So much has happened with Seedcamp in the last month, thanks to you all for your energy, enthusiasm and support.
Last Sunday night we accepted the last applications for Seedcamp Week 2007 – we were thrilled to have received 268 applications from over 40 countries. Seedcamp seems to have tapped a nerve from Uruguay to the Ukraine and we’re excited to work with you all in the near future to figure out how we can best harness and continue the positive momentum.
This week is selection week. Our esteemed selection panel has been putting in serious energy into analyzing the applications and slimming that list down to a final set of interviews. By the end of the week we will have final list of 20 selected companies who’ll be coming to London to spend the week of Sept 3-7 with us.
One of the things we’ve always said about Seedcamp, is that’s its not just about the cash. Success is also about have the right context, making the right connections and gaining the right coverage.
Providing the right context
We’ve been inspired by the informal formats of unconferences and unevents like Barcamp and Opencoffee to try and create a style which is not just about people who’ve done it talking at people in an audience.
We want to provide conversation not speeches, so we have a mix of sessions where Seedcampers will hear directly from some real experts but then importantly be able to spend 1:1 time with those experts to get direct feedback on their businesses.
Seedcamp is an evolving project and this is only our first year, so we welcome any ideas and feedback you have on what topics are the most interesting to you. Please join the forums and let us know.
Making the right connections
Building a great business is partly about accessing the best and brightest talent – it can often be about knowing who to ask when you are stuck with really important questions.
We’ve said that being a part of Seedcamp should allow you to build a rolodex in a week it would take years to build otherwise.
So, to help teams making the best connections, we have lined up expert mentors across product design & development, marketing & pr, raising money, finding exits, negotiating big partnership, handling legals and accounting, team building. Hopefully, a lot of what teams need to sharpen their pitch and develop to be a successful business.
Joining our already impressive cast of characters during Seedcamp Week and beyond, some of the folks now include:
- Entreprenuerial founders including Niklas Zennstrom, Marc Samwer, Richard Moross, Martin Varsavsky, Toby Rowland, Tariq Krim, Michael Smith, Charlie Muirhead, Mattias Miksche and Alex Straub
- Product Development & Design gurus like Matt Jones, Tom Coates, Leisa Reichelt, Ryan Carson, Max Polyakov and Skype product & operations stars like Carter Adamson, Rodrigo Madanes, Sten Tamkivi, Annemie Rensburg and Michael Jackson
- VC and individual investors like DFJ Esprit, Alexander Hoye and Mark Sonne Kharazmi
- Experts from companies including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, SUN, Amazon Web Services, eBay, Oracle, Sky, Albion, Flow Interactive, SparkPR and Blackberry
Gaining the right coverage
Rising above the noise is critical in building your business.
To help Seedcamp teams do this, we’ve already partnered with Techcrunch, FT.com and the NextWeb Conference. We’re now thrilled to announce three new partnerships with:
- Ryan Carson’s FOWA from Oct 3-5 in London
- O’Reillys Web2.0 Expo from Nov 5-8 in Berlin
- Loic Le Meur’s LeWeb3 from Dec 11-12 in Paris
What’s next for Seedcamp….
These are still early days for us. We’re at the beginning of a long-term project which is focussed on building a better entrepreneurial environment in Europe for talented entrepreneurs who want to think big.
We’ve been thrilled by the response so far and the level of engagement from our fellow travelers on our blog, on our forums and on our ever growing public Facebook group. But most of all we’ve been thrilled to have as our fellow travelers everyone who has applied to Seedcamp and everyone who has become a supporter so far.
We have some exciting ideas for what’s next and we really want to hear from you all about what you think we can do to best serve and encourage great talent in Europe.
But right now we’re just so excited to move towards the next Act and meet the selected teams for Seedcamp Week 2007 and all the mentors in London from September 3-7th.
