11-25-2019, 16:15
Highlights from Soft-Landing’s #ScalingMasterclass
Startup Europe initiative Soft-Landing, together with its sister project Startup Lighthouse gathered startups and ecosystem leaders from all over Europe for its #ScalingMasterclass in Madrid, on 1 October 2019.
The event brought insights not only from European startup ecosystems (Berlin, Dublin, Lisbon, Paris, Vilnius and Zoetermeer), but also global markets (Boston, New York, Silicon Valley, India and Israel).
“The Scaling Masterclass was an excellent opportunity to step back and look at the big picture of what it takes to grow a company in the EU and to gain perspective and experience from talented people who have built great businesses.”
Scaleup challenges and founder confessions
The day started with an informal gathering of the Startup Europe community, made up of startups that have joined EU-funded acceleration programmes, and Startup Europe Ambassadors who manage H2020 projects, mentor scaleups, and run accelerators and/or startup conferences. Representatives were gathered from Soft-Landing, Startup Lighthouse, MY-GATEWAY, Startup Europe Partnership, and the Nordic Angel Program, among others.
Startup Europe alumni got to know other founders and key players from multiple startup hubs. Participants were split into workshops focused on different scaling up challenges and the discussions were facilitated by Soft-Landing mentors and ecosystem leaders:
- Growing fast without breaking (too many) things – Robin Weninger, shaping work Academy
- Sell while you sleep – Aurelija Petrauskyte, Trafi
- How to fail at building a team? – Olla Jongerius, TCC Tribe
- The steps to building brand love – Richard Versluis, Rosterbuster
- How to get your first check from an angel – Marta-Patricia Aparicio, Keymon Angels
- How experiments helped me fail fast and succeed! – Farid Singh, Startup Wise Guys
- Anyone can start but can you scale? – Joe Haslam, IE Business School
- Corporate vs startup: ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’ – Daniel Salgado-Moreno, etventure
Open Masterclass: Scaling up in Europe
The afternoon was designed around the learnings, failures and successes of the startups and ecosystem leaders, who had explored the top startup ecosystems with Soft-Landing and Startup Lighthouse over the past two years and learned how to scale up abroad.
The masterclass kicked off with a mindfulness exercise to get participants in the here and now, and then offered key notes on scaling up, inspiring (and honest) startup flashtalks, startup hub pitching, a supercharging panel discussion, and lots of networking opportunities.
Find the original article plus a video of the event’s highlights here.
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