Startup Live Vienna #5 roundup


Key facts

  • Date: May 27th to May 29th 2011
  • Place: MS HQ, Vienna
  • Participants: 110
  • Guests: 82
  • Mentors: 21
  • Experts: 6
  • Idea pitches: 27
  • Venture teams: 19
  • End presentations: 13
  • Nationalities: 8


The fifth Startup Live Vienna!

How come we are always amazed that this stuff works? Strange, after two years, but that’s how it is.

As we set out to organize our fifth event in our birth town, the third event in six weeks, we were tight on resources strapped for energy and rich in passion. We had all we needed. And oh lordy, did it kick ass? O yes it did. O yes indeed.

Out of the 27 pitches, 17 of the pitchers had been schooled during the pitch training. This showed and resulted in 19 groups forming on Friday evening. We had teams formed in the areas of e-biz, social, mobile, music, construction and dating. Most of them no longer “chilling alone” *snicker* but joining up with guys from all over the place: bizzies, techies, designers, vets(!), teachers…
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Friday evening we were also joined by Markus Wagner and Oliver Holle who talked about their lives as entrepreneurs raising money, moving to the US and exiting their company 3 United a few years back. Also, Oliver has just launched Speed Invest, a new early stage fund of €10M! It was publicly announced for the first time at our event!

Their view on the subject is a tad different from what Daniel Mattes mentioned in Hagenberg:

  • acting without a biz plan is not always the best way to go about it.
  • But, before you try to plan, do get out of the building and TALK to the potential customers.
  • Do not act upon your vision without validating the need, solution and willingness to pay!
  • After that you plan.
  • After that you execute.

To make sure it sticks: Verify your theories. Then do what it takes.

Sometimes plans help. But in most cases you can’t keep’m anyways so why bother with the details?


Markus Wagner
Oliver Holle

The scene in Vienna has changed over the last two years – peergroups, Steakups, incubators, us, Sektor5, media, funds… Blimey, it’s all coming along quite well! Every year it seems a Viennese startup wins Seedcamp. We have some of the biggest and baddest (in a good sense) VC’s investing in Austrian startups. This lill town is letting go of it’s crappy bureaucratic shackles and beginning to work it from the right direction: startups helping each other.

Saturday morning we were joined by Can who gave a presentation on the biz model canvas and after that by Andreas Klinger giving a talk about what he has learned in the last few years of building garmz.com. Check out the presentation here! It’s a good one.

Also, Jamila and Linda from mFarm, a mobile startup from Kenya visited us and told us what they have been doing since winning IPO48 in Nairobi in 2010.

The founders talk which took place on Saturday evening was full. We had three awesome people to pepper with questions, telling us their real war-stories. Bruno Haid (founder & CEO work.io, founder of System ONE), Alexander Kirk ( cofounded netvibes and now working on his own projects) and Chris Clay (CEO and cofounder of soup.me). Awesome knowledge to be gained from simply daring to ask more personal questions. How does private life and startup life work? Hehe yeah I still wonder that ;)

Prizes

The winners were selected by the experts panel consisting of investors, tech geeks, CEOs and startup coaches. The prizes we managed to pull together this time were

Mentor Driven

During the weekend, mentors and experts came by and supported the teams – founders, serial entrepreneurs, experts in marketing, biz modeling, public funding and grants, sales and law, investments, design, backend architecture, social media marketing and many more.

Among the mentors:

  • Helge Fahrnberger – product development, social media, social software, maps, online journalism
    - cofounder Toursprung
  • Dietmar Dahmen – marketing
    - Creative director DDB
  • Niko Alm – Media
    www.mikromischkonzern.eu
    www.super-fi.eu
  • Gerald Stangl – UX and Design
    – co-founder & chief’o'UX @ mySugr.com
  • Sebastian Heinzel – Marketing, Team-Building
    – co-founder and CEO of tripwolf
  • Matej Ftacnik – Developer
    – Co-founder and CEO of iNOVA sys
  • Alexander Trieb – Finance, Mobile, Technology, Management
    – co- founder of tripwolf
  • Manfred Wuits – tech, web-developer, backend
    – CTO of adverserve.com
  • Can Ertugrul – Business Development, Presentation Coaching
    – Business Analyst at i5invest
    – Business Development at payolution
  • Stefan Kalteis – Finance, Business Development, Startup valuation
    – Co-Founder and Former CEO of 123People
    – Business Angel & Partner at i5invest
    – Co-Founder and CEO of payolution

Expert Rated

The guys that decide on which team wins the weekend is always a mix of different disciplines.

