ArcticEvening Tallinn - 1st of March, 2012
We're back with organising ArcticEvenings! This year we'll do altogether six ArcticEvenings and our annual Arctic15 conference (more on the other events soon). We will kick off our events this year with ArcticEvening Tallinn on Thursday, the 1st of March. Our theme for the event is startup metrics. We also have a really good speaker coming to present his view on startup metrics - William Wolfram of DealDash. We recently interviewed him on Unfair Advantage about the metrics they use in DealDash. Back then he said they are obsessed with metrics and data. I'm sure there will be more interesting things to hear and ask William on stage.
TechDays Helsinki - Bigger Than Ever
Editorial note: This post is part of Microsoft's sponsored posts series Hear it from the startups.
Microsoft Finland is throwing its annual conference, TechDays in Helsinki in just over a month's time. The event is scheduled for two days between the 8th and 9th of March. The event has a ton of speakers covering a very impressive amount of topics. Microsoft has also confirmed for us that they will be giving a first look at the new Windows 8 operating system at the event as well. In fact, there will be one whole day's worth of content aimed at Windows 8.
ArcticStartup At Le Web
ArcticStartup will be going to Le Web this year to see how three days of conferencing will work out. Le Web, held in Paris will be on between the 7th and 9th of December. While the conference is pricey at 2300€ for a standard ticket, they did offer discounts for startups, students and freelance developers (all sold out now). Despite the steep price, it's the largest annual Silicon Valley gathering on this side of the Atlantic.
We'll be bringing you the highlights of the event, the controversies and debates. This year's theme is social-local-mobile, but don't worry - themes in the past haven't restricted conversation and we're bound to hear the latest trends across the board being discussed this year as well. We won't be doing any live blogging or tweeting, but in-depth coverage of the content that matters. The event has an impressive list of speakers and a program that will keep you busy throughout the three days.
What The Arctic15 Finalists Released
Arctic15 was held almost a month ago and we decided to summarise what the 15 awesome finalists actually pitched and released on stage. This is a little bit of a promotion to our upcoming videos of all the pitches we're beginning to release soon on ArcticStartup from our event. So browse through the 15 finalists presented below in alphabetical order, presented in their own words.
Gignal Amplifies Events By Presenting Social Media Buzz In One Place
If you've ever been to a conference you know how important the buzz around it is. You need to follow tweets to check what people around you are thinking or view check-ins to see who's actually attending. The same applies to a lot of events, be it concerts or sports events. The problem is, though, that there is a growing number of ways to interact with others around an event but no single platform that would combine all of that rich content. Gignal has an answer for that. Founded in Denmark by Natasha Friis Saxberg, the start-up offers a social media billboard for events that presents all social buzz around the happening in one place (check-ins, tweets, comments, pictures and videos).
Arctic15 Will Be Sold Out By The End Of The Week!
Apologies to our regular readers for covering our Arctic15 event quite excessively recently, but the closer to it we get - the better we think it'll be! In addition to this, we wanted to let everyone know that we're sure that the event will be sold out by the end of this week. We've got only 40+ tickets left. Just during last week, we registered more than 100 tickets in a few days.
Arctic15 Week Is Full Of Startup Action
Arctic15 is less than two weeks away. We've worked with multiple different organisations to spice up the week and it seems it's full of interesting startup action for everyone. In this post, we've covered the different events and activities taking place that week. We'll also link to this post from the Arctic15 website and update this accordingly.
Arctic15 Programme Released
The programme to Arctic15 is now out. It can be seen below and also on the event website. Basically the event kicks off at 9 and continues most likely until 6pm with possible delays to the schedule. In addition to the day programme - we'll have an awesome after party where we'll announce the winner of the Arctic15 competition. This of course means that it will be a full day of startup awesomeness! Do check out the conference programme below and purchase your tickets if you already haven't done so. The earlier you purchase them, the bigger chance you'll have that we'll have the time to print your badge in a proper way and make sure you have lunch! Actually we'll have lunch for everyone, but we'd really appreciate you buying the tickets as early as possible.
Qminder Wins Garage48 Tartu
Last weekend, another 48-hour developing competition was held in Tartu. The Garage48 event saw lots of interesting projects being pitched, planned and completed. Yet again, looking at the summary of the projects - Garage48's attendants showed they have what it takes to become an entrepreneur. Not only are the ideas worthwhile executing, some of them managed to gain traction over the weekend already.
Slidefy To Share Conference Presentations
Slidefy is a new Finnish service that targets a niche need with their offering. In essence, it's a slide sharing solution, but targeted at conference organisers and the like. Slidefy will work in such a way that conference organisers collect attendees' e-mails before the event and send them a link to the material the speaker has provided in advance. Then, during the presentation, users can focus on the actual presentation and not jot down points the speaker makes.
