Month: August 2015

Categories
Entrepreneurship Ideas Investing

What does the startup community need from Campus Warsaw? 15 Actions recommended

A Quora question here  provoked this Sunday morning article.

Richard.
Q What does the startup community need from Campus Warsaw? 

Great question.
1. Support, attend  and partner with regular monthly or more frequent monthly events and meetups across Poland (not just Warsaw)  –  with satellite events/monthly meetup like Open Coffee Krakow OpenCoffeeKRK (that used to take place in Google For Entrepreneurs Krakow ) and events Hive  KrakSpot    Startup Stage and those posted on #OMGKRK – Kraków’s startup community and Crossweb – wszystkie Barcampy, spotkania i konferencje

2.  Co-operate with existing pro- startup and enterprise organisations like AIP and Fundacja Startup Poland

3  Support pro-entrepreneurship movements like Global Entrepreneurship Week.

4. Invite and encourage government officials from all Ministries to attend existing events (not just do their own). Use Google’s pulling power to get officials involved and engaged. It can and does work. In the South Poland region, for example the country authority runs this  as its contribution to Global Entrepreneurship Week.

5. Encourage low/no cost initiatives – like Open Coffee Krakow movement – throwing money at events makes them happen even if there is no community buy in.

6. Co-operate and support social entrepreneurship like the  TEDx movement TEDx | Event Listing | TED.com

Log into Facebook | Facebook Code for Poland (Koduj dla Polski) Społeczność poszukująca technologicznych rozwiązań społecznych wyzwań  Volunteering movements Khan Academy Khan Academy Uniwersytet Dzieci
7.   Support development of curriculum based events (finance, marketing, coding) through encouraging meetups on themes or thematic groups like Krakow Unity 3D Meetup Group
8. Support enterprise education in schools , especially at pre-school and primary school level before it its too late
Strona główna – Fundacja Młodzieżowej Przedsiębiorczości
Przedsiębiorcy z naszej szkoły (not just Gymnasium and Liceums)

9 lobby for, and support liberal work and entrepreneur visa regime in Poland for non-Schengen professionals and entrepreneurs. Show that Poland is more open to non-EU  talent than countries like the UK and USA.

10. Invite organisations that could be part of the entrepreneurship support ecosystem:

law firms,
IP Agents,
accountants,
banks,
VCs,
chambers of commerce,
trade associations,
business schools,
universities,
political parties,
government bodies
Charities
NGOs
 to identify people responsible for dealing with startups, and invite them to workshops to present  what they are doing to help enterprise. (It may shame them into action if,  as may often be the case, they were doing nothing before Google asked them to present).

11. Keep promoting enterprise among minorities and  socially excluded groups, including prisons like Last Mile, in refugee camps, and support diversity.

Highlight Polish success stories like Applicake, Azimo, Base, Brainly, Estimote. (no regional bias 🙂 of course)

12. be interviewed on projectkazimierz.com   🙂

13. encourage angel investors

14. Encourage Polish doctors not automatically to ask every patient how many days off work they want no matter what issue  the patient has,

15 Encourage journalists to stop promoting anti-work culture,  saying “szkoda ze weekend się skonczy” and “”na szczęście już piątek.”

Richard

Categories
Entrepreneurship

Go Warsaw : Reaktor is four years old today

Richard Lucas August 2015

When Google for Entrepreneurs announced that it was leaving Kraków and opening its Campus in  Warsaw many people in Kraków Startup Commmnity were a bit disappointed. However, it is better that Google Campus  in in Poland than elsewhere, and as  Dawid Ostrowski of Google Developers Relations pointed out Krakow has a lot of lessons to share in terms of building a dynamic startup community. Borys Musielak is one of the leading lights of the Warsaw Startup Community, on the board of Startup Poland  and the founder of Reaktor .   I saw that their birthday party was full/sold out. See the comments here  and thought that it was appropriate to wish Reaktor and the Warsaw startup community all the best, happy birthday, (and let’s gently compete to see who has the first Polish Unicorn – go Go Azimo 🙂 Go Base, Go Brainly… (I think Integer and Comarch may be their already 🙂

For the benefit of those who are thinking about how to do large scale and positive events in Warsaw, I am sharing how the first X-Massive party came into being in 2013.

Community building is a process and doesn’t happen overnight.

It is very important to make your events welcoming and positive for the new comer, who doesn’t know anyone, have any contacts and is wondering if entrepreneurship and the startup community is a  place where they will feel welcome.

See Open Coffee Krakow and Hive values.  my post on Community Building, based also on my experiences in the TED and TEDx community and Global Entrepreneurship Week initiatives.

#OMGKRK stands for positivity,  optimism sharing and support. Go Warsaw Sto Lat Reaktor.

Richard  Lucas

We appreciate what Google For Entrepreneurs did here, and are thinking about doing a Google For Entrepreneurs Krakow (fan club) meet up in September October to which of course you are all will be invited. (This idea is inspired by TED-ster Clay Shirky and his story of Josh Groban and the Grobanites, Read more here ). If anyone reading this wants to help or get involved, drop me a note on Linkedin or Facebook.

how we organised the first 1000 person plus X Massive Party OMGKRK from Richard Lucas

This is the comment thread that kicked off the party, It took a few hours to get 90% of the Krakow community on board.

Richard Lucas
23 November 2013 · End of year startup community “un-party” with TEDxWarsaw Salon/Couchsurfing style icebreakers

Last year with MSFBCC I organised the below party for the startup community.

If you are interested in helping do something amazing this year, come to a planning meeting Wed 27th evening at 19 @ Nowa Prowincja Bracka 3-5. send me a note if you are coming.

…See More

HIve XMAS PARTY IN KITSCH
Together with Małopolskie Studenckie Forum Business Centre Club – the most active pro business student community in our region, Hive are proud to invite you to our Christmas party Tuesday, 18…
HIVE53.COM
12 Likes17 Comments
Like   Comment