Two of the original experts couldn’t make it due to missing flights and disease. Stefan and Marius joined the panel instead – Stefan actually cancelled a flight to come join the panel. Wow! Thanks!

On the experts panel of Startup Live Vienna #5 were

Stefan Kalteis
CEO @ payolution, Partner @ i5invest

Lukas Zinnagl
CEO @ Diagnosia, Editor @ TechCrunch EU

Marius Starcke
Analyst @ the Merger

Johannes Bischof
Managing Director Konica Minolta Austria

Julian Breitenecker
CEO @ Young Enterprises

Gabriele Tatzberger
Department manager @ mingo.at

Companies and Ideas

Winner of the best STARTup Award

roofnode logo

  • Name: Roof Node
  • Pitcher: Franz Böhm
  • Tagline: Rural Broadband
  • Description:

    Roofnode is a wireless broadband technology. Wireless station on customer’s rooftop. High-performance, robust and secure wireless mesh network for internet, telephone and television services in rural areas.

    Getting to the event Franz had a patent, idea and prototype. What he totally lacked was biz and design. This was supplied. During the mentoring rounds he proved time and time again how he was able to adapt. Respect. He also won the respect of the panel of judges!

    Congratulations! Enjoy STARTUP WEEK 2011!


Winner of the best new venture

City Pulse

  • Pitchers:
    Michael Rottman
    Daniel Horak
    Benjamin Bachhuber
    Alexander Quast
  • Description:

    Using location services and aggregating checkins et al they will make you able to see where the hot stuff in town is going on. NO, not like foursquare does (I KNEW you’d ask that, so did we!). Network is there, designers, techies, the team is set to go.

    We were really happy to welcome these campers into Sektor5 for two months! Congrats!


Winner of the crowd’s choice

finderly logo

  • Name: Finderly
  • Pitcher: Katharina Klausberger
  • Description:

    By connecting you with experts, department stores and geeks as well as your friends these guys intend to make it easier for you to find products which suit you. We’ve followed this team over the last year (they approached us as they had the idea) and they have made immense and fast progress. Respect.

    The crowd’s favorite is chosen via SMS-voting and the team (very fitting) for a new multi-function printer by Konica Minolta! Yay you!


Winner of the medias darling award

Teenage Rockstar Logo

  • Name: Teenage Rockstar
  • Pitcher: Christof Straub
  • Description:

    These guys have been around for about two years. Born out of passion for music and the realization that his daughter didn’t really have a good place to show their talents Christof launched TRS. All content is screened by him and his guys’n'gals and they have achieved their goal of building and helping the young musical geniuses of Austria. And you know what? They used ~no friggin social media. What does it say in your own marketing plan? Oh, facebook group? HA! ;)

    The presentation shown on Sunday was great – the progress working on social media integration in their service was too. Hope to see it launched in two weeks.

    The fit with the price is almost too good to be true – €30k in marketing budget to work with young enterprises!


Newsletter Platform

  • Pitcher: David Lehner
  • Description:

    There are a gazillion newsletters for every lill thing out there. Many suck, a few are good. How can you keep track of the best ones?

    The team is developing a platform for managing, rating and suggesting newsletters suitable to your needs.


cakadoo logo

  • Name: Cakadoo
  • Pitchers:
    Alexander Preuss
    Christoph Haselmann
    Thomas Dori
  • Description:

    A microjob platform focusing on serving businesses. The project is technically far along but over the weekend learnt a lot from lawyers, bizzies and veterans in their space. One of the biggest teams to work with us so far!


World Taxi

  • Pitcher: Filip Boskovic
  • Description:

    This gang of two set out to change how taxi drivers pick up guests and to help their customers communicate where they are going. To be able to use the service abroad, they intend to work heavily with SMS and offline maps.

    Looking at the developments of Uber, http://www.uber.com/learn, we know that there is a very valid although dangerous market here. You don’t wanna mess with the cabby union :)


Lingibli

  • Pitcher: Milan Schnorrer
  • Description:

    In three simple steps, which take no more than 5 minutes of your time, you will start learning a foreign language.

