Seedcamp Week 2012 (1). 5. FULL. DAYS.
24symbols was one of the winners of Seedcamp London last January. For those of you that just understood "winners" :D,
- 24symbols is my company, a "Spotify for Books"
- Seedcamp is one of the best acceleration companies in the world. This means they provide a plataform for startups not to start from scratch, through things like mentoring, events, networking, and the like.
As I write, I just finished Seedcamp Week, a full week of activities organized by Seedcamp in London (at Campus, the Google co-working space for startups and events) to all the winners in the different events. This time, we were 18 companies that would be pitching to and discussing with more than 500 mentors from Europe and US. Mentors who are investors, bizdev, product managers, hackers in startups and big corporations. People from Facebook, Spotify, BBC, Zemanta, MindCandy, ... The rythm is frenzy, but the opportunity to discuss our model with such amount and quality of people is sometime to take into account.
I was planning to write a little bit about what we did each day. I will divide this in two post. In this first one, it's easier if you take a look at the videos Seedcamp built for each of the days. The second post will be more about some insights and learnings I took from the week, that will hopefully be useful for those of you thinking about attending an acceleration program.
Seedcamp Week is a five-day program, where each day is focused on one specific area:
The videos somehow show the amount of work all teams put each day. The ones that stay at Campus and work there had many pizza and burger dinners while working on their pitches, updating AngelList (a social network to link investors to startups) or, of course, just work. In my case, I had the luxury of spending the week with two great friends, but after having a fun dinner with them, I always had to go back to my room and work.
Seedcamp Week doesn't finish that friday. Follow ups with mentors, investors, partners, ... take weeks, and I am still putting a sensible part of my time doing that. Getting product feedback from mentors, requesting help on the legal side, etc.
The following post will be around the more intangible part of the week. What did I take home from there?
- 24symbols is my company, a "Spotify for Books"
- Seedcamp is one of the best acceleration companies in the world. This means they provide a plataform for startups not to start from scratch, through things like mentoring, events, networking, and the like.
As I write, I just finished Seedcamp Week, a full week of activities organized by Seedcamp in London (at Campus, the Google co-working space for startups and events) to all the winners in the different events. This time, we were 18 companies that would be pitching to and discussing with more than 500 mentors from Europe and US. Mentors who are investors, bizdev, product managers, hackers in startups and big corporations. People from Facebook, Spotify, BBC, Zemanta, MindCandy, ... The rythm is frenzy, but the opportunity to discuss our model with such amount and quality of people is sometime to take into account.
I was planning to write a little bit about what we did each day. I will divide this in two post. In this first one, it's easier if you take a look at the videos Seedcamp built for each of the days. The second post will be more about some insights and learnings I took from the week, that will hopefully be useful for those of you thinking about attending an acceleration program.
Seedcamp Week is a five-day program, where each day is focused on one specific area:
- Monday: Product. How do you build a great quality product, which engages users and grows virally?
- Tuesday: Founders. How do you craft a world-class team? How do you hire? How do you fire?
- Wednesday: Investors. How do you approach investors? Is your business model sound to international investors?
- Thursday: Growth. OK, you have product and money. How do you become a real company?
- Friday: Demo Day. Present what you've done before and during the week.
The videos somehow show the amount of work all teams put each day. The ones that stay at Campus and work there had many pizza and burger dinners while working on their pitches, updating AngelList (a social network to link investors to startups) or, of course, just work. In my case, I had the luxury of spending the week with two great friends, but after having a fun dinner with them, I always had to go back to my room and work.
Seedcamp Week doesn't finish that friday. Follow ups with mentors, investors, partners, ... take weeks, and I am still putting a sensible part of my time doing that. Getting product feedback from mentors, requesting help on the legal side, etc.
The following post will be around the more intangible part of the week. What did I take home from there?
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