Arctic15 Summer Special Sale Ends August 19th (Or As Long As Tickets Available)
Arctic15 is getting close and we're getting very excited. For a couple of reasons actually. First of all, this will be the biggest event we've pulled together in a long time. In addition to that, we're going to have very high quality startups in the final, not to mention the speakers we have. We're going to announce the last speaker this week, but trust us - it's going to be hot. So for these, and a ton of other reasons - if you're thinking of coming, please book your ticket today. The summer special sale will end August 19th (or as long as tickets are available).
Startups: Arctic15 Competition Is Now Open For Companies Over 12 Months
Great news for start-ups: we've extended the age of companies eligible for applying to the Arctic15 pitching competition. From now on start-ups need to be less than 24 months old by the day of the conference (September 22nd). The decision for the extension was due to the many requests we got from companies that are around 18 months old but who started developing their product only in the past 12 months. While we want to pick the best of the youngest start-ups, we realize it sometimes takes more than 12 months for companies to develop and launch their product. Therefore, companies that are less than 2 years old are still very much start-ups and should be allowed to apply for the pitching competition. Now they can.
Attend Arctic15 & Frozen Rails - Save 20%
We've partnered with another very cool conference held just before Arctic15, Frozen Rails, to offer a 20% discount on tickets for those who wish to attend both conferences. As you know, we're building Arctic15 to be the biggest startup launch conference in the Nordics this year. Frozen Rails on the other hand goes well with developers and others interested in Rails development.
Startups: New, Simpler Requirements For Arctic15 Competition
We admit it - we were a little too strict with our rules for Arctic15, the startup competition when we first came out with it. We've talked to quite a few of you and realised that it may be better to just simplify them and try to get as many interesting startups to the event as possible. Remember, if you're chosen to be part of the 15 finalists - entrance and the possibility to pitch at the event will be completely free. So in this post, we'll publish the three simple points your company must meet to be eligible for the startup competition.
Student Tickets For Arctic15
Students ahoy! We've announced instructions and pricing for tickets for full-time students. You can see these instructions from the Arctic15 website as well.
Tickets for full-time students are priced at 79€, including all VATs, fees and what have you. We wanted to get the price down as much as possible and we think 79€ for the show is an excellent bargain.
Boardman 2020 Gets Board Executives Together In Finland
Boardman 2020 is a community aimed at board professionals in Finland and it gathers the crowd together in an effective manner. We had a talk with Mika Mäkeläinen and Esa Matikainen, who are part of the founding team, about the ways and objectives of the organisation. Boardman 2020 has for example been extremely successful in gathering large crowds to its Salesboard and Pecha kucha events. By large, we mean north of a few hundred. When considering the amount of board professionals there are in Finland, this is a significant amount.
Nordic And Baltic Startups: Launch At Arctic15!
Is your company still in development mode, but looking to launch a product or a service later this year to the public, or in open beta? How would you like to attract hundreds of influential users to your service while speaking in front of a huge crowd of investors and other opinion leaders? Without sounding too much like a telemarketer, all this is possible if you wish to apply to the Arctic15 competition. All you need to do is fill out this form.
Two Events Worth Taking A Look At: Inspire And Startup 2.0
We don't promote a lot of events like this, but when we do you can be sure they're worth taking a look at. Two events we'd like to bring to your attention (and you can win a ticket to the Inspire conference, read more details below) today are the Inspire conference and the Startup 2.0 event aimed at mobile apps. The Inspire conference is organised in London between 7th an 8th of June where as Startup 2.0 is organised in Bilbao, Spain between the 17th and 18th of June.
The Four Favorite Teams From Last Weekend's Garage48 Tallinn Event
While Garage48 is still a little under a month away from the African Safari, the event at Tallinn last weekend has had the curtains dropped. The event saw over 120 people working hard in 18 teams to give their ideas a touch of reality. Garage48 is a weekend type company development project, where people of different crafts get together to work on projects for the duration of 48 hours. After the weekend, teams present their results in front of an audience.
Jens Begemann, CEO & Founder Of Wooga, Coming To Arctic15
Just earlier this week we announced that Steve Huffman and Daniel Kaplan are coming to Arctic15. Today we have the pleasure to announce that the CEO and founder of one of the most exciting companies in Europe currently, Jens Begemann, is coming to Arctic15 as well. Jens Begemann is the founder and CEO of wooga, Europe's largest social games developer and the number four globally. Previously, he worked as the Chief Product Officer at Jamba (Jamster).
Small Update Regarding Arctic15
Back in January we promised to come out with more information regarding the Arctic15 conference in February. We're currently in the process of closing a few very interesting speakers and this is keeping us from releasing the website with the full information, programme, tickets and other items. Hopefully we'll be able to release the site next week. We'll keep you updated on this.
Applause For Uplause Entertaining 1.5 Million People!
