Start Up Day 2013

Saturday was my big day at start up day. Except for the lousy conversation starters that I got to hear which I would mention at the end of this post, every thing was just perfect.

I saw this ad about Start Up Day 2013 in Stockholm a few weeks ago and I thought about attending the event. It was long before I had any idea I was going to get free of my job. But I wasn’t sure I could take enough out of this event if I just bought a ticket. Besides I was craving to be in the organizing team of this event. So I took a different approach getting into the event. I sent an email to the contact person of the event whose email address I found at the bottom of the first page of the event website, and I let her know that I was willing to help and mentioned some of the events I had organized before.

Well you never know before you ask which is what I did. And guess what, I got an email with a positive response a few days later pointing out that I was the main responsible for the social entrepreneurship track. I also got a VIP ticket to the event in the attachment. Yes it was my ticket to the SUD13 and I got it without paying a single penny, yet participating in organizing something I really cared about. At that time, I had then gotten free of my old boring corporate job though.

So Saturday started with me waking up, taking a shower and putting on my nicest suit. The sun was shining, the weather was springy and every thing seemed super beautiful as I was really happy. So I arrived at the venue located at a beautiful area in Stockholm and entered as an organizer. I got myself familiar with the venue and communicated the necessary information about the event with other organizers. Then I met this brilliant girl called Rosaline, an English girl who was to help me in the gallery and many other awesome people who were all there voluntarily to make this day a memorable one.

The participants started entering the venue and right from the beginning I happened to meet really interesting people. I met a wonderful lady called Stephanie who is the founder of Modern Aging. She enthusiastically explained the project to me such that I was sure I would submit an idea of mine to participate in this project. Like her, I had worked with the elderly but from a very different perspective as I was a journalist who had interviewed them about their problems in the elderly care centers.

Later I drank the heavenly delicious mouth watering smoothie just at the stand on the side which was provided by BerriesByAstrid and I got to listen to Astrid’s great idea behind this business of hers. She has been working as a cancer specialist in Sweden for many years. Working in Sweden entails drinking many cups of coffee during the day and being a cancer specialist, you’ll get to know that having antioxidants in your daily diet is one of the most important factors in preventing any kind of cancer. So combining these two concepts, she has come with the idea of creating a smoothie machine which would be bought by companies and would be charged just the way a cup of coffee is so the employees get to drink smoothie shots every day. Pretty awesome, isn’t it?

I also met interesting people just wandering before the talks started. Almost every one I met, had started a company and the rest were beginning to learn and get inspired to do so. I couldn’t believe how 700 awesome people could be under the same roof sharing this beautiful day together. Since my work in the gallery would have started at 10, I was free in the morning and I listened to the morning lectures.

The first talk was by Carl Waldecranz, CEO and co-founder of Tictail. I was mainly inspired by him not having attended university, yet having made such a successful business. He is a very humble guy and told his success story in a very funny way. The second talk was by Nicole Vanderbilt, Etsy‘s Country Manager for the UK, Nordics, Australia and Canada who told a wonderful story about a couple leaving their day job and working together at home to maintain their online shop while being with their little daughter at all time during the day.

As I was responsible for the social entrepreneurship track, I went to the gallery after this talk and listened to some amazing speeches and pitches afterwards. The talks that grabbed my attention the most were by Ida Östensson the CEO of Crossing Boarders, Karolina Lisslö and Josefina Oddsberg the founders of Bee Urban and Magnus Engervall the co-founder of FlexiDrive.se. Ida influenced me the most because she is exactly as old as me and I noticed that I happen to share lots of similar characteristics with her. She has been an organizer, an initiator and a defender of gender equality. She pointed out in her presentation that on Barack Obama‘s twitter, 95% of the twitts are retwitts from men and only 5% are from women. She was so confident and motivated when she talked. And I especially loved her outfit that reminded one of her being the founder of YouSkateGirl too.
Bee Urban was very strange to me in the beginning but as the playful presenters -who called themselves biology nerds- proceeded in the presentation, I got more and more fascinated by the valuable job they were doing. Magnus was an amazing guy with a background in economy who challenged every single structure that exists in this world we have created. He explained how existing laws could prevent his progress but his perseverance had eventually paid off.

It was time for the pitches. I had to keep the time for the pitchers. Every person could pitch for 2 minutes and then the board of judges asked questions for up to 10 minutes. A very interesting pitch was from Oskar Kalmaru, co-founder and marketing manager of Memoto that is a Swedish start-up founded in 2012 with the vision to give everyone a photographic memory. Check the website up. It’s pretty cool. Another interesting pitch was from Fishbrain which targeted a market I would have never thought of.

To summarize, I learned a lot from this event and I got more motivated to start my own business. The openness of the conversations, made me develop my idea further. Getting input from people who have a hand on start-up was a huge help. So if you are looking for a way to better your idea or to understand exactly what you are going to do to make the world a better place, share your idea with others and use their feedback to polish it.

Now it’s time for laughing a little bit. I’m just going to list a number of funny conversation starters I heard mostly by guys on this event. I am not joking. These actually were the very first sentence that some guys told me. I wish I could have tell them to please make a comment about the intelligence of the woman standing in front of them rather than commenting her appearance, but hey let’s laugh at these together.

You have cut your hair, it really suits your face. Oh I thought you were some one I knew from before, but anyways, let’s get introduced.
my reaction: eeeer… ok I’m Molood… (and we exchanged contacts and he took a picture of me to save as my contact photo in his ipad of course. He was a really awesome guys though with lots of helpful ideas)
What’s with the million dollar look pretty girl? What’s the name of your company?
That’s a really nice smile you have. What brings you here?
You have really beautiful hair. You must be in online marketing business!!!
Are you a blogger too? Oh no, you are a host since you have a green badge. What brings you here?
Are you looking for a roommate? I run a business in New York for finding roommates.
I am in the dating business. What is yours about?
Oh you are a host. I gather you have good taste since you’re talking to me. Do you happen to be the one who has chosen this beautiful venue for this event?
I have a question: What are you made of? steel? How can you be wearing high heels the whole day? (this one was a funny awesome girl of course)
Would you like to join us to the bar to mingle after the event?
Can I ask you where you are from? (I answered). Of course! Girls from your country are all very sexy!!!
Note: You can find all the videos and talks on the website of the Start Up Day 2013.