    The team came together a few weeks before the event, but realized they kinda needed a designer. Supplied. The new slide deck and app sketches look amazing. Looking forward to seeing more from them!


dreama.tv logo

  • Name: dreamaTV
  • Pitcher: Manuel Gruber
  • Description:

    This was the second time the gang attended STARTup Live Vienna. Since last time much has changed. The team of 8 has set out to give you, me and all other innovative people their own show. The experienced media producer team has developed a number of formats which they intend to spread via among other formats digital TV.

    At the end presentation they demoed their newest format “ Laber’s Lab ” which had been shot during the weekend. Oc these guys brought their own equipment including a 50″+ TV showing their stuff!


circus offers logo

  • Name: Circus Offers
  • Pitcher: Jorge Luis Rodriguez Morales
  • Description:

    A promotion management tool which enables you to keep track of your facebook, groupon, twitter, dailydeal, meindeal+++++++++ promotions without the headache of visiting them all.

    The group was represented by one guy, but 3 others are working in other parts of the world, the furthest away being in Paraguay. They already have a pretty damn big customer called mmmmm nah I can’t say that!

    Sign up to be informed of their progress!


Default Detection – D2

  • Pitcher: Domagoj Dolinsek
  • Description:

    The handling of documents, images, comments, tasks and recordings which you have to live with being an engineer at a construction site is idiotic.

    Domagoj who has experience in the field and know the problems personally set out to change this with a tablet app. It would integrate with the existing documentation and comms platforms but simplify the process – seeing to it that building projects do not succumb under their own weight in red tape.


TarifAgent

  • Name: Tarif Agent
  • Pitcher: Philipp Etzlinger
  • Description:
    TarifAgent helps people to distinguish between the many options mobile carriers provide and find the best option for you, minimizing communication costs to the minimum by analyzing your personal (Smart-)Phone-usage.

    Philipp has joined us before, but this time we got really impressed with what happened. On Saturday they got the feedback that the process of getting your stuff optimized was too long. Took it to heart and reduced it from a month to 4 days. Backend, process, frontend. The update of the app will be launched soon!

    Well done guys!


GetInspired

  • Pitcher: Adam Okruhlica
  • Description:

    We all know situations where we definitely need to be creative, but we simply can’t get to the right mood. Are you a writer who needs some inspiration to evolve a story? Or a designer who needs to come up with a fresh idea or spice up an existing one?

    Let the diversity of inspirers work on your hitch, or become one of them and inspire others. Simply submit your hitch, in a few words or images, lay back, and follow the mind-stream of the community. Once you feel inspired again, share out kudos to those who inspired you most. The more kudos you have, the more hitches you can have solved.

    Over the weekend the team put together the central parts of the system. Still lacking a kickass UI, but they’ll get there.


Another Live is over, but we are happy to announce that the next event is taking place in Pristina in a few days, another couple of events are planned for Porto, Hungary and Germany. Requests are dropping in like crazy. At the end of the summer, we will be ready to handle them well enough to go forward with these hundreds of requests!

We intend to launch our stuff at STARTUP WEEK 2011 which we are organizing with Initial Factor and TechCrunch EU! Be prepared!

Thanks to our partners

Thanks to all our partners who made this possible. Supporting a crazy bunch like us cannot be easy ;) Nah honestly, you rock. Without supporters such as these guys below, we wouldn’t have been able to reach 1800 people, help in the formation of over 20 startups and have such an impact in the Kosovar, Austrian or Portugese startup communities. Thanks.

Platinum Partners


Industriellenvereinigung Wien


Microsoft Austria

MINGO


eu.wien.at

MINGO
Konica Minolta


Greentube


Young Enterprises

Gold Partners

HVK Rechtsanwälte

Co-working space partner

sektor5

Internet powered by

funkfeuer


unwired networks

Snack and drink sponsoring

Kellys
Bahoa
Pfanner_logo
Cocktail Basement

IP SQUARE

And special thank you goes out to our friends Martin Seimen of planetm.at and Axel Blank of blanck.at for helping us with keeping the participants alive through the weekend. Also a great hugh to Stefan Dworak who shot us a ton of wonderful pictures.

Ressources
Presentation by Andreas Klinger
Presentation by Can Ertugrul