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Last Weekend I had the chance to facilitate Startup Wekeend Ankara, which in fact was my first role as an official Startup Weekend facilitator. I was supposed to facilitate the awesome Startup Weekend Sofia (awesome event with more than 120 participants) but due to visa issues I didn’t make it and they local organizers had to improvise on their own, which eventually resulted in a well done job.
I was also invited to facilitate Startup Weekend Teheran, but again unfortunately, Iran hasn’t recognized the independence of my country and thus it cannot issue visa for traveling and I wasn’t able to attend (by the way it was an amazing event with 120 participants, 120 ideas pitched and 12 formed teams – also quoted by Marc Nager as “the first event to empower the startup community in the whole country”).
Finally Startup Weekend achieved to kick me out in the beautiful world and send me to Ankara, and lucky enough Turkey doesn’t require visas for Kosovar citizens to enter the country. As I was traveling towards my new Startup Weekend adventure, after having organized two successful events back home, I was a bit stressed in regards to what would I be expecting in Ankara and what would people expect from me, would I be able to raise the spirit, represent Startup Weekend how it should, present the details in kick-ass style, and so on… As I landed in the beautiful city of Ankara, Emin Okutan one of the local organizers was waiting for me in typical Turkish friendly & hospitable style (by the way if you ever go to Turkey, you will feel very welcoming by the local people). As we were driving to the event venue I used my chance to ask as many questions as possible in order to gain some feedback and prepare my way of facilitating the event. Fortunately it took us more than one hour which was enough to get a sightseeing tour of the city and get answers to my question.
When we arrived the organizing team was very happy to see me, and also happy to get some answers to their questions. Normal questions which I also had to the facilitator in the first event organized back in December last year in Prishtina. After the Q&A sessions, I was wondering my time at the highly motivated attendees with developer, designer, web designer or marketing backgrounds, who were hard working in the process of transforming ideas into viable products, in just 54 hours. I was so amassed to see 14 teams (which came out of 24 ideas and more than 70 participants) with products focused on the mobile industry and with so many prototypes going on…
There was this friendly tall guy with a very American English accent leading a team, who was building an app to control your game on your PC through your smartphone, and they stayed all night long to come up with a prototype which was eventually working on Sunday. After hopping from team to team and working with them on a how to present session, I came to an important point on asking people how much money would they need to start their business, which triggered some interesting responses. “I will do this for free” or “I don’t need any money” or “I’m cheap, I just need to buy some stuff and we are rolling”… that was an interesting point to see whereas attendees (mostly students) were still considering the Startup Weekend experience as a project and not as real life. After talking to them and visiting the teams, we (by we, I include the organizing team as well) made an interesting progress on getting the participants to understand that they are launching a real business and that they are supposed to validate, get customer feedback, pivot, think business model and financing.
Group Picture with the SWJury/Winners/Organizing Team
While preparing for the finals I was happy to see a lot of investors as part of the jury, which is something missing back home here in Prishtina, while this was not something new in Ankara or Turkey as a whole, since the Business Angel or VC Network, is quite established there. After I did my gig on the massive Startup Weekend and its presence around the world, team after team went on stage to pitch unfortunately for me in Turkish (… I didn’t understand a word, but I could follow on the applauds and cheers from the crowd), and was also amazed to see that each one worked on the business model & financing part, and also presenting real customer feedback, based on online surveys or real one to one testing.
The winner was “Book Monster”, led by a girl who’s testing pitch in English with me was awesome and I think it was the same in Turkish as well. Their solution was a more interactive way of reading books for children. In the first place was also “Pilgrim Pleasure-I” (two teams shared the first place), which gave people the opportunity to see what can they do additionally during their trip from A to B, in a solution based on Google Maps API, a nice design and some details for Museums or other interesting objects that are in the direction of traveling. The tourist app was also present in Turkey (… something that is built in almost every Startup Weekend event), even though with some interesting approaches and a very hard working team. Everything ended with the traditional group photography and with the loud cheers of the audience.
I would say a well done job from the local organizing team Bans Okur, Ece Idil Kasap and Emin Okutan (special thanks to Emin who woke up early in the morning on Monday to take me to the airport, after 54 hours of a breathtaking event and just a couple hours of sleep), and more than well done from the hard working participants, who truly represent an active startup scene in Turkey.
