Guest blog by Kei Karlson; this article was firstly published in GoWorkaBit blog
There is no need to explain what Seedcamp is to Startups all over the world, because I guess that every serious startup has applied to Seedcamp at some point. To those of you that do not own startup, Seedcamp is one of the most appreciated and desired accelerators in the Europe or even in the whole world. To be part of the Seedcamp family means that you have the best Network, best mentors and of course….best working environment (I mean the fellow teams). And we are part of it now!
How to get into that family? Proposal for “marriage” does not cover it. It takes one week of non-stop pitching, connecting, learning, improving, charming, and in our case…also swearing to seal the deal. This week is called Seedcamp Week and here are the lessons that me, Margus and Gerli learned.
Lesson 1
Even if you are most communicative people-person ever...you will be exhausted by the end of every mentoring day. There are not many chances to sit at the same table with the founder of the Forsyth Group, with one of the leading executive search companies or Global Business Manager at Google – altogether with more than 300 mentors and investors during the week. So you will listen, write everything down and memorize every second…and it is no piece of cake. Even for people like me who actually enjoy communicating 24/7. So it is wise to leave the bars early and not to go sightseeing during the night time :)
Lesson 2
Power lies in the team! It’s quite obvious that without great team you won’t make it to Seedcamp anyway. I think our team is one of the most connected teams because we are connected with each other via Skype Chat 24/7 and I am not kidding. 3 of us were in London and half of the team stayed in Estonia. During Seedcamp Week we continued our daily stand-up meetings and shared everything that was happening in London. As we discussed mentors feedback with the team, we got our goals and vision more and more clear every day. We also learned that Margus can cook British breakfast and is great at supervising two a bit tipsy girls in big City.
Lesson 3
Prepare to be unprepared! Like we said in our pitch:sometimes shit just happens. 48-hour tube strike (that means police in the streets and traffic so slow as Wifi in London Wifi Phone Booths), cabs that cost during the strike almost as much as used car in Estonia. Perfectly nice accommodation, that includes 11 cats and noisy water heater above the “quiet” bedroom. But seriously speaking, you have to also be prepared to rewrite your pitch, or pivot and change your products altogether.
Lesson 4
I describe this with the other sentence from our 3 minute pitch: “It’s fucking exciting to change the world!“