past seedcamp hbg
first appearance
a few days past the seedcamp event, I’m reflecting on the event, which in fact, was the first official appearance of ambadoo. it was really about meeting other startups and people within the industry, get exposed and get feedback of the project. it was an amazing atmosphere, with 20 really ambitious teams, all of them surprisingly in the web-dev genre.
it all started on monday with a chill evening at the bar Helsing, where we got to know each other. We hooked up with the guys behind Kvittar, bluewalks, AskYourWorld, and Blazing Red which are all creating really interesting projects. Fortunately it wasn’t a free bar, as we had to do some last tweaks on our presentation before getting some sleep.
after 5h of sleep we headed for SHIP, the venue where the event would place. SHIP normally acts as a office hotel and business hub – a supercool such. The trendiest place around with a very open, fresh and creative interior. Easily like an office-space should look like. It’s worth a visit just for a coffee, watching the ongoing exhibition of H+
Jonas Lundström, the host himself, did such great job at keeping everything in order. He succeeded in brilliance with just about everything but getting me to use the microphone when presenting. Next time maybe.
We’re second on stage, after 1Calendar, and it all seemed so good and prepared – the keynotes were delivered on USB-drives to Alasdair, so that we wouldn’t end up in the usual “change of computer hassle” would be avoided. the iBook weren’t up-to-date with reality and the latest version of Keynote, ’09. After firing up my own MacBook Pro I rested with all my notes and the pitch could start. Next time I’ll have the notes on the iPhone, just in case.
After all the pitching we’re off to the mentoring sessions, where we could ask them questions and get feedback of the project. First session all seemed a little lost and the ‘hot topics’ were VC, exits and company evaluations. The conclusion was essentially: taking in a VC is like getting married – but with pre-defined Terms of Agreements.
After the lunch a panel discussed the pros / cons of Venture Capital, the use of a Board and Advisors, with some Tweets that sums it up: “if you’re in it for the money – go to a different industry” // “It’s all about mathematics” // ”Student loans are good way to finance your startup” // ”A good board is one that works” and the best one ”If you can’t do the hockey stick in Excel, you can’t do it in real life.” The rest of the tweets can be found under the hash-tag: #seedcamphbg.
Followed by the panel discussions, we had another 3 mentor sessions, with some really interesting people, among them Joakim Jardenberg CEO of Mindpark, TAT co-founder Hampus Jacobsen, zyb-founder Thommy Ahlers and the CEO of Polar Rose, Nikolaj Nyholm, all which came with really useful feedback and comments and useful advices.
We’re also interviewed by the newspaper, Lokaltidningen, who did a coverage of the event. An extract here in Swedish:
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En självuppdaterande adressbok
Petter Palander och Rafael Rebolleda träffades i Madrid när Petter jobbade som arkitekt. Nu står de inför lanseringen av sitt företag Ambadoo som är en självuppdaterande, universell adressbok.
– Tanken är att du håller dina egna kontaktuppgifter aktuella, och när du ändrar något ändras det automatiskt i alla andras adressböcker som också är uppkopplade. Dessutom är den synkad med mobil, facebook, mejl och vad du vill, säger Petter Palander.
Den första versionen lanseras i början av sommaren. Tanken är att programmet ska vara gratis men att tilläggstjänster, så som gps, ska kunna köpas till.
– För oss är det mest intressant att hitta samarbetspartners och öka kontaktnätet, säger han.
…
The Seedcamp event was rounded up with a nice on-the-go buffe, and the three “winners by popularity” Kvittar, MyFi & Peerialism were announced. We continued to hang out at SHIP all night with the nice crowd @PaulaMarttila & @kaarisaarinen behind Arctic Startup, @Setok & @toivotuo of Scred, Blazing Red and SHIP himself @naturchips. Finally big kudos to Cafe Mezo that served us delicious moroccan food at half past midnight!