Ever aspire to be the next founder of Facebook? Facebook started as a group of students working on an idea in a garage. How to start a start-up is a weekly gathering that aims to help students and starting entrepreneurs to enter the start up scene.
Photo: Jens Hunt.
“Everybody gets an idea sometime, when that time comes, it’s good to know what to do with them,” says Joel Larsson.
In a cozy room at the Black Pearl, Ideon, a group of people are eager to find out what to do with their ideas. Most of the 20 something attendees are students, however a few full time entrepreneurs are in the crowd as well. This week, a local entrepreneur Alfred Beckman from Brisk.io is presenting on how to build prototypes in a quick fashion.
Joel Larsson from Malmö Startups, as a co-host of this event initiates the evening with a dialogue with the audience. All questions are welcome, from very basic definitions to actual problems a student is facing in her business.
Entering the startup scene
A start up is usually defined as a new business model that is expected to scale up quickly. However Joel Larsson says that this venue is available to anyone who has any interest in entrepreneurship, especially students in Lund. One does not even need to have an idea as long as they have passion.
More often than not, a local entrepreneur is invited to the scene to present and share their experiences, or give a local angle to the content in the video. Another typical activity is to watch a segment from an online class created by Stanford University and Y Combinator. Videos of this class is available online for free and Joel Larsson highly recommends them.
“These are probably the best resource out there at this time,” says Joel Larsson.
Discussions and networking
Joel Larson elaborates, “You get a local perspective here. For example raising capital here and in the US (where they shoot the videos) is not the same thing. We bring in entrepreneurs from the scene and you can talk to them first hand.“
Evelise Biviatello is a student who has been attending the meetings from the start and plans to continue coming. She says, “I come because it’s a great way to meet a lot of different students from different nationalities who are interested in this type of thing. Also, I have a business background. It’s good that here there are a lot of people with technical background to work with and we can combine our skills.”
Joel Larsson feels that for some people, starting your own business is an alternative worth considering compared to going to work for a big corporation. He says, “Whatever you decide to do later on in life, you will learn a lot by working for a start up. For me it has been a huge learning experience and I regret not getting into a start up earlier.”
More Information
- More information of the event is available at the event’s Facebook page.
The event is cohosted by:
- Joel Larsson, at Malmö Startups
- Henrik Lundblad at LU Open Innovation
- Johan Linåker, Phd at the Computer Science Department at Lund University
