Startup Pirates Blog

Pirates and corsairs, startupers and startup fans, we have a new blog.

There you can find all our previous publications, our updates, awesome content on startup wisdom, meet some of our pirates and some of the pirate startups. The same content but with a better look and feel, more organized and easier to search:

http://blog.startuppirates.org/

What about going there, start exploring all the categories on the upper right corner or the most popular blogposts on the right?

Blogpost by: Nitzan Merguei - Entrepreneurship researcher

During some months, Nitzan developed a study on Startup Pirates and the program influence on the probability of people starting their own businesses. Some awesome conclusions were found and here is a digest about the study by the author herself.

Do you find yourself wondering whether you are cut out for entrepreneurship? There are so many elements that enter the equation for becoming an entrepreneur which makes the wondering so much harder (and the leap so much scarier). But still, who manages to cross the rough seas and become a pirate and who does not?

Since entrepreneurship is such a complex phenomenon and is relatively fresh in the research world, there are many conflicting theories and discoveries in the field about who becomes an entrepreneur. For instance, some theories drawn from psychology and even neo-classical economics tell us that entrepreneurs all have inborn characteristics. Others, for example, that follow Austrian economics say that the information you possess will determine if and what kind of business you will start.  In a way there is some sort of an “un-battled” debate on whether education, training and information or personal characteristics (such as gender, age and certain personality traits) are most important for becoming an entrepreneur.

Shedding some light onto this debate is important, especially for acceleration programs for aspiring entrepreneurs, such as Startup Pirates, which aim at boosting the number of entrepreneurs. Is Startup Pirates managing to increase entrepreneurial activity through their developed methodology or is success solely based on what the participants have to bring to the table? In order to have a better understanding of the impact of Startup Pirates, both by taking into account the participants’ characters that join the event and the different elements that are included in the program, we asked the following question:

What personal characteristics and event elements affect the likelihood of a participant to become an entrepreneur?

We received data on 424 Startup Pirates participants and on 21 events in 8 different countries. Joanna Pulta, an intern in Portugal, and I, an undergraduate student at University College Maastricht, worked hard to clean the data and extract interesting variables. All the while, Carla Costa from the Maastricht Center for Entrepreneurship at Maastricht University was supervising this project. In order to be classified as an entrepreneur in this study a participant had to start a business within six months after participating in the program AND have at least one full time person working for the business. For the scientists or stats lovers among you, we used a random-effect probit model to answer the research question.

Overall the results showed that the quality of the event is more important than the participant’s age, gender and occupation. In fact all these variables had no statistically significant relationship with the likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur. From the personal characteristics of the participants, only some fields of expertise showed strong and positive correlation. These expertise fields were: “fine and applied arts”, “engineering and applied sciences”, “mathematics, computer and physical sciences”. Unlike previous findings that showed that business and economics students have the highest intention to start a business, Startup Pirates participants with a more practical background seem to have a higher chance.

As for the events characteristics many had a strong relationship with the likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur, some even contrary to expectations. For example, less hours spent on team building activities was associated with a higher chance of becoming an entrepreneur. We suspect that the problem is not really in the number of hours as much as in the type of activity. Organizers should make sure that the activities that they choose really help participants learn about team efforts and build strong teams. Similarly, smaller teams were associated with a higher chance to establish a business. On one hand, more members can bring more resources to a business but on the other hands decision-making becomes more difficult and conflicts more frequent.

Another interesting discovery was that the composition of the participants affected the likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur. A more balanced group of participants, in terms of gender, nationality and fields of expertise, resulted in more entrepreneurs in an event.

Last but not least, a greater variety in the fields of expertise of the mentors who contribute with their guidance in all Startup Pirates events was important for a successful event. Mentors with different backgrounds help complement the areas of knowledge participants are lacking and give more rounded advices.

The good news is that YOU can become a pirate. Not your age, gender or occupation will determine that, but if you keep investing in your ideas, learn new skills, meet the right people and join a well-organized Startup Pirates event your chances to become a true pirate are increased. More good news is that organizers of future Startup Pirate events and practitioners in general can use this information to enhance the quality of their event and help create more entrepreneurs around the world!

Blogpost by: Nitzan Merguei - Entrepreneurship researcher

We have been discussing with Microsoft during the last weeks on how to work together to help startups. The first result is here… We just became a Microsoft Network Partner!

What does it mean for you? As a Microsoft Network Partner we will be able to offer the Microsoft BizSpark program to our Startups!

BizSpark is an innovative global program that unites Startups with global entrepreneurial and technology resources in one community, with a common goal of supporting and accelerating the success of a new generation of high-potential Startups.

BizSpark provides access to:

Software: Clicks away from having access to current, full-featured development tools, including Windows Azure, Microsoft’s Cloud Computing Platform, plus production licensing to develop and bring your solution to market.

Support: Professional technical support from Microsoft and connects you to a global community of business experts who can help guide you through the hurdles of growing your business.

Visibility: Through BizSpark, you’ll have the opportunity to achieve global visibility to an audience of potential investors, clients and partners on BizSpark Connect.

Eligibility requirements are minimal: If you're a privately held company building a software-based product or service (even using open source code), in business for fewer than three years, and with less than USD$1M in annual revenue, you're in! Startups who are actively engaged in software development but have not yet completed the formalities of establishing a business are also eligible for entry into BizSpark.

You can find more program details here www.microsoft.com/bizspark. When you’re ready to sign up, as usual, just get in touch with us!

Blogpost by: Daniela Monteiro - Co-Founder of Startup Pirates

One of the first questions we get from people interested in participating in Startup Pirates or actual participants is the one in the title: “What if people steal my idea?”

