now, the race to the bottom is a short-term solution.

Continue reading ‘Central Europe: the view from Boston’

What I learned by ignoring the presentations at BarCamp Budapest and talking to the audience

Published on March 12, 2010 in Business innovation, Current events, Hungary and Venture capital. 9 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Hungarian attendees seemed more pessimistic than I did about what we saw this week at BarCamp Budapest, at least according to my random sample of conversation. I enjoyed thoroughly being one of the only foreigners at hand, along with TechCrunch Europe editor, Mike Butcher and a handful of presenters. The best English-language tweet of the day came from Julia Krysztofiak-Szopa (AdTaily).

with all due respect for the #barcamp #budapest speakers – powerpoint presentation suicide & u don’t have to speak magyarul to notice it.

The truth is I hardly watched any of the presentations, except to occasionally poke my head in the door. I had been lead to believe that at BarCamp, the audience is the content, and so I used this as my excuse to largely ignore the prepared program and talk with people about what’s currently happening in the Hungarian online market.

Everybody’s heard about Jeremie, and several people I met had a business idea in their back pocket. The ad recession hit hard last year, and revenues are down across the board. One local media agency, Arcus, recently imploded. I have the impression that a good number of talented people are knocking around for opportunities.

Continue reading ‘What I learned by ignoring the presentations at BarCamp Budapest and talking to the audience’

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