Never give up

So here’s what is going on right now. We had the workshop with this guy. He is brilliant! The workshop we had was probably the most productive thing we have had so far and it really helped us to put our concept together. We now realize that our strength is in visual side and in sociality. Those are our strengths in this kind of business. 

We also heard that one of our main competitors just received funding of 15 million dollars! You could imagine that it would bring us down a bit but it made us realize that (at least in our own minds) we are going to be so much better than they are. So it shouldn’t be so hard to get funding once we have things rolling.

As we mentioned earlier our goal was to get GlobeOut prototype into the travel fair 2012 but that didn’t really work out as planned. Our university representatives said that our concept wasn’t in harmony with theirs and that there were already too many students involved with the stand. Clearly the board wasn’t able to see the benefits of actually showing something that the students have achieved in order to promote our university rather than having brochures. One can only wonder what the use of 40 promoters is when there could be few who actually have something to show for their work. Luckily we still have few aces in our sleeves so we’ll see what happens.

Despite this set back we will continue in process of getting the prototype ready as soon as possible. We will still attend the Travel Fair 2012 so that we can do some heavy networking. We are also considering to attend the Travel Technology Europe 2012 –fair that is held in London. More info: http://www.traveltechnologyshow.com/

Her story inspired us this week:

Working towards our goals

We have been connecting to people to make things happen. Right now our goal is to get the prototype ready for January 2012 so that we could present it at the Travel Fair 2012 on HAAGA-HELIA stand. We have been having a meeting with the team organizing the stand and contacting our Pasila Campus in order to borrow one of their awesome multitouch screens. More info about the screens from: http://multitouch.fi/

Two of us also had a meeting with this guy who works for one of the leading marketing companies in Finland in order to get our marketing and branding planned correctly. We went through multiple slides just so that we could understand the way a brand is build. Oh boy we have a lot of work to do. Next week all of us will be having a workshop with him.

We also decided to take all our online conversations from Facebook chat into Flowdock – a new tool for groups and companies to change information (such as emails, documents, images etc.) and talk online. More information about Flowdock you can find from here: https://www.flowdock.com/

After Slush'11

Slush was awesome and got us fully excited to work some more. We got a bunch of business cards and on Monday the 7.11 we organized them on the computer and sent emails to all our new friends. It was interesting to realize that people were still helpful afterwards. We also discussed on the paperwork for the company’s registration. One of us started to work on that so that once we are ready to put money into business we would have everything ready to be send out. We’re getting closer and closer bit by bit. This is very interesting. We started using Flowdock.com which was introduced to us at Slush. It helps us to inform each other with anything.  All emails and other documents can be posted in one place where every one of us can see it. Check it out, it works for us and they have a 30 days free trial period for everybody. https://www.flowdock.com/

This is what inspired us...

Slush '11

We attended this two day fair called Slush’11 which was held at Kaapelitehdas in Helsinki on the 2^nd and 3^rd of November. Slush is a fair for new start-up companies where they can meet investors and get plenty of new contacts and visibility.

http://www.slush.fi/main/

There were about 2 500 visitors in two days from all over the world. We met plenty of young entrepreneurs as well as founders of big companies. They had two main stages, the other one was for keynote speakers and panel conversations and the other one was a pitching stage. There was a Slush100 pitching competition for new start-up companies. We also applied to it but didn’t get to participate. We think the reason for this was that all the other start-ups were two steps ahead of us with their own companies and ideas. So next year it will be our chance. It turned out to be a good thing as now we got to listen and learn what is correct and what is absolutely not. The most interesting part was listening to others’ ideas. Be aware as a lot of great things will happen in the future, so good luck to all the others.

Besides the two stages there were also around 50 demo tables in the middle where people were presenting their own companies to everybody. There were both start-up companies as well as already exciting companies which were helping out the start-ups. It was really interesting just to go around and talk to other people about their ideas and how they’re managing with their companies.

In general people were really generous and helpful. We talked about GlobeOut to a lot of people and got them really excited about it. We even found a law firm called HH Partners that had an open application for a mentoring program which is designed for start-ups. The conditions were that the start-up company shouldn’t have a lot of money or sponsors (that’s us), a lot of experience (that’s us, again) and hasn’t registered the company yet (that’s still us). This program is called Pro Bono during which the start-up company will have experts in their field helping out the company with all sorts of agreements and things with law and order. After the fair we completed the application and hope for the best as it would be one of the best things ever that could happen to us at this point.

After the first day at Slush there had been organised an after-party for all the participants at the Ahjo Bar & Club in Helsinki. We arrived just after seven pm and got two drink coupons each. They had a special drink for the night called the Slush special which included blueberries and lime squeezed with sugar, smashed ice and vodka. There we met a lot of new people who helped us out quite a bit with their own experiences and advice. The night was a success.

The program during these two days was really interesting but also very hectic. The pitching competition as well as the panel discussions and the speeches happened at the same time so we divided us into two groups. This way we got way more out of everything.

It seems like we are heading in the right direction because gaming and social media is the number one thing now and that industry keeps growing like crazy! Thank you, Slush11’, for giving us an awesome opportunity to learn more and to meet new people. We got a lot of new ideas and contacts and afterwards slept like babies.

This is what inspires us for the next year to come:

Congratulations Ovelin!!! (They have a game called Wild Chords. Check it out!!!)