The first two weeks of Lisbon Challenge have gone by and we couldn’t feel more excited for the upcoming weeks. Lots of new mentors coming in, insightful workshops and cool networking opportunities. So, what’s up for the third week of Lisbon Challenge Fall’15? Well, read this carefully and find out all the details.

Workshops of the week

PR 101 - get the most out of the media

Do you know anything about PR? Many startups have been successful by developing a strong PR strategy to tackle the media but most entrepreneurs don’t know how to do it. Is it by sending a general press release to the journalists you know? Or should you go for the one-on-one approach? To answer all these questions we’ll have Will Moore, Head of Marketing and Communications at Faber Ventures, for an amazing workshop.

Will Moore will lead a roundtable conversation focused on PR & communications – specifically looking at go-to-market strategies, user retention and investor credibility. Will has worked in PR, content marketing, social media and technology journalism for nearly a decade. He recently joined the Faber Ventures team after working for a number of years as part of the senior team at startup-focused agency called Clarity PR. Will has also been a regular contributor to some of Europe’s most recognised tech blogs – meaning he has experience from both sides of the table.

In the end of the workshop Will will also do some office hours with the startups - go ahead challengers and schedule your slots.

Inside Sales with Adi Azaria

What does it take to be a good salesperson? And how can you define your startup’s sales process and decrease resistance? Well, Adi Azaria, co-founder of SiSense, knows all about sales and processes and he will be joining us for a workshop this week, via skype (as he’s living in Israel at the moment). We’ll get to know all the sales tactics in this insightful workshop and how to be more efficient.  

Adi Azaria is the co-founder and Chief Evangelist at SiSense. Before founding SiSense, Adi was a software developer at Invoke. He later founded SiSense where he assumed the role of product manager. He later became the Sales Development leader of SiSense and it became his area of expertise.

New mentors coming in

Design

Nicholas Mandelbaum is the Design Director at Imaginary Cloud. He started his career in photography (meaning fashion and advertising). He built his own startup called Black Album that was an online publishing platform and it was sold in the early stage to a US company. He has been living in Lisbon for two years, and he has been designing products and managing the design team at Imaginary Cloud, a digital product service company, present in UK and Portugal.

Nicholas will be at Lisbon Challenge Monday morning

Scrum Master

Ademar Aguiar is a Scrum Master and he teaches software engineering in the University of Porto. After 25 years of experience in software development, Ademar focused on software architecture and design (patterns, frameworks, platforms,infrastructures), agile methods (XP, Scrum, FDD), wikis and open collaboration tools, social software, and more recently on personal and social learning environments.

Ademar will be at Lisbon Challenge Tuesday morning

Sales

Adi Azaria is the co-founder and Chief Evangelist at SiSense. Before founding SiSense, Adi was a software developer at Invoke. He later founded SiSense where he assumed the role of product manager. He later became the Sales Development leader of SiSense and it became his area of expertise.

Adi will give his mentoring sessions via skype, as he’s living in Israel at the moment.

Paulo Malta is an independent consultant with a large experience in Sales & Pre-Sales Management, Business & Market Development, Channel Development & Management and in translating business needs in IT solutions. He worked as a Sales Manager and Account Manager at Cisco.

Paulo will be at Lisbon Challenge Thursday morning

Patents

Eduardo Cruz is a mathematician and he is currently responsible for the patent department at Gastão Cunha Ferreira, a Portuguese law firm. Before he worked as an analist/programmer, responsible for the Computer Department and Administrative/Financial Director.

Paulo will be at Lisbon Challenge Wednesday morning.

Business / Investment / Marketing

Nancy Brito is a technologist, creative and entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience running Internet related businesses. Nancy has served as CEO of a leading digital agency in Portugal during 8 years and has provided the technical leadership that has made the Portuguese pharmacies leap into the 20th century in the past 5 years. In addition to her work in technology and business, Nancy is also an active society member where she inspires women, men and organizations to be more diverse, open and supportive in developing a new career pattern.

Sandra Sick is a Marketing & Business Development Consultant and a life-long marketer of products, services and events. Born and raised in New York, Sandra was born into a family of entrepreneurs. Sandra has worked for and with a long list of tech companies in California and in 2011 she moved to Lisbon. She has recently moved back to the US and provides marketing services (and a lot of mentoring) to companies around the globe.

Sandra will give her mentoring sessions via skype, as he’s living in the US at the moment.

Jonathan Hassid is an internet focused entrepreneur with extensive track record in founding, scaling and exiting profitable consumer facing businesses. He has a particular expertise in digital marketing and consumer FinTech, having spent nearly 10 years creating and growing the TotallyMoney.com group, one of the UK's leading  FS tech/marketing businesses whose credit decisioning services are integrated into many of the UK's biggest financial businesses. As an investor and advisor he sits on the board of several businesses with interests in the sharing economy and social enterprise as well as FinTech.

And that’s all for now folks. We have an interesting week to look forward to.   

The post What’s happening on Lisbon Challenge (Week 3) appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

Brace yourselves, the mother of hackathons is here.

For every edition of Lisbon Challenge, our team jumps in for a weekend of code, that we like to call the Hackathon. All the startups come together to tackle their technical issues and challenges with the help of extraordinary developers and designers.

Register here for the Hackathon and join our crew.

And we’re not talking about any challenges… developers get to solve some intriguing issues involving the trendiest frameworks and programming languages such as Django, Angular, Python and Ruby on Rails. While designers have the freedom to implement the craziest ideas and have a real impact in the branding of the startups (in the past edition we had two full re-brandings at the Hackathon).

