What is StartSmart!?
StartSmart! is a connecting title for a wide variety of different activities which are designed and carried out in the benefit of young entrepreneurial minded people in Estonia and Finland. Five organisations stand behind the Start Smart! program:
The School of Economics Small Business Center of Aalto University in Finland and
BDA Consulting OÜ,
Enterprise Estonia,
AS Technopolis Ülemiste and
Estonian Development Fund as the lead partner of the project consortium in Estonia.
Our general objective is to foster entrepreneurial mind-set in Estonia and Finland and to support the birth of new internationally competitive innovative companies. In order to achieve our goals we organize over a dozen different thematic and practical workshops, conferences and other type of events between May 2011 and December 2013.
A number of internationally renowned and recognized opinion leaders of the start-up world will contribute to the events as resource persons and speakers. Additionally the start-up enterprises are encouraged to approach the organisations behind the StartSmart! program to benefit from our free consultation services on various topics (e.g. questions like how to attract seed funding for your start-up and how to find proper mentors).
We do believe that StartSmart! events and services can make a difference and contribute to the growth and maturing of Estonian and Finnish start-up ecosystems. In order to succeed, however, we need active participation of the start-up founders and other entrepreneurial minded people in our events. We need YOU! Therefore we kindly ask you to sign up on our website and stay tuned to the next useful and interesting start-up events in Estonia and Finland.
StartSmart! Results
- Around 1,200 unique participants have taken part in the 11 largely two-day conferences in the first two years (the initial goal was set at 600 by the end of the project), many of whom are returning participants (the total number of visits is over 2,300).
- Tens of thousands of people have watched the live web broadcasts (the maximum number of online viewers of an event has been over 27,000).
- 16 idea presentation nights have taken place (over 70 business ideas presented to entrepreneurs, investors, mentors and other interested parties);
- Over 200 innovative ideas have been included in events via the business ideas of participants.
- StartSmart! Approximately 200 users have subscribed to the YouTube channel (around 15,000 views of StartSmart! videos at the time of presenting the application);
- StartSmart! Over 225 videos uploaded to the YouTube channel about events and trainings, including videos of all presenters;
- The StartSmart! newsletter is active (over 1,000 subscribers);
- Over 30 organisations from Estonia and other countries have been engaged in organising and carrying out project events (entrepreneurship organisations, businesses, universities, incubators and other interested parties);
- Over 50 trainers, entrepreneurs, investors and business experts from Estonia, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, USA, Germany, Great Britain and other countries have been presenting at the events.
- Different participants in the Estonian and Finnish startup ecosystems have been mapped;
- StartSmart! marketplace helps entrepreneurs find team members, investors, mentors and brings together interested parties (close to 30 advertisements);
- StartSmart! startup database helps companies gain visibility and post their profiles (close to 70 companies have joined)
StartSmart! communication channels:
Videopresentations: youtube.com/StartSmartMe
Social Community: facebook.com/StartSmartMe
Tweets: twitter.com/StartSmartMe; Hash: #StartSmart
Slides: slideshare.net/StartSmartMe
StartSmart! events are a part of FINEST Startups project and the activities can take place thanks to the co-financing by the Central Baltic Interreg IV A programme.
The material on the website reflects the authors views and the Managing Authority cannot be held liable for the information published by the project partners.