How to Web 2011 included a panel focused on financing, named Financing your business: the good, the bad and the ugly. It was moderated by Ivan Brezak, founder and editor in chief of Netokracija. The guests of the panel were Sitar Teli – investment manager at DHTV, Dan Lupu – investment director at Intel Capital, Mihai Sfintescu – partner at 3TS Partners, Christian Leybold – general partner at eVC Partners and Radu Georgescu – president of GECAD Group.

Watch the video for some nice tips on how you should choose the right investor for your startup, how to first contact him and with what expectations, how you should grow the relationship and many more.

Sitar Teli, investment manager at Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, held a talk at How to Web 2011 named Gamify your fundraising. She did a really cool analogy between fundraising and playing games, stating that fundraising is both a game of chance and of strategy. She underlined the importance of the social aspect in both cases and the fact that viral loops are very effective.

Some more give aways: accelerators are badges for startups, you should know your gamer very well – as each vc has its area of expertise, and you should constantly check your hud – that is, your startup’s metrics. Always do your homework before trying to reach the boss level and, how else, practice, practice, practice!

Watch the entire speech to better understand how to “play the game” and don’t miss the Q&A session to find out Sitar’s opinion on the right answer to the question “What will you do if Facebook or Google does the same?”.

And for a quicker reminder of the talk, check out Sitar’s presentation:

Alastair Mitchell, co-founder and CEO of huddle, held a speech at How to Web 2011 on The death of the traditional enterprise. He spoke about how the F generation will kill traditional enterprise software and how huddle innovates the environment, by allowing people to work with whoever they want, to collaborate with people outside their business and thus ensuring a viral spread of the product.

Two sayings got stuck in my mind after Alastair’s talk: “Go viral!” and “Go big or go home!”. And after the talk came a great session of Q&A, during which Alastair answered questions regarding technical details on delivering huddle to enterprises, the steps of building enterprise software, how to prioritize what you develop, how to sell your product to enterprises and more.

Pablos Holman, hacker at Intellectual Ventures Lab, delivered the second keynote speech of How to Web 2011 on Hackers and Invention. He started by giving some examples of crazy hacking ideas and explaining how the hacker mindset is very important when trying to start a business.

He shared his vision that everything around us will be computerized in the future, thus everything we see around that hasn’t been computerized yet should be looked at as an opportunity. He insisted that the current abilities for computational modeling are something everybody should be taking advantage of.

He also spoke about projects he’s been working on, like trying to eradicate malaria by detecting the carrying mosquitos and killing them with lasers. And, answering to a question from the public, he stated that you shouldn’t get stuck by the current cost of things when doing innovation because that’s very likely to change tomorrow, as it already has with so many computer related components.

Online Business School – free know-how for SMEs managers

Everybody agrees that SMEs are the engine of the economy, due to their flexibility and capacity to innovate. Therefore, they need all the support to grow. And as people prove to be in most of the  cases the most important asset of any company, we, at Online Business School, believe it is worth investing first and foremost in their professional development. However, the training market in Romania has lot of room to further grow as revealed by the study enrolled by Romtelecom, BluePoint IT and OTEAcademy (more details about the study can be read here), which had worrying results: over 70% of the SMEs employees in Romania didn’t participate to any training in 2010 and 43% of those who however attended such courses went to classic ones, held in training rooms, thus involving supplementary costs from the companies.

There was also good news revealed; according to the same study, the online training appears to be the preferred solution by 1 out of 2 companies and as 99% of the respondents stated that they have an internet connection.

Based on the conclusions of the study, the project Online Business School is the perfect solution for Romanian SMEs managers, as it offers free of charge access to online classes tailored for their needs. The study showed that the main training needs of Romanian managers are: management and leadership (33%), followed by sales (28%), marketing (25%) and the ones of finance and accounting (20%), also computer skills and foreign languages courses. And Online Business School aims to deliver exactly what they need.

The classes already started and the first courses were already made available, but any interested manager can register anytime and become an Online Business School student having his/her own study plan available anytime, anywhere. More details about the how to register are available here.

Online Business School presents also the perfect opportunity for any participant to get in touch with a community of other several thousand managers decided to invest in their professional proficiency and to have access to success stories.

Online Business School stands for the project rolled-out with funding from the European Union “Improvement of SMEs’ competition level through long lasting entrepreneurship” (ICIMM). Through this project, managers in Romanian SMEs benefit from free-of-charge online training, to develop their businesses and professional skills. The project is rolled by Romtelecom, Bluepoint IT Solutions and OTEAcademy.

More details about the project, as well as applications to the courses are available on www.bizschool.ro.

Project co-financed by the European Social Fund through the Specific Operational Program for Human Resources Development 2007-2013 – “Invest in people!”

Contact person:
Roxana Mihul – PR responsible
Romtelecom
roxana.mihul@romtelecom.ro

BizSchool.ro was a partner for the How to Web 2011 conference.

Doug Richard, founder of School for Startups, delivered the first keynote speech of How to Web 2011 on The Future of Building a Web Business. He spoke about the major difference that the web has made regarding the costs of starting a new business, the difference between angel investors and VCs and what building an innovative company really means.

He told a story of a bad experience using an online ordering service and how the fact that he could share his bad experience on the web has affected the business. Also, during the Q&A session, Doug gave a few insights on how to pitch an angel, how an angel helps a company grow and the difference he sees in entrepreneurs from all around the world.

Speak League is the winning project of Startup Weekend Romania. I went as a visitor to see the final pitches of SW and I gotta tell you, I was wow-ed by the idea. Speak League started with an idea on Friday, which was developed into a startup, with a business model and a working demo that was performed live on stage on Sunday evening. The team of 4 was formed on the spot and they’ve done an amazing job creating a startup in only 54 hours.

