Looking forward to Startup Weekend
As Rainmaking is co-hosting Startup Weekend throughout the Nordics, Startup Weekend found it interesting to interview Carsten Kølbek about Rainmaking’s involvement. Here is the result:
How have you got interested in Startup Weekend?
We have launched a European accelerator program called startupbootcamp. The critical factor for us is to attract the best European startup teams. When we met Clint Nilsen, one of the founders of startupweekend, we immediately saw this as a great vehicle for getting in contact with hundreds of entrepreneurs across Europe and that is the reason we are now sponsoring and co-arranging startupweekends in Vilnius, Kaunas, Stockholm, Lund, Copenhagen and Oslo.
What do you hope to get from Startup Weekend?
Personally, I hope to have a fun and rewarding weekend where I meet a lot of great people who are enthusiastic about entrepreneurship. From the perspective of Rainmaking, I hope we find one or two great teams who could be candidates for our startupbootcamp program this summer in Copenhagen.
Please, tell prospective participants about yourself and Rainmaking
I am the co-founder of Rainmaking, which is a “startup factory”. We have created 11 companies in 3½ years. Some have failed but fortunately we have also made our first two exits. Currently, our companies have an annual turnover of EUR 20 million. And we employ 60+ people.
Teaming up with startupweekend
Met with Clint Nelsen of www.startupweekend.org yesterday. Impressive what they have created in 2½ years. More than 10,000 participants have been through their program and around 30% of the startups created during those weekends are still running.
We found out that there are great synergies between startupweekend and www.startupbootcamp.dk, since many participants from the startupweekends are looking for something more after finishing the intense weekend program. And the next logical step could be to join startupbootcamp, which offers a 3 months program allowing the startup teams to really get in depth with their ideas, attract the first customers and by the end of the program picth their startup to dozens of investors.
For startupbootcamp it is interesting to team up with startupweekend since this can prove to be a very promising source of potential candidates for the program.
We have therefore decided to run 4 startupweekends in parallel in the weekend commencing the 9th of April 2010 in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki and Oslo. Startupbootcamp will be co-hosts and the winning teams will have a preferred route into the startupbootcamp program.
What an exciting weekend waiting in the Nordics!
/Carsten