But this year, there’s more to it than just code and design at the Lisbon Challenge Hackathon. Join us for a thrilling weekend, (we’ll have free food and beers for everyone) give a helping hand and get a chance to win a drone or a Wacom tablet.

Find out who are the startups from Lisbon Challenge Fall’15 here, if you want to get ahead of the curve and pick your favourites.

And, if this caught your attention and if you want to bring a flying drone with you home with your head held high, register here for the Lisbon Challenge Hackathon.

Seize the opportunity or forever weep.

The post Why you should join the Lisbon Challenge Hackathon appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

It's Friday (finally). So, feel free to do your own little dance when nobody's looking... and also celebrate the fact that next week on Lisbon Challenge is going to be epic.

Events you should attend:

TechCrunch Meetup and Pitch Off (Monday)

This is the first TechCrunch event in Lisbon. We’ll have a few drinks with a beautiful view over Lisbon at Silk Club, talk about business, hear some amazing pitches and network. Mike Butcher, Editor-At-Large at TechCrunch, will be here so, for those who want to get to know him, this is your lucky shot.

Too bad tickets sold out… but you can still apply to pitch. Just follow Mike’s instructions here.

Seedcamp comes to Lisbon (Tuesday)

We’re bringing Seedcamp back to Lisbon this year for ICT15, a major event organised by the European Commission on innovation and technology. This is a huge opportunity for those who want to know more about the investment fund and mentoring program and increase their chances of being accepted.

Drop by ICT15 at FIL this Tuesday morning. We’ll be on Auditorium III and IV.

Beta-i Hackathon (drone alert!)

The Beta-i Hackathon will take 2 full days and it will have 45 tech startups with intriguing challenges. Developers get to solve some intriguing issues involving the trendiest frameworks and programming languages such as Django, Angular, Python and Ruby on Rails. While designers have the freedom to implement the craziest ideas and have a real impact in the branding of the startups (in the past edition we had two full re-brandings at the Hackathon).

It will be on the weekend of October 24-25 and (drumroll...) hackers will get a chance to win UDI drones and Wacom tablets. Register right here.

So, if you're a developer or designer, and want to bring a flying drone or a Wacom tablet with you home with your head held high, join us for the Beta-i Hackathon and give your very best.

Workshop of the week

Bring your users to the conversation with Nicholas Mandelbaum

How can you find out about your users’ goals and needs, and how can you align your product thinking and roadmap accordingly? Explore some simple tools to think differently about your product's mission, and to leverage insights and feedback from your users for a better user experience.

This workshop brings to Lisbon Challenge Fall’15, Nicholas Mandelbaum, Design Director at Imaginary Cloud.

Mentors of the week

Product

João Vazão Vasques, is a tech entrepreneur and Lisbon Challenge alumnus. He’s a software engineer and he founded his own startup in 2014, Wazza, that ended up shutting down this year. His areas of expertise include: Product Development, Software Engineering, Technology and Telecommunications.

Pedro Pinto is CTO at InnoWave Technologies and founder of yubuy Fast S.A. a startup with a solution for t-commerce platforms. He is responsible for the company's innovation area, fostering innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of each of the consultant’s team challenging them, every day, to create solutions that improve and simplify the lives of its customers.

Design

Nicholas Mandelbaum is the Design Director at Imaginary Cloud. He started his career in photography (meaning fashion and advertising). He built his own startup called Black Album that was an online publishing platform and it was sold in the early stage to a US company. He has been living in Lisbon for two years, and he has been designing products and managing the design team at Imaginary Cloud, a digital product service company, present in UK and Portugal.

Nicholas will be at Lisbon Challenge Tuesday morning.

Business and Marketing

Domingos Guimarães has a wide experience in the entertainment industry, producing music and film shows. He has lived in London for 8 years, in Madrid for 2 years, and in Rome for 1 year. Domingos founded 5 companies, and sold 2. He's currently CEO at Live Content, a digital agency with offices in Portugal, Brazil and Mexico. And, more recently, he founded Academia de Código, a company that wants to make Portugal code. He's also an accredited Business Angel.

Jonathan Hassid is an internet focused entrepreneur with extensive track record in founding, scaling and exiting profitable consumer facing businesses. He has a particular expertise in digital marketing and consumer FinTech, having spent nearly 10 years creating and growing the TotallyMoney.com group, one of the UK’s leading  FS tech/marketing businesses whose credit decisioning services are integrated into many of the UK’s biggest financial businesses. As an investor and advisor he sits on the board of several businesses with interests in the sharing economy and social enterprise as well as FinTech.

Sandra Sick is a Marketing & Business Development Consultant and a life-long marketer of products, services and events. Born and raised in New York, Sandra was born into a family of entrepreneurs. Sandra has worked for and with a long list of tech companies in California and in 2011 she moved to Lisbon. She has recently moved back to the US and provides marketing services (and a lot of mentoring) to companies around the globe.

Luís Freitas, has always worked in Marketing and Business Strategy. He’s currently developing a new consulting company, specialized in marketing strategies for micro, small and medium companies. The Portuguese brand MOCHE is his best and biggest project. He was part of the task force created to launch MOCHE as a independent brand.

In the meantime, if you want to know more about Lisbon Challenge and our events feel free to reach out to us on Facebook and Twitter. See you around.  

The post What’s happening on Lisbon Challenge (Week 4) appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

To all startups in Lisbon, Beta-i is bringing Seedcamp to Lisbon for ICT15, on the 21st of October. This is a huge opportunity for those who want to know more about the investment fund and mentoring program and increase their chances of being accepted.

Register here for the event and apply to picth and get feedback here.