So what is Speak League?

Speak League is a social platform that allows you to practice the foreign language you desire with people who are native or proficient in it. You will be automatically matched with people who share the same interests and hobbies as you. The platform offers chat, audio and video support for your conversations. And you are encouraged to help others learn the languages you’re good at, thus earning credit that you will use to practice your own languages. Or you can skip that, and just pay cash. It all seems so simple and makes so much sense.

What’s next?

As winners of Startup Weekend Romania, Speak League got free office space for the next 3 months at the Bucharest Hubb and a mentoring lunch at Rockstart accelerator in Amsterdam. But most importantly, they get to participate in the Global Startup Battle for a chance to meet with Silicon Valley Investors, a launch conference in San Francisco and a spot in Startup Pavillion at Demo Asia in Singapore. If you like their idea and want to support them, a vote of their video is very important for the final decision. So go to http://www.facebook.com/speakleague, watch the video and be sure to push the Vote button!

“The idea came from Alex, who came prepared for the 60 seconds pitch. He convinced us, the idea went through and we formed the team without knowing much of each other. From this moment on, it was all a chain of great happenings. First of all, Alex and Titel are both very talented and have completed each other developing the technical side of the project. Then, Andrei and I have worked on developing the business model and validating the hypotheses. We worked very well together and we managed to communicate the true value of the startup. Startup Weekend is a very special experience. It’s intense but also very rewarding to be able, in only 54 hours, to start from scratch and end up with a viable business – one with even a “must have” potential.” – Andra.

School for Startups Romania, the first entrepreneurial training program in Romania, is organizing an Open Class, to give everybody the chance to find out more about the 2012 program and how it could fit their needs. If you are interested and want to meet Doug Richard and Marius Ghenea, the two mentors of S4S, you can attend one of the Open Classes organized in Bucharest and in Cluj:

- Bucharest: November 22nd, 17:30, Intercontinental Hotel;

- Cluj: November 24th, 17:30, City Plaza Hotel.

The admission for both classes is free, but there’s a limited number of seats, so you have to register first.

Another good news coming from the organizers of School for Startups is that, for the 2012 program, the participants have the option of only paying for the first bootcamp, and after attending, deciding if the program is what they were looking for and choosing to pay and attend the rest of the course. The offer is available for entrepreneurs who join the program by the end of the year 2011 and is referring to the bootcamp that will take place in March 2012, which costs 900 RON.

The School for Startups programe takes place throughout a year, a period in which the participants receive business consultancy from Doug Richard and Marius Ghenea, and specialized instruction regarding the fundamental problems of a company. Starting from the first day, the participants work on their own projects, based on the information and knowledge shared by the two mentors. Some of the topics approached in the program are: marketing and sales
strategies, product and service development, team management and attracting investors.

School for Startups Romania is a program developed by the Post-Privatization Foundation. To find out more about S4S, visit the programe’s website.

Although we don’t think it’s necessary, we’ll say this once again. We love pirates! We love their braveness and we strongly believe they’re the ones to cause the next big changes in the world.

We covered some time ago a new movement that starts in Porto and hopes to spread world wide. After successfully organizing a first event in Porto at the end of August, the Startup Pirates in Porto have once again organized a cool event for startup-ers. This time it’s the Startup Pirates Battle, a competition for startups from all around Europe, that have a technology-based product in MVP, prototype, alpha or beta stage or even a service that is in the market for less than 6 months.

Who should participate in the Battle?

“At the Startup Pirates Battle our aim is to give early stage tech start-ups the opportunity to pitch their product/service in front of a panel of judges. We are not looking for a specific profile, we just want startups with passionate and driven entrepreneurs, that believe in their project and want to take it to the next level.”, say the organizers.

What are the Battle’s rules of game?

“We are going to have four rounds of pitches and in the first 3 rounds, two start-ups will compete with each other for the opportunity to reach the next round. We are using the tournament system, where the best start-up goes to the next round. In the final round, 4 start-ups will compete with each other to win the final prize.”

The Startup Pirates Battle will take place in Porto on November the 19^th and, besides the competition, it also includes a conference and a startup fair. Check out the links for more info and, if you can be in Porto on the 19^th, this is certainly worth your while!

How to Web is a media partner of Startup Pirates Battle.

Starting a new week without How to Web in the near future is, well, weird.

We’ve had two great conference days and two great nights of party. We’ve started each conference day with a couple of great keynotes delivered by Doug Richard, Pablos Holman, Carlos Espinal and Mark Randall. We went on through each conference day with talks, panels and workshops on the most interesting subjects regarding the web and creating a business on the web. We will soon be back with recordings of the most important moments of How to Web 2011.

We’ve had a great Startup Challenge competition, with participants from 7 Central and Eastern European countries. The jury designated EasyLing, a Hungarian crowdsourced translating service, as the competition winner. Read more about our Startup Challenge competition on TechCrunch Europe or The Next Web.

We’ve had two great parties, after each conference day, the first one with live music and a great DJ set by Vladimir Oane, founder of uber successful Romanian startup, uberVU, and on the second night we got to be crazy and let all our energy out during a great karaoke session. There were quite a few rockers in the house. If you’ve missed Mikko‘s White wedding… well, next time, don’t!

If you’ve missed the event, you can check out the photos from the two conference days on our Facebook page – day 1 and day 2, or follow the articles written by our official bloggers. And of course, if you have attended, feel free to tag yourselves and your friends in the photos.

It’s been a lot of work setting How to Web 2011 up, it’s also been a lot of fun, and it’s really rewarding to see the feedback we’re receiving from everyone who attended. Thank you all for your kind words, and we’ll leave you with this thought… How to Web 2012 will be even greater!