We talked about Uplause back in 2010 and already stated that it made traditional multiplayer gaming old school. It has indeed with its concept of Crowd Games or Massively Multiplayer Crowd Playing Game (MMCPG). It looked promising to us and its recent numbers stand as a solid proof to its success.
Arctic15 - The Best Way To Launch Your Company In 2011
We're very excited to announce a completely new event format called Arctic15 that we've been putting together since late last year. The event, in its simplest form, will be the best way to launch your company in 2011. We love technology entrepreneurship and we want to support it in the best way we can. Therefore, Arctic15 will launch 15 of the most potential technology startups from the region together with world class keynote speakers. The event will be organised on 22nd of September in Helsinki, Finland. If you've been to our ArcticEvenings, you know Arctic15 will rock.
Customized Mobile Maps With Zonear
Many businesses are keen on making tourist and other guides for mobile. Fully customizable, based on peer reviews, suggestions by locals or existing tourist guides - you name it. A new addition to the field is a recently created start-up called Zonear from Tampere, Finland. Rather than bringing an all-encompassing travel guide directly to the consumer, Zonear provides mobile apps with customizable maps for service providers like travel destinations, museums and event organizers. The idea is that for each customer Zonear would create a unique map that would point the end user in the right direction, provide additional information and let them interact with the location or object. The app can be viewed directly from the web or be used offline if it's been downloaded in the browser once. It works across many platforms, can be fully customized for the brand and includes a simple analytics tool. Four years ago another Finnish start-up Whatamap tried to do exactly the same thing, so how is Zonear different?
Making A Business Out Of A Surprisingly Broken Industry
GigsWiz isn't even a year old and already they have a very solid and impressive track record behind them. I talked to Joonas Pekkanen, the finance guy as their website puts it, about their newly released ticketing service that in all simplicity helps bands sell more tickets. Having had this talk, I finally realised how fundamentally broken the industry has been. One of the main concerns the promoters have had, according to Joonas, is that bands really aren't helping out in promoting their own gigs. Now think about that for a moment, you as an entrepreneur (which artists are, but most probably don't think like it) aren't helping out people to sell your own services that your produce - how crazy is that?
ArcticEvening HKI Tomorrow, With A Surprise!
One more night! ArcticEvening Helsinki will take place tomorrow, starting at 6pm (Korjaamo, Töölönkatu 51). The event is sold out, but we wanted to let all the people coming know that we're having a surprise guest speak in the event. We won't disclose anything yet, but this is world class stuff! And this is on top of our fabulous speakers already, that we've managed to get for you - Ulla-Maaria Engeström of Thinglink and Jussi Laakkonen of Applifier.
ArcticEvening Helsinki Tickets Are Here
Earlier this week we announced the date and setup for our upcoming ArcticEvening in Helsinki. The tickets are now available for free registration below. As a summary, we'll be having presentations from two very interesting speakers and founders of companies on their journey and how they got to where they are now.
The event will be held on 4th of November, from 6pm to 10pm in Korjaamo (Töölönkatu 51), Helsinki. We'll start the event soon after 6pm, so try to be there as early as possible. Thanks to our wonderful sponsors, we're able to offer everyone a complimentary drink upon arrival - so do take a minute to get to know our sponsors as well.
ArcticEvening Helsinki is also the official after party of IBP Camp Helsinki held earlier that day in Korjaamo as well. The day will feature world class speakers, including Andreas Ehn, ex-Spotify and Timo Soininen, CEO of Sulake. Themes of the day handle productization, challenges of the international sales and marketing with scarce resources, building the international team, and successes and failures in internationalization. Highly recommended, if you're in Helsinki for the day as well. For more information, check out the IBP event page.
VCs: Excel And Follow Your Passion
ArcticEvening Stockholm took place last night in Obaren, Sturehof despite being organised on the same date with Sweden playing against San Marino in football. The event was very high profile due to the panelists, having put in energy to come to Obaren from all over the Baltic region.
Startups, Apply For 1-Minute Presentations In ArcticEvening Tallinn!
We've set the date and are on the final stretches of the preparations for the second ArcticEvening this year, to be held in Tallinn on the 1st of June. I don't want to give away too much at this point on the program itself as we're still finalising it. However, I do want to announce a small part of the program now so startups can prepare for it and consider it if they'd want to participate.
Events You Don't Want To Miss
On the face of it startup events might look like bunch of geeks listening to talks that provide little or no value over what can be obtained with an Internet connection and an ability to read.
Wrong! It's not what happens on-stage but off-stage that matters. This is where grown men talk tech, drink imported beer and meet the most important people of their startup lives. This is where you get to know the people. And its the people you know that will make the difference between a success and a failure.
Yes, your product's traction may play a role, but a few emails to the right people do wonders when you are running out of money, haven't slept for days and are fighting windmills to close the one deal that means the difference between life and death. This is while at the same time Facebook is busy stealing your CTO right when your servers can't cope with the increased traffic. That's when knowing the right people come handy.