At Beta-i, we've been organising for the past few years the "Mini Seedcamp in Lisbon", where startup founders meet some members of the Seedcamp team, to know more about the program and pitch their startup. But, this year, we decided to do things differently... We've invited Seedcamp to join us for ICT15 in Lisbon, a major event, organised by the European Commission, where the main players from the European startup scene will be present. We have specifically curated an agenda to talk about the startup ecosystem at ICT15 and Seedcamp will be there to talk with the best startups in Lisbon.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea_x6fQkI0Y[/embed]

If you're interested in increasing your chances of getting into Seedcamp, then this is definitely an event you can't miss. Save the date (Wednesday, 21st of October) and register here for the event, and if you want to pitch and get flagged for a fast-track selection process apply here for the live mentoring session.

Many Portuguese startups have been accepted in the program because of this event, such as Codacy, Zercatto, Popcorn Metrics, CrowdProcess and Hole19. Are you next?

The post Beta-i is bringing Seedcamp to Lisbon appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

Web Summit in Lisbon? Yes, the Web Summit is coming to Lisbon, people!

After a long wait (okay, we were feeling a bit impatient), the organisation of the world's best tech conference announced that they're moving to Lisbon in 2016. The conference will be held at MEO Arena and FIL next year.

After a strong movement to bring the Web Summit to Lisbon, initiated by Startup Ship and supported by the whole Lisbon startup community, there's no need to give more reasons for the event to be held here. It's done.

Check the blog-post written by the organisation to announce the decision of moving from Dublin to Lisbon, for more info.

The post The Web Summit is moving to Lisbon appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

DoDOC, a Portuguese startup who has been through Lisbon Challenge, and most recently Techstars in Boston, has raised €200k from our partners at Caixa Capital. The future is looking bright and promising for this web-based platform that helps pharmaceutical companies bring drugs to the market faster by streamlining regulatory documents, ensuring auditability and compliance.

According to the founder and CEO of DoDOC, Federico Cismondi, this investment will be used to help establish the company's engineering, regulatory and sales team to increase their customer base.

Caixa Capital is known for investing and supporting the Portuguese startup scene and this investment is just another example. They are known for not only investing in emerging startups but also for providing strong links to other major investors across the globe. DoDOC is now joining an extensive portfolio of companies invested by Caixa Capital, such as Uniplaces, Farfetch, Codacy and Unbabel.

The post DoDOC lands investment from Caixa Capital appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

Many of us have considered doing an MBA, but how can you know for sure? You want to learn, get new business opportunities and build a strong network that can help you with your startup, but you don't know which university to choose.

Well, that's where the Access MBA Tour comes in. At this event, organised by the Lisbon MBA, you'll be able to meet thousands of business professionals and representatives from world known business universities. You can get one-on-one meetings to get all your questions answered and see if this is really the next step for your career.

The event will be held at SANA Lisboa Hotel, on the 10th of October. Register here and you'll be carefully matched and selected for individual meetings with the business schools that better fit your expectations.

The post Meet the world’s top business schools appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

Lisbon is increasingly becoming the host of the major entrepreneurship related initiatives. For the first time, the main accelerators’ representatives from Europe are gathering in Lisbon on October 19th to join the European Accelerator Summit and discuss the best practices within acceleration as well as to get different point of views on the European startup scene. Beta-i, in partnership with NUMA and backed up by the ATALANTA project, is the host of this year's summit.

Our partners NUMA started this event last year and the events’ main outcomes were gathered on a white paper which also became one of the main goals of organizing these kind of events: to research on acceleration and identify key issues that can be further discussed and turned into new best practices for the European acceleration ecosystem.

Last year 120 accelerators gathered to contribute to this discussion, coming from more than 35 countries. This year, we’re already counting on NESTA, Fundacity, F6S, Seedcamp, Techstars, Startup Bootcamp and many many more (see the pic below with all the confirmed attendees). It’s a unique opportunity to get the best of what is being done within acceleration worldwide and exchange best practices with top accelerators’ representatives. This will be an active event, full of collaborative sessions and hands-on activities for attendees to meet and network.

During the conference day we are having Miklos Grof speaking, the founder and CEO of Fundacity (one of the biggest matching platform between entrepreneurs and investors) as well as Christopher Haley, the head of startups and new technology research at NUMA, Amisha Miller from the Kauffman Foundation or even Sean Kane from F6S.

Know more about the event, agenda, speakers and other relevant information check out the European Accelerator Summit website. The attendance is by invitation only so if you would like to participate, reach out to us (natacha.ribeiro@beta-i.pt or ines.dartiguenave@beta-i.pt) and ask for your promotional code. Up to help shaping the future of acceleration?

The post All the key European acceleration players’ in one place appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

Lisbon Challenge Spring 2015, U.S. Roadshow - San Francisco

The departure day was approaching at a fast pace. No, not again!!!
Not again, the bums on the streets.
Not again, the poverty,  the bumpy roads.
Not again, the never ending flights, the race against the clock to be at every meeting on time, to apologize for every hiccup.

Not again....

The flight took off and we were on our way to the home of the free and the land of the brave.

Landed in Philadelphia airport, connected to the wireless network and saw the first messages. "The hostel does not allow us to check in, they want full payment!!!"
And the party begins!!!
Called the hostel to inform them that I am arriving late and since we already had a down payment they can consider first night fully paid.
The receptionist kept on repeating the same record "No one checks in until all fully paid".
After a while with no success "Can you please let me speak with the manager".
Took a deep breath and started the conversation with a smile requesting for a "one time exception - let the startups check-in and I will resolve the rest of the payment on my arrival". It worked. :)

For those who don´t know, as opposed to Portugal, in America the prices are without VAT and 11%-20% tips are compulsory.
This always pisses me off, you never know exactly how much you will pay, until you get to the cashier, plus add the tip to it.