While I’m working with my team on organizing Startup Weekend Prishtina (third edition), part of the Global Startup Battle, I’m happy to be part of such a great/global family as Startup Weekend is, and also get the chance to facilitate events in different countries around the world and share experiences and work on connecting people/cultures/cities/countries more with each other. The entrepreneurial spirit has no boundaries and no limits… and people should have no limits and always think outside of the box… Felix Baumgartner in his crazy Red Bull jump is a perfect example.
Lexo tek faqja e tij...
I was also invited to facilitate Startup Weekend Teheran, but again unfortunately, Iran hasn’t recognized the independence of my country and thus it cannot issue visa for traveling and I wasn’t able to attend (by the way it was an amazing event with 120 participants, 120 ideas pitched and 12 formed teams – also quoted by Marc Nager as “the first event to empower the startup community in the whole country”).
Finally Startup Weekend achieved to kick me out in the beautiful world and send me to Ankara, and lucky enough Turkey doesn’t require visas for Kosovar citizens to enter the country. As I was traveling towards my new Startup Weekend adventure, after having organized two successful events back home, I was a bit stressed in regards to what would I be expecting in Ankara and what would people expect from me, would I be able to raise the spirit, represent Startup Weekend how it should, present the details in kick-ass style, and so on… As I landed in the beautiful city of Ankara, Emin Okutan one of the local organizers was waiting for me in typical Turkish friendly & hospitable style (by the way if you ever go to Turkey, you will feel very welcoming by the local people). As we were driving to the event venue I used my chance to ask as many questions as possible in order to gain some feedback and prepare my way of facilitating the event. Fortunately it took us more than one hour which was enough to get a sightseeing tour of the city and get answers to my question.
There was this friendly tall guy with a very American English accent leading a team, who was building an app to control your game on your PC through your smartphone, and they stayed all night long to come up with a prototype which was eventually working on Sunday. After hopping from team to team and working with them on a how to present session, I came to an important point on asking people how much money would they need to start their business, which triggered some interesting responses. “I will do this for free” or “I don’t need any money” or “I’m cheap, I just need to buy some stuff and we are rolling”… that was an interesting point to see whereas attendees (mostly students) were still considering the Startup Weekend experience as a project and not as real life. After talking to them and visiting the teams, we (by we, I include the organizing team as well) made an interesting progress on getting the participants to understand that they are launching a real business and that they are supposed to validate, get customer feedback, pivot, think business model and financing.
Group Picture with the SWJury/Winners/Organizing Team
While preparing for the finals I was happy to see a lot of investors as part of the jury, which is something missing back home here in Prishtina, while this was not something new in Ankara or Turkey as a whole, since the Business Angel or VC Network, is quite established there. After I did my gig on the massive Startup Weekend and its presence around the world, team after team went on stage to pitch unfortunately for me in Turkish (… I didn’t understand a word, but I could follow on the applauds and cheers from the crowd), and was also amazed to see that each one worked on the business model & financing part, and also presenting real customer feedback, based on online surveys or real one to one testing.
The winner was “Book Monster”, led by a girl who’s testing pitch in English with me was awesome and I think it was the same in Turkish as well. Their solution was a more interactive way of reading books for children. In the first place was also “Pilgrim Pleasure-I” (two teams shared the first place), which gave people the opportunity to see what can they do additionally during their trip from A to B, in a solution based on Google Maps API, a nice design and some details for Museums or other interesting objects that are in the direction of traveling. The tourist app was also present in Turkey (… something that is built in almost every Startup Weekend event), even though with some interesting approaches and a very hard working team. Everything ended with the traditional group photography and with the loud cheers of the audience.
I would say a well done job from the local organizing team Bans Okur, Ece Idil Kasap and Emin Okutan (special thanks to Emin who woke up early in the morning on Monday to take me to the airport, after 54 hours of a breathtaking event and just a couple hours of sleep), and more than well done from the hard working participants, who truly represent an active startup scene in Turkey.
While I’m working with my team on organizing Startup Weekend Prishtina (third edition), part of the Global Startup Battle, I’m happy to be part of such a great/global family as Startup Weekend is, and also get the chance to facilitate events in different countries around the world and share experiences and work on connecting people/cultures/cities/countries more with each other. The entrepreneurial spirit has no boundaries and no limits… and people should have no limits and always think outside of the box… Felix Baumgartner in his crazy Red Bull jump is a perfect example.
Lexo tek faqja e tij...