With the goal of helping people from all over Europe to further develop their business ideas a wide variety of men and women between 18 and 45 years of age participated in various challenges during the three days event. Next to Austrian teams, also Slovenia and Italy was present either on stage or among the many mentors and startup supporters at Dom Center3.
The winner and a midnight bingo session
Hoppebox is the winner of Startup Live Klagenfurt; Photo credit: Startup Live
This year’s winning idea was the Hoppebox, a lunchbox with an air cushion pad which protects the contents in the box. Last week, Hoppebox secured a 60,000 euros investment during the television show “2 Minuten 2 Millionen”.
One of its cofounders, David Dietrich spoke to inventures and told us about one of hightlights of Startup Live Klagenfurt: the midnight Bingo session, where participants were asked to draw two weird words from a bowl and describe a resulting business idea on the spot.
“It was really fun! We were all thinking in various ways and having some of us give feedback to each other was great,” said Dietrich, who has been to at least seven to eight startup events during the last three years. During this edition, Dietrich was able to work with participants and mentors from Italy, Austria and Slovenia. Moreover, experiencing different business model approaches from various teams was a rewarding experience to him and the event opened his eyes for differences within the European startup scene. “Slovenia is better organised than, for example, the Austrians ecosystem,” Dietrich explained. “They have a better network inside Slovenia and outside as well, such as in California.”
The take home message of Startup Live
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Stefan Richter, the chief startup officer of Startup Live, said he hopes that participants walked away knowing what aspects are important for a good business model and that they were able to expand their network in the process. Most importantly, he hopes that they received much needed feedback on their business model.
“From my perspective, it’s always about the people,” explained Dietrich, originallyfrom Lower Austria. “What I take from this event is the people that I met. And this [event] was a good one. The connection with Italy and Slovenia was great.”