Why do they do that and what effect does it have on the Americans?

There was something that I realized was common to all the places I have been to. The people are more positive than in Portugal.
After all you are greeted with a handshake, as opposed to a warm fluffy Portuguese kiss.
I wanted to check out this positive tendency, so in order to spark it up, here are some tips that can make the whole difference:

1. Put a nice smile on your face,
2. Connect on a personal level (avoid help requests without context or without explaining the situation)
3. Wherever you can squeeze in a joke, just do it.

P.S: If everything fails, call the manager and repeat steps 1-3.

And the results:
Waiters - the service just exceeded all expectations.
Uber drivers - wow what a service. [Side tip: whatever you want to know or do, Uber drivers can help.]
People in the street - extremely friendly and helpful.
Security guards - serious at first, one joke turns them into your friends.
Everyone (suited or not) is approachable.

 Yosemite incident

On the last day, we had the chance to visit Yosemite Park and after a long hike I jumped into the water... 2 minutes later I hear a lady screaming "SIR, GET OUT OF THE WATER NOW!!!!". Even though I told her that I am coming out, she continued to come towards my direction.

Oh no, will I have to pay a fine????

As she came closer blabbering in a serious tone that got softer and softer and more apologetic,   I slowly realized that she was concerned for my safety, not to  get drifted away in the current. She started explaining the signs of current in the water and that someone was extremely injured the some days earlier.

Then the smile came and all was good. :)

It is amazing how each service person that I met during the visit seemed like they are happy to do their job, from the top level positions to the low ones, and I remembered our visit at BlackBox.
Fadi Bishara, founder and CEO of BlackBox, mentioned the differences between the European and the American mentality towards startups.

He said that one of the main difference is that the Americans BELIEVE.
They believe that they can make it, no matter what the odds are. And you know what, even when things go wrong,  at least they tried.

I wonder how the startup ecosystem in Portugal would change if we just start BELIEVING more.

Would there be more innovation?
Would investors invest more and provide more trust in the capabilities of the teams to succeed?
Would the economical situation be better?
And the big question is why don't they believe?

On my flight back to Portugal I saw a movie were a american football  team with no chances of winning any competition ends up winning the championship....

I bet some of you are thinking "haha, typical American movie - Rambo, Rocky, Commando.... etc.".
Hold that thought one second !!!

Imagine passing through childhood to adult, being exposed to these movies on a permanent basis.
Would you believe more?

How about when you make your first waiter job, and the size of the tips are aligned to the level of service that you provide.
Isn't this a signal saying that the harder you work the more you gain?
Would that make you believe more?

These are 2 simple examples of some differences that has positive affect on the american mindset.

What kind of movies or series did you grow up on?
Can you detect any kind of systematic signalling that make you believe in yourself?

I also have the perception that most American movies are cliché, but could it be that this is the main contributor to the intrinsic drive for huge success?

Ask yourself this, DO YOU BELIEVE?

The post US vs Portugal – Do you believe in your startup? appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

We’re all set. After closing all the details, we’re excited to have the first TechCrunch event in Lisbon, on October 19th, sponsored by Aptoide. If you want to meet Mike Butcher, Editor-At-Large at TechCrunch, and pitch your startup, you better save your spot before tickets run out.
So, what is happening exactly? We’re having TechCrunch in Lisbon for a Meet-up and Pitch Off on October 19th. We’ll have a few drinks with a beautiful view over Lisbon at Silk Club, talk about business, hear some amazing pitches and network.

Register here to attend the event before we run out of tickets.

If you want to pitch just follow Mike's instructions:

"I will pick Eight or nine companies to pitch for a total of about 45 mins. Contestants will have two minutes to pitch (NO SLIDES) and 3 minutes of questions from myself and local judges. The event will be in English. The winner will get a table at TC Disrupt Startup Alley in TechCrunch Disrupt London and the runner-up will get two tickets to the event. If you’d like to pitch at the event email mike AT techrunch.com, subject line “LisbonCrunch” with this info:

• Startup Name

• Website URL

• Contact Email

• CrunchBase Profile URL

• Describe your startup in 75 words or fewer

• Founders' bios in 75 words or fewer

• Have you launched?

• Got funding and from who?

We’ll email you telling you who has been selected to pitch. (If you DON’T get a confirmation email that you’re pitching, then you're not pitching.)"

The post We’re bringing TechCrunch to Lisbon during EAS appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

The first two weeks of Lisbon Challenge have gone by and we couldn’t feel more excited for the upcoming weeks. Lots of new mentors coming in, insightful workshops and cool networking opportunities. So, what’s up for the third week of Lisbon Challenge Fall’15? Well, read this carefully and find out all the details.

Workshops of the week

PR 101 - get the most out of the media

Do you know anything about PR? Many startups have been successful by developing a strong PR strategy to tackle the media but most entrepreneurs don’t know how to do it. Is it by sending a general press release to the journalists you know? Or should you go for the one-on-one approach? To answer all these questions we’ll have Will Moore, Head of Marketing and Communications at Faber Ventures, for an amazing workshop.

Will Moore will lead a roundtable conversation focused on PR & communications – specifically looking at go-to-market strategies, user retention and investor credibility. Will has worked in PR, content marketing, social media and technology journalism for nearly a decade. He recently joined the Faber Ventures team after working for a number of years as part of the senior team at startup-focused agency called Clarity PR. Will has also been a regular contributor to some of Europe’s most recognised tech blogs – meaning he has experience from both sides of the table.

In the end of the workshop Will will also do some office hours with the startups - go ahead challengers and schedule your slots.

