Swedish entrepreneurs get serious – in their bathrobes!
This weekend the cream of Sweden’s tech entrepreneur scene have exchanged jeans for yukatas (Japanese bathrobes), chairs for bean bags and isolated themselves in a zen style hotel outside Stockholm. Why? To come up with 60 new startups and then take over the world, of course! Well, maybe that isn’t what they think, but the location definitely has a Bond villain feel to it.
You have to hand it to the Swedes. Not only are they in amongst the forefront of web entrepreneurship in Europe, thanks to companies like Spotify and others, but they’re also hungry for more. This is the second 24 hour business camp of the year (the first ever event was held in January). During the last camp about 52 startups were created. And now they’re aiming for more. In bathrobes. In Autumn.
TechCrunch Europe report the event was created by Ted Valentin as a way of encouraging Swedish entrepreneurship. According to him the point of isn’t to come up with the next Spotify, but to build small projects that could survive longer than 24 hours. And it seems to be a concept that works. About 70 percent of the businesses created in January were still running three months after the event.
There wont be any winners however. Although Swedish media company Bonnier will choose an idea that will get 250 000 SEK (about €24 000 and $36 000) in ad space. Many of the teams are building on existing APIs and of course Bonnier has opened up their systems for developers. During the first day of the event another Swedish media group Wyatt (which among other things run social networking sites Lunarstorm and Bilddagboken) matched Bonnier’s offer and will also provide one of the teams with 250 000 SEK in ad space plus a trip to San Fransisco.
The level of ambition at the event varies. Some teams bring in a lot of experience and knowledge (and fame), other teams are in it for the lolz. Mostly the entrepreneurs seem to look at the event as an opportunity to get their heads down and work on those pet projects that they otherwise never have the time for.
Read the full article at TechCrunch Europe