As always, we have the opportuntiy to support bright people and great ideas on a daily basis. One of the really important things in this process is to support students and student organizations when they execute some activities related to startup projects or startup events, and usually we are there as a mentors, partners, sponsors or whatever needed. One of our favourites organizations in Croatia is eStudent, student organization that spans across several Universities here – they are very active and have number of different activities on a monthly basis, which is obvious from their home page.
Last few years we were supporting Business Plan Contest, but that evolved into the new format, called SmartUp – now there is more focus on Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas and Value Design – it is great that they adopted that change and that they are in line with the thinking that drives so many startups around the world.
There will be many of us, people from PROJEKTURA and our friends that will support this and similar events – but still I would love to see more and more companies involved in this type of work. We believe this is very important – not only mentoring teams and passing the knowledge, but also helping them develop their own ideas and moving those ideas into the world. We did that number of times, and still that is not an easy thing to do. Let’s help them go through this chasm in least painful way, so that they have more time to focus on their startup and finally create their own business.
At the end, this is rewarding for the both sides – the energy is great, enthusiasm is unbeliveable and … friendship stays forever.