Inside Sales with Adi Azaria

What does it take to be a good salesperson? And how can you define your startup’s sales process and decrease resistance? Well, Adi Azaria, co-founder of SiSense, knows all about sales and processes and he will be joining us for a workshop this week, via skype (as he’s living in Israel at the moment). We’ll get to know all the sales tactics in this insightful workshop and how to be more efficient.  

Adi Azaria is the co-founder and Chief Evangelist at SiSense. Before founding SiSense, Adi was a software developer at Invoke. He later founded SiSense where he assumed the role of product manager. He later became the Sales Development leader of SiSense and it became his area of expertise.

New mentors coming in

Design

Nicholas Mandelbaum is the Design Director at Imaginary Cloud. He started his career in photography (meaning fashion and advertising). He built his own startup called Black Album that was an online publishing platform and it was sold in the early stage to a US company. He has been living in Lisbon for two years, and he has been designing products and managing the design team at Imaginary Cloud, a digital product service company, present in UK and Portugal.

Nicholas will be at Lisbon Challenge Monday morning

Scrum Master

Ademar Aguiar is a Scrum Master and he teaches software engineering in the University of Porto. After 25 years of experience in software development, Ademar focused on software architecture and design (patterns, frameworks, platforms,infrastructures), agile methods (XP, Scrum, FDD), wikis and open collaboration tools, social software, and more recently on personal and social learning environments.

Ademar will be at Lisbon Challenge Tuesday morning

Sales

Adi Azaria is the co-founder and Chief Evangelist at SiSense. Before founding SiSense, Adi was a software developer at Invoke. He later founded SiSense where he assumed the role of product manager. He later became the Sales Development leader of SiSense and it became his area of expertise.

Adi will give his mentoring sessions via skype, as he’s living in Israel at the moment.

Paulo Malta is an independent consultant with a large experience in Sales & Pre-Sales Management, Business & Market Development, Channel Development & Management and in translating business needs in IT solutions. He worked as a Sales Manager and Account Manager at Cisco.

Paulo will be at Lisbon Challenge Thursday morning

Patents

Eduardo Cruz is a mathematician and he is currently responsible for the patent department at Gastão Cunha Ferreira, a Portuguese law firm. Before he worked as an analist/programmer, responsible for the Computer Department and Administrative/Financial Director.

Paulo will be at Lisbon Challenge Wednesday morning.

Business / Investment / Marketing

Nancy Brito is a technologist, creative and entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience running Internet related businesses. Nancy has served as CEO of a leading digital agency in Portugal during 8 years and has provided the technical leadership that has made the Portuguese pharmacies leap into the 20th century in the past 5 years. In addition to her work in technology and business, Nancy is also an active society member where she inspires women, men and organizations to be more diverse, open and supportive in developing a new career pattern.

Sandra Sick is a Marketing & Business Development Consultant and a life-long marketer of products, services and events. Born and raised in New York, Sandra was born into a family of entrepreneurs. Sandra has worked for and with a long list of tech companies in California and in 2011 she moved to Lisbon. She has recently moved back to the US and provides marketing services (and a lot of mentoring) to companies around the globe.

Sandra will give her mentoring sessions via skype, as she’s living in the US at the moment.

Jonathan Hassid is an internet focused entrepreneur with extensive track record in founding, scaling and exiting profitable consumer facing businesses. He has a particular expertise in digital marketing and consumer FinTech, having spent nearly 10 years creating and growing the TotallyMoney.com group, one of the UK's leading  FS tech/marketing businesses whose credit decisioning services are integrated into many of the UK's biggest financial businesses. As an investor and advisor he sits on the board of several businesses with interests in the sharing economy and social enterprise as well as FinTech.

And that’s all for now folks. We have an interesting week to look forward to.   

The post What’s happening on Lisbon Challenge (Week 3) appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

Brace yourselves, the mother of hackathons is here.

For every edition of Lisbon Challenge, our team jumps in for a weekend of code, that we like to call the Hackathon. All the startups come together to tackle their technical issues and challenges with the help of extraordinary developers and designers.

Register here for the Hackathon and join our crew.

And we’re not talking about any challenges… developers get to solve some intriguing issues involving the trendiest frameworks and programming languages such as Django, Angular, Python and Ruby on Rails. While designers have the freedom to implement the craziest ideas and have a real impact in the branding of the startups (in the past edition we had two full re-brandings at the Hackathon).

But this year, there’s more to it than just code and design at the Lisbon Challenge Hackathon. Join us for a thrilling weekend, (we’ll have free food and beers for everyone) give a helping hand and get a chance to win a drone or a Wacom tablet.

Find out who are the startups from Lisbon Challenge Fall’15 here, if you want to get ahead of the curve and pick your favourites.

And, if this caught your attention and if you want to bring a flying drone with you home with your head held high, register here for the Lisbon Challenge Hackathon.

Seize the opportunity or forever weep.

The post Why you should join the Beta-i Hackathon appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

It's Friday (finally). So, feel free to do your own little dance when nobody's looking... and also celebrate the fact that next week on Lisbon Challenge is going to be epic.

Events you should attend:

TechCrunch Meetup and Pitch Off (Monday)

This is the first TechCrunch event in Lisbon. We’ll have a few drinks with a beautiful view over Lisbon at Silk Club, talk about business, hear some amazing pitches and network. Mike Butcher, Editor-At-Large at TechCrunch, will be here so, for those who want to get to know him, this is your lucky shot.

Too bad tickets sold out… but you can still apply to pitch. Just follow Mike’s instructions here.

Seedcamp comes to Lisbon (Tuesday)

We’re bringing Seedcamp back to Lisbon this year for ICT15, a major event organised by the European Commission on innovation and technology. This is a huge opportunity for those who want to know more about the investment fund and mentoring program and increase their chances of being accepted.

