These series of guest posts are written by the teams attending the Tetuan Valley Startup School Fall edition. The Red team, formed by Abel Muiño, is presenting his project, Triptance.com.
We went to EBE (Evento Blog España) last week. This is a huge gathering of the Spanish blogosphere with three days of sessions and side tracks.
One of the sessions was “European Entrepreneurs”… but funny enough, the people at the EBE all knew them as “the Belgians” (although there were some Spanish people amongst them). because they all where united under a single umbrella project (betagroup… the number on investors listed on the page in amazing) with his home in Brussels.
It was a great session where several startups on different phases did a small presentation. Some were too technical, some a bit of hype… but all in all, I enjoyed them and the effort made in some cases to speak spanish.
But I was left wondering… why there is nothing like that in Spain? A project to unite entrepreneurs under a single flag?
Don’t get me wrong, there are some interesting events about entrepreneurship in Spain, but I feel they are focused on learning from others (or looking for funding, a job or a contract) than in sharing knowledge. Speakers at those events are usually serial entrepreneurs with a successful track record, but there is no event that I know of where startups struggling on their early stages can talk to each other (this Startup School might be the closest thing).
And this is not because there are no young Spanish startups. Just off the top of my head I can think of Inkzee (read more blogs in less time), StageHq (sell tickets online for your events), Abiquo (cloud computing platform for the enterprise), JobSket (innovative résumé building and publishing), Osmius (an opensource monitoring tool), Denodo (data integration platform)… and many more
So, this is a call to all Spanish entrepreneurs. When are we showing up on Brussels?
Could be size a reason? I don't know if there is any initiatives in France, Germany, UK, ..
Thanks for the good words about the Belgian Webmission to EBE09.
We are not a formal organization as such. We have decided to brand our efforts to promote Belgian web entrepreneurship abroad under the name Webmission and are thinking on ways to make it a stable organization that would help startups. It is the flagname we have decided to use, and it sure does work!
The Beta Group has played a very important role in suporting and promoting the Webmission. It is an iniciative of Jean Derely who has created the best networking event in Belgium with a great entrepreneurial drive, something we have seen there is a lot of in Spain (TetuanValley is a good example).
Just choose an event and try to get some people to go with you, it will be a great experience, just like ours in Evento Blog España 2009. Why not come to the next BetaGroup in December 2nd? Brussels is worth the trip
Ask yourself:
When and how did you get to know about those startups that you mention (Abiquo, etc.)? Promote those gatherings.
Have you seen any of those startups speaking on the events that are supposed to promote entrepreneurship or showcase innovation? Let's complain to the people organizing them.
Ficod is a recent example that comes to my mind. It was sad seeing people with nothing to share (apart from oversized egos and willingness to monetize their personal brand) appearing again and again as moderators and panelists. Willing to bet that next year will repeat itself?
Ask yourself:
When and how did you get to know about those startups that you mention (Abiquo, etc.)? Promote those gatherings.
Have you seen any of those startups speaking on the events that are supposed to promote entrepreneurship or showcase innovation? Let's complain to the people organizing them.
Ficod is a recent example that comes to my mind. It was sad seeing people with nothing to share (apart from oversized egos and willingness to monetize their personal brand) appearing again and again as moderators and panelists. Willing to bet that next year will repeat itself?