StartupCafe

Folks,

It has been a very long time since I returned to Edinburgh for something other than a wedding, birthday party, or long overdue Snax breakfast.

But I am definitely missing the wonderful city and excited to be coming back for a Hackathon this weekend Bela is organising, and there are some final tickets left if you would also like to come join in.

The weekend is finance-themed and I’ll be sharing some thoughts on Friday as well, but everyone is welcome to join whether you come from a business/marketing/finance background, developers of course, designers always, or data scientists too. Fantastic sponsors and prizes, not that winning is always the point of these things but it is a nice bonus.

Looking forward to catching up with many folks from the community and I hope to see some new and old faces there!

DETAILS AND TICKETS HERE

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CodeBase is the newest tech incubator in Edinburgh, and over 40 start-ups are based on the top floors of Argyle House. The building is an easily recognisable example of 60s brutalist architecture, and has housed a variety of tenants over the last 50 years. Now it is home to cutting-edge technology and innovative businesses in a range of industries who continue to make Edinburgh a proud city of innovation. CodeBase hosts a range of events, from technology training and business networking to art events and coffee mornings. Have a look at upcoming events here, or see what the CodeBase community is up to.

The biggest resource of any tech incubator is the people and businesses who work there. We’ve pulled together an overview with most of the existing tenants in CodeBase – as new companies join all the time, check out the CodeBase tenants on their website to see the latest additions. But first, check out our introduction to the many startups in Edinburgh’s CodeBase.

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This coming month (Dec 2013), myself and some of the Project Ginsberg team is undertaking the Macrothon. The rules are:

You have to run either 5k or for 25mins (whichever is quickest), everyday during December (including Christmas Day!)

If you miss one day, you’re out. Pretty tough, especially considering its 4pm and its dark already in Scotland.

Day 1 starts tomorrow. 

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On an October Sunday night in rainy Glasgow, 11 teams of budding entrepreneurs, developers and creatives gathered in The Lighthouse to present the outcome of 54 hours of hard work: the results of Startup Weekend Glasgow 2013. 

Organised by Allan Lloyds and his team, the event took place over the weekend of 25-27th October and saw more than 100 people gather at SocietyM, a co-working space in the centre of Glasgow. Jennifer Tough managed the PR and social media, keeping us updated through the blog and Twitter as the weekend unfolded. 

The weekend kicked off on Friday night with introductions, a run-down of the event format, guest speakers and pitches on the theme of #cleanweb. The delegates then formed small teams and moved on to developing the most popular ideas into viable startups. SocietyM seems like the ideal venue for an event like Startup Weekend; well designed, open plan areas along with smaller meeting rooms for each team to have their own space, and comfy places to relax and reflect.

The teams continued refining their startups throughout the day on Saturday. Mentors from various disciplines were on hand to provide the teams with direction and advice, and a well-timed chance visit from Red Bull (and probably lots of adrenaline) kept everyone going until Sunday night when it was time to pack up and move to The Lighthouse to give their final presentations to the audience, and to a panel of judges with extensive experience in entrepreneurship and cleantech. 

Everyone we spoke to on Sunday night mentioned the same thing as their highlight: the energy of all the participants. The teams whose presentations really stood out were those with lots of passion and a real conviction behind their idea. Of course, there’s only so much that can be done in a couple of days, but the format of Startup Weekend encourages the teams to push through those periods of low energy we all experience. It was great to see how friendships formed under the pressure of the weekend; groups of strangers on Friday night appeared as old friends on Sunday.

Standout pitches came from EnergySaveAR (an app which suggests energy-saving alternatives to household items), who won tickets to the Dublin Web Summit, and Cloudlet, who describe their idea as “carbon-efficient computing for startups and enterprise”. Here’s a full list of all the startups:

Lend Some Sugar – an online lending community

Psych.ed – “improving the social environment for everyone” through online community and education

ScranClan – a social dining app which aims to cut food waste

Unspike – “reducing peak demand for cost and carbon savings”

Podstay – budget accommodation pods

Greenbills – energy comparison website

Know Your Food – connect consumers with producers without the corporate middleman

EnergySaveAR – an app which calculates the energy use of household products and suggests alternatives

HowGreenIs – see which companies are committed to cutting environmental impact – and those who aren’t

Cloudlet – carbon efficient web hosting for startups and enterprises

Co.mute – earn points through daily activites with rewards for green habits

Hopefully we’ll hear more from these teams in the near future!

If you were there, let us know about your experience. Has Startup Weekend changed your outlook on the startup scene? Are you inspired to take your idea to the next level?

For a full list of those involved and an overview of all the happenings over the weekend, take a look at http://glasgow.startupweekend.org/

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Startupcafe was originally set up as a blog for the Edinburgh Startup Community back in 2009. Since then, the community has grown and evolved at a rate that none of us could really imagine. 

In turn, the Startupcafe team has grown and moved on too:

• Jess is now one of the core team members down in London for TechStars London.
• Bela is living the life in Singapore.
• Thomas is working as a business development manager in London.
• Hilary is one of the Product Managers at Skyscanner and also runs Product Tank Edinburgh. 
• And I’ve gone on to start Interface3 and Tigerface Games. 

So, we’re looking for a new generation of bloggers for the cafe.

We’re not looking for people that have tons of experience (although if you do, that’s awesome too!) but we’re looking for people who want to help grow the startup community in Edinburgh by highlighting events, or writing about new people to the community. Attitude matters more than experience for us. 

So if you’re interested in helping us grow startupcafe, then please get in touch over at kate@startupcafe.co.uk!

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Glasgow’s training house, TRC Media is creating a special edition of their popular programme – Cross Creative. The programme lasts for 9 months and is for people based in the digital and/or creative industries. This time round, Carol Sinclair, has decided to run a special ‘female’ edition alongside their usual course, and is looking for people to apply. Having been on the programme back in 2011-12, it was one of the best courses I’ve been on – so it comes highly recommended!

More details here

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Tim Willis from Flexpansion is looking for anyone that wants to partner with them to deliver specialist text applications on android. See below for details!

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Do you know anyone using tablets or smartphones for work, or supplying software to people who are? Would they like to type all their specialised writing twice as fast, using an app that takes a couple of
minutes to learn? An Edinburgh-based company is seeking FREE TRIAL users for a premium, bespoke version of their revolutionary word prediction app that not only completes words from their first few
letters, but also converts any reasonable abbreviation into full – ‘qkly xpndg txt spk’. There’s no need to memorise any shortcuts, or train the app first, and it rapidly learns your usage. (more…)

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