Drop by ICT15 at FIL this Tuesday morning. We’ll be on Auditorium III and IV.

Beta-i Hackathon (drone alert!)

The Beta-i Hackathon will take 2 full days and it will have 45 tech startups with intriguing challenges. Developers get to solve some intriguing issues involving the trendiest frameworks and programming languages such as Django, Angular, Python and Ruby on Rails. While designers have the freedom to implement the craziest ideas and have a real impact in the branding of the startups (in the past edition we had two full re-brandings at the Hackathon).

It will be on the weekend of October 24-25 and (drumroll...) hackers will get a chance to win UDI drones and Wacom tablets. Register right here.

So, if you're a developer or designer, and want to bring a flying drone or a Wacom tablet with you home with your head held high, join us for the Beta-i Hackathon and give your very best.

Workshop of the week

Bring your users to the conversation with Nicholas Mandelbaum

How can you find out about your users’ goals and needs, and how can you align your product thinking and roadmap accordingly? Explore some simple tools to think differently about your product's mission, and to leverage insights and feedback from your users for a better user experience.

This workshop brings to Lisbon Challenge Fall’15, Nicholas Mandelbaum, Design Director at Imaginary Cloud.

Mentors of the week

Product

João Vazão Vasques, is a tech entrepreneur and Lisbon Challenge alumnus. He’s a software engineer and he founded his own startup in 2014, Wazza, that ended up shutting down this year. His areas of expertise include: Product Development, Software Engineering, Technology and Telecommunications.

Pedro Pinto is CTO at InnoWave Technologies and founder of yubuy Fast S.A. a startup with a solution for t-commerce platforms. He is responsible for the company's innovation area, fostering innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of each of the consultant’s team challenging them, every day, to create solutions that improve and simplify the lives of its customers.

Design

Nicholas Mandelbaum is the Design Director at Imaginary Cloud. He started his career in photography (meaning fashion and advertising). He built his own startup called Black Album that was an online publishing platform and it was sold in the early stage to a US company. He has been living in Lisbon for two years, and he has been designing products and managing the design team at Imaginary Cloud, a digital product service company, present in UK and Portugal.

Nicholas will be at Lisbon Challenge Tuesday morning.

Business and Marketing

Domingos Guimarães has a wide experience in the entertainment industry, producing music and film shows. He has lived in London for 8 years, in Madrid for 2 years, and in Rome for 1 year. Domingos founded 5 companies, and sold 2. He's currently CEO at Live Content, a digital agency with offices in Portugal, Brazil and Mexico. And, more recently, he founded Academia de Código, a company that wants to make Portugal code. He's also an accredited Business Angel.

Jonathan Hassid is an internet focused entrepreneur with extensive track record in founding, scaling and exiting profitable consumer facing businesses. He has a particular expertise in digital marketing and consumer FinTech, having spent nearly 10 years creating and growing the TotallyMoney.com group, one of the UK’s leading  FS tech/marketing businesses whose credit decisioning services are integrated into many of the UK’s biggest financial businesses. As an investor and advisor he sits on the board of several businesses with interests in the sharing economy and social enterprise as well as FinTech.

Sandra Sick is a Marketing & Business Development Consultant and a life-long marketer of products, services and events. Born and raised in New York, Sandra was born into a family of entrepreneurs. Sandra has worked for and with a long list of tech companies in California and in 2011 she moved to Lisbon. She has recently moved back to the US and provides marketing services (and a lot of mentoring) to companies around the globe.

Luís Freitas, has always worked in Marketing and Business Strategy. He’s currently developing a new consulting company, specialized in marketing strategies for micro, small and medium companies. The Portuguese brand MOCHE is his best and biggest project. He was part of the task force created to launch MOCHE as a independent brand.

In the meantime, if you want to know more about Lisbon Challenge and our events feel free to reach out to us on Facebook and Twitter. See you around.  

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Alright, this was fun. TechCrunch had their very first event in Lisbon with drinks, pitches and a stunning view over the city at Silk Club. And the Pitch-Off couldn’t have gone better… Quotanda, a startup that is part of Lisbon Challenge Fall’15, was the winner of the Pitch-Off competition at TechCrunch Lisbon and will get a table at TC Disrupt Startup Alley in TechCrunch Disrupt London.

Thanks to the event’s sponsor, Aptoide, we had a great night in one of the best rooftop bars of Lisbon and got to network with some people from the top accelerators in Lisbon, as we had the European Accelerator Summit during the day, at Beta-i.

Mike Butcher, Editor-At-Large at TechCrunch, was our host for the evening and introduced the 8 startups that we’re pitching (so many familiar faces… from current Lisbon Challenge startups, such as Quotanda, Videona, Remidi and TimeResQ, to Lisbon Challenge Alumni, like MagniFinance). For the Pitch-Off we had two more judges, accompanying Mike: Tak Lo, from Techstars London, and Carmen Bermejo, from Tetuan Valley in Madrid.

In the end only one could be crowned the winner at TechCrunch Lisbon and that was Quotanda, a startup focussed on democratising education by allowing students to get better loans to pay for their university tuition fees. Congratulations for the great pitch and see you at TechCrunch Disrupt London. We’re now setting some high expectations for this current batch… Keep it up.

P.S.: If you want to help promising startups, like Quotanda, in their intriguing tech challenges and get a chance to win a UDI Drone or a Wacom Tablet, register here for our Hackathon this weekend.

The post And the winner of TechCrunch Lisbon is… appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

Check out all the photos from the first TechCrunch Lisbon.

