Wednesday, the 28th of September in O4 belonged to startups – in connection with the visit of the representatives from the Finnish Startup Sauna accelerator we have organized an event, in which 15 interesting innovative businesses had a chance to present themselves to six extraordinary mentors with great business experience.
The goal was simple – within a 3-minute presentation they had to speak about their idea so that none of the potential investors or customers would not ask one of the 3 dreaded questions: “What exactly do you do?”, “Why exactly are you doing this?”, “Why your team will do it better than the others?”.
Not everyone made it. General conclusion after almost an hour of “pitching” was that our young businessmen have yet a lot to learn. They have interesting ideas and great potential, but still lack the knowledge of self-presentation and hot to communicate your idea so that the audience heard what they should have heard.
“I want to believe that you want to change the world” – Juha Ruohonen summed up all the presentations – “You have to stand in front of me full of faith in success! And many of you were speaking hesitantly and without conviction about the most important project of their life. If you want me to be sure you to be full of enthusiasm.” Anna Hejka, investor with an international business experience added “Prepare yourselves, get a better knowledge of who you are talking to. What is important for mentors, what turns them on. We see hundreds of presentations each year, we remember a few. Only those with a “wow!” effect”. Alina Prawdzik completed: “Show us your customers. Why they have trusted you, why they like you, why they are buying you product. There is no better evidence for that what you are doing makes sense. ”
Educational part of the event is aggravated by the fact that the reward for this effort and stress is dismissed. Tricity is only a stop in a long world tour of our Finnish friends. Of all the heroes of the Startup Sauna meetings they will select only 15 projects, which the authors of will be invited to an intensive 5-week program in Helsinki, which – to quote one of the participants:”feels like a Fight Club, breaking you into pieces and placing again into something new and better “.
From the Gdansk edition the biggest chance has the Farm Scanner – Martyna Gatkowska and Karolina Wróbel’s project from the Institute of Geodesy and Cartography, which main role is to help farmers more cheaply and effectively recognize and repair the damage on the fields caused by weather, pests and animals.
Our jurors liked also: Skytech (autonomous drones project), SkillHunt (recruitment platform for IT workers, paying users for the efficient advertisements), Saas Manager (defining itself as a Magento for SaaS) and Parkanizer (application for finding and paying for parking in urban areas and underground car parks).
It is worth noting that the same finale was preceded by two days of intensive workshops in Gdansk Science and Technology Park and the Pomeranian Science and Technology Park in Gdynia. Those who took the opportunity presented themselves much better than those who didn’t 🙂
Startup Sauna promised to come back next year. Thus, we have 12 months to prepare 15 mesmerizing projects and presentations!
Marta Moksa