The post Photo Gallery: TechCrunch Lisbon appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

As most of you noticed, Lisbon is buzzing these days hosting the biggest technology gathering in Europe. The event is full of interesting discussions on the future of technology and innovation related subjects happening over 3 days across 8 main rooms and several parallel sessions.

One of these parallel activities happening within the ICT – The Startup Europe Forum – is co-organized by the European Commission and Beta-i and offers a set of activities profiling EU policy for startups and SMEs, innovators, private and public investors.

Yesterday we had the chance to assist one of these discussions happening on the Startup Europe Forum, a session entitled A Borderless future for Startups moderated by the Director for Digital Single Market from the European Commission, Gerald Degraff.

The panel, constituted by Angel Mesado (Airbnb), Karen Atia-Litani (Socialize), Ragner Sass (Pipedrive), Lenard Koschwith (Allied Startups) and Filipe Neves (Feedzai) accepted the challenge of sharing their feelings as CEO’s and startup founders on the main barriers for entering and establishing a business in the European Market.

If I was to explain you what were the main issues pointed out in a visual way through one of those word clouds, Fragmentation would be the biggest word right in the middle. Koschwitz, from Allied Startups, put it in an interesting way when stating that a startup trying to expand in the European Market has to start 28 times because all countries have so many different rules and procedures on starting a business.

The fragmentation that is inherent to the History of the European continent is mainly noticed on the many languages spoken across the EU, on the different habits and costumes that make it difficult for all of us to find the same problems and solutions relevant, unlike the US environment where one finds a more homogeneous society. Culturally, there are many historical barriers in Europe due to countries’ ancient disagreements.

Distance to power and communication is also a cultural barrier that was often mentioned on the discussion. While small countries such as Eslovenia promote a closer relationship between those in the Governement and citizens – Ragna Sass from Pipedrive was able to have a private conversation over Facebook messenger directly with the Estonian PM to discuss his startup issues – the majority of the European countries make it almost impossible for a regular citizen to access the decision makers directly.

Distance to power is only part of a broader complex policy context. Bureaucracy and legislation was pointed out often by Angel Mesado from Airbnb, an US company that holds most of its business in Europe inspite of the many challenges related to internationalization and expansion within the EU. The labor market laws across Europe was also an issue approached by Filipe from Feedzai, one of the most successful cases from the Portuguese ecosystem, struggling to expand the team due to the long process that involves bringing someone from abroad to integrate it. Filipe explained that it took over 6 months for Feedzai to bring a new guy from China as his VISA took forever. He stated “Six months is way too long for a startup. Many windows of opportunity close in 6 months and the startup may even not exist anymore in a 6-month period.”

On this subject, Karen Atia-Litani from Socialize was proudly announcing that the Minister for Economy from Israel just announced (this week) that the Israeli Government was facilitating 50 VISA’s for tech entrepreneurs who want to work in the country.

Accessing talent from abroad, as well as the European VAT tax regime and bureaucracy were the 3 main barriers to establishing a startup in Europe on Koschwith’s opinion.

While there were also many positive aspects pointed out on the European startup ecosystem as the fact that fragmentation and difference also make us unique and contribute to innovation in many different areas, there is a need for clearer rules within the EU and for a greater facility to speak directly with policy makers. The creation of a Digital Single Market is already contributing for the improvement of the European startup ecosystem.

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Most entrepreneurs struggle with PR. You never really know what's the best approach, especially when it comes to TechCrunch. Believe me, I've seen entrepreneurs celebrate the fact of being featured on TechCrunch as much as closing a round of investment. The reason is simple, with a vast audience of early adopters and entrepreneurs, TechCrunch can sky rocket your number of page-views, downloads or business leads. However, for all this magic to happen you need to know how to pitch to TechCrunch (or any other media publication).

Just by going through Mike Butcher's tweets you can tell that the Editor-At-Large at TechCrunch complains a lot about startups who don't know how to pitch to him. Truth is, if you step out of the game, he won't write about you or your super useful product. However, this week we've seen one of our alumni, Inviita, get featured on one of Mike's articles on TechCrunch, with a rather simple, but clever, approach.

Inviita has built a mobile app for travellers to get their own personal tours depending on their current moods. So, what the founders of Inviita did was meet Mike and demo a personalised version of a tour just for him:

"When the founders of the inviita iOS app (download it here, video demo here) came up to me and demo’d a tailor-made city tour which had literally been built on the fly from my Facebook and Foursquare data, I was intrigued."

From this moment on, Mike wanted to know more about them and ended up writing a very positive review of Inviita's product.

Of course, that Mike being an avid traveller favours Inviita's approach, but this is exactly what you should do when reaching out to the media. The general press release will do you no good. Talk to reporters who will most likely relate to your product and therefore influence your target audience. And remember, always be personal. It might be time consuming, but when you end up being featured on TechCrunch, just like Inviita did, it will be worth it.

Read the full article written by Mike Butcher on Inviita here.

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It has been one month since Lisbon Challenge Fall'15 started, can you believe it? Well, the past month has been quite interesting for all of us. Lots of events, mentors, workshops and team-building activities. However, for next week, we have some pretty cool news for you - to keep topping your expectations. We’ll have a new Entrepreneur in Residence who used to be the Marketing Director of the music industry giant, Universal Music.

New Entrepreneur in Residence…

Andrea Frahm, worked as Marketing Director for Universal Music, both in London and Berlin, leading global marketing and PR campaigns for artists such as Rihanna, Mariah Carey and The Killers. She then worked at a UK Digital Communications Agency, where she developed online PR strategies for major film studios including Disney and Paramount.

After a wide experience in marketing and PR for top companies, Andrea decided to start her own business in communication and marketing for startups.   

She will be working from our office for the next couple of weeks so take this opportunity to get feedback for your startup’s marketing strategy.

Office Hours with Portugal Ventures

For those looking for investment this is a good opportunity to find out more about Portugal Ventures, a Portuguese VC that has invested in many Lisbon Challenge Alumni, such as FollowPrice (they’re in our building, on the 3rd floor, if you want to meet them for more info on their experience with Portugal Ventures).

They will visit Lisbon Challenge next Friday morning.  

Workshops... product and sales

Tech Stack - the success of your MVP

Next week we’ll have the Lead Developer at Faber Ventures for a workshop on Tech Stack. Marcelo Lebre will focus on the tech implications and considerations that can make or break development and success of an MVP.

Topics covered: choosing code base and tools, estimate risk, product development, roll out and technical debt.

This workshop will be on Thursday, October 29th.  

Sales Strategies by Jordi Guasch

Jordi Guasch is a coach at KIC InnoEnergy. He will give a workshop giving an overview about several sales strategy approaches and how to put them in practice.

This workshop will be on Tuesday, October 27th.

Mentors

Jordi Guasch is a coach at KIC InnoEnergy. Jordi has more than 40 years of experience as sales, marketing and business development executive at high-tech multinationals, such as IBM and Dassault Systemes. At the same time, he founded two companies and became commercial and strategy advisor for SME business.

Renato Braz is the Business Creation Manager at KIC InnoEnergy. He’s passionate about the transition towards a clean energy future and he’s working on it by helping to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation in the field of cleantech with his role at KIC InnoEnergy.

Jonathan Hassid is an internet focused entrepreneur with extensive track record in founding, scaling and exiting profitable consumer facing businesses. He has a particular expertise in digital marketing and consumer FinTech, having spent nearly 10 years creating and growing the TotallyMoney.com group, one of the UK’s leading  FS tech/marketing businesses whose credit decisioning services are integrated into many of the UK’s biggest financial businesses. As an investor and advisor he sits on the board of several businesses with interests in the sharing economy and social enterprise as well as FinTech.

Nuno Miller is the Managing Director and CTO at Videdressing.For several years he worked as a consultant, at Deloitte, where he managed the Infrastructure and Systems Business Unit. He joined Organtex in 2002 (at the time one of the biggest apparel trading European companies, achieving a turnover over 110 M€ in 2004), where he performed several top-management positions related to Information Systems, Business Unit Managing Director, Innovation Management, Strategic Planning and Execution and Business Excellence. In 2007 he joined Parfois as the IT/IS Director, being responsible for all the IT and IS both for new projects as well as the integration with all the franchisees all over the 30 countries where Parfois was present in a total of +200 stores. Nuno joined Farfetch in 2011, one of the top and fast-growing e-commerce companies on Luxury Fashion Products, that partners with over 300 boutiques from Europe, the United States and Brazil. During this time farfetch increased sales by 6x, reaching USD 200M$ and number of employees by 3x. Nuno is currently Managing Director and CTO at Videdressing, a C2C marketplace of used luxury fashion goods, based in Paris, with operations in France, Germany and Italy.

Nuno Pimenta is the Industry Manager at Google, where he focusses on supporting startups and export clients. His main area of expertise include: advertising, branding, digital strategy, internationalization, marketing, media, sales and business strategy.

Diogo Teixeira is the Managing Partner at Couture. In 2009 he founded, Couture, Decode and Disrupt, a consumer behavior and innovation studio. Two years latter besides our Lisbon office (Portugal) they opened in São Paulo (Brazil). They work on innovation projects for clients such FOX International Channels, Portugal Telecom, Unicer (Super Bock), Sonae Sierra, Pepsico, Esporão, Salsa, Gestmin, OZ Energia, Unilever, Continente, Zippy, among many others.

He’s also the founder and innovation ideator at Torke+CC and partner at Billy The Group.

Sandra Sick is a Marketing & Business Development Consultant and a life-long marketer of products, services and events. Born and raised in New York, Sandra was born into a family of entrepreneurs. Sandra has worked for and with a long list of tech companies in California and in 2011 she moved to Lisbon. She has recently moved back to the US and provides marketing services (and a lot of mentoring) to companies around the globe.

The post Lisbon Challenge Week 5 – New Entrepreneur in Residence appeared first on Lisbon Challenge.

The European Accelerator Summit in Lisbon is now over. With Accelerators from all over the world, it was a privilege to host this hands-on event to discuss the future trends of acceleration.

Check out the photos below and see you all for next year's edition at H-Farm in Italy.

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Great news from the Lisbon Challenge alumni. Just the other day, we got an email from Mauro Arrau, founder of Mytriphoto, to let us know that they're now based in Dubai, to help the hotel industry with their online marketing solutions. 

Mytriphoto, a Lisbon Challenge alumni startup allowing hotels to have automated user generated content through 360º photo, is the perfect embodiment of the lean approach. Mytriphoto has pivoted twice and keeps accelerating. They have developed the 360ºSelfie, a leading-edge technology device located at the main attractions of the Hotel turning guests into hotel promoters. First, the team was targeting tourists and photographers as a marketplace, and now they are completely focused on hotels.

As a startup targeting the tourism industry, the value proposition was tested in several cities. Founded and incorporated in Santiago de Chile, Mytriphoto explored its business model at Lisbon Challenge Fall 2014. Then, they focussed on market research and developed their first product, the 360cam, during 4 months in New York. Later on, they moved back to Chile to do some tests with hotels and improve their machine. Now, they are preparing their go-to-market strategy and first round of investment with Turn8 Accelerator Program in Dubai.

Good to know that some of our alumni are focusing on the hotel industry, because we are bringing back our Tourism Day and Lisbon is turning itself into a serious tourism lab. Stay tuned!

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