People hold strongly to their ideas. They feel they have the ultimate thing and that the moment they talk about it, someone will come and take it. It’s legitimate to have this fear, competition is real and we need to be aware of it. But if you’re not on the point of putting your idea out there, you’re not ready to turn it into a reality.

Ideas need to be worked to comply with what customers want. If you don’t share them, you’ll never be able to pivot your assumptions as soon as possible. Mark Cuban once said, “Everybody’s got a new app for their phone. Ideas are a dime a dozen. But it’s turning it into a real company and then taking that company and then actually making it a profitable, growing endeavor that can support an investor.”

Ideas are worthless when you’re not able to execute them. Having the right people, the right skills, tools and the focus will make you faster and beat competition. But be aware that hard work without a solid vision is as useless as not being able to put everything together.

Most of the ideas that go through our programs don’t end the same way they were in the beginning. It’s the result of a week of customer validation and mentoring. That’s the beauty of sharing and learning: you have the opportunity to improve your idea. How can you do that if you’re scared?

Blogpost by: Daniela Monteiro - Co-Founder of Startup Pirates

If you liked this blogpost, you might also be interested in:

Dealing with the fear of talking with customers

How to find Startup ideas!? 4 tips to help you get started

Last year at Startup Pirates @ Curitiba, Diogo Beltrami and his tem won the program with his idea, Bem Valente. Let's know more about this really inspiring social idea.

Who are the people behind Bem Valente?

"Diogo Beltrami (Product Designer | Right on the photo) and Marcelo Grassano (Automation Engineer  | Left on the photo), now both business and code developers. We met at Startup Pirates Curitiba but curiously we were in different teams."

Can you tell us a bit more about your project? What are you doing?

"The fight against cancer is not easy, there are a number of difficulties caused by the treatment, which in many cases is intense and aggressive. It’s a disease that weakens not only the physical but also the psychological aspect as well, motivation and self-esteem are significant factors to overcome. So we started Bem Valente to provide special and unique moments of well-being for cancer patients through a sustainable business model.

Bem Valente offers a unique way for you to fulfill dreams and contribute to the fight against cancer. You can buy products and services at the same market prices to fund dreams without paying more and without the need for donations.

Everyone wins:

Patients and their families live special moments of motivation and well-being. 

Dream Makers receive their products and provide the attainment of these unique and special moments through their purchases. 

Our partners and institutions are benefited financially from sales."

How have these past months been since Startup Pirates? What are the biggest challenges that you faced until now? And accomplishments? Next moves?

"We faced many challenges and learned a lot since Startup Pirates Curitiba. We also won another competition: Souper Heroes organized by Impact Hub Curitiba during the Global Entrepreneurship Week. The biggest challenge we’ve faced with Bem Valente is how social entrepreneurship is misunderstood for most people in Brazil. There is a gap between making good and making money. 

Our next move is to improve our revenue streams."

What would you say to a person who has a business idea and wants to turn it into reality?

"The best moment is now, keep dreaming while you’re going for it! We quit our former jobs to pursue this dream and we’re living an amazing experience. But the best way to describe my feeling while working on this project is the testimony of Helen during her dream realization. She looked at us and said, almost whispering, while walking between a toboggan and another: "This is the best day of my life!". And this is the best time of our lives."

Follow Bem Valente: Website | Facebook

Blogpost by: Inês Santos Silva - Co-Founder of Startup Pirates

Want to make the most of your upcoming summer holidays? I've selected 5 books I’m reading this summer and that you should also considering reading.

1. Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into A Sales Machine With The $100 Million Best Practices Of Salesforce.com

2. Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist

3. The Lean Enterprise: How Corporations Can Innovate Like Startups

4. Data Science for Business: What you need to know about data mining and data-analytic thinking

5. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

Want more suggestions? Take a look at this article that I published last year about “6 books all entrepreneurs should read“. Enjoy!!

  Blogpost by: Inês Santos Silva - Co-Founder of Startup Pirates

Blogpost by: Marta Wadsworth - Marketing at Userlike, Startup Pirates Perk Partner

As Startup Pirates announced recently, Userlike offers all their startups a one year free account of their live chat software. Being a bootstrapped company ourselves, we know that starting businesses cannot afford to pay for all the tools they need and can use a little push. In this post we wanted to give you some points on how you can use live chat to improve your business.

First of all, the main reasons why we decided to offer our live chat software to startups is because they have always been one of our most enthusiastic users. They easily adopt innovative solutions, have always provided us with strong feedback, and they are a role model in society. 

Live chat can bring you closer to your users and web visitors. Let’s take a look at some ways you can use it to improve your business:

Get Direct and Unfiltered Feedback from your users

Startups operations should be focused on the finetuning of their products. This process requires relevant feedback from early users. Live chat is a perfect way to get that direct feedback in a natural way. While using the product, users or website visitors can ask questions and give you feedback. If you end up receiving many questions about a certain topic this will indicate you should clarify that subject.

There are various factors that make live chat systems work better than other feedback tools. First there is a more natural tone of voice and a less informal communication style that allows users to share in greater detail their real experiences and thoughts. Secondly, instead of helping you out of altruism (as is the case with standard feedback tools), feedback through support requests is driven by self-interest. Finally, as live chat is a low barrier tool, users may actually contact you at the same moment they are having an issue, with no need to stop using the product altogether to be able to report a problem.

Create Loyal Users / Brand Advocates / Brand fans

Your early users are the ones you will need to devote extra attention to. Not only because they can support you in finetuning, but also because they are the ones which will be referring your product or service to others. Live chat offers you the tool to reach out to all of your early users and visitors. Spend some extra time with them to turn them into enthusiastic brand advocates.

Increase conversion rates 

A huge percentage of your website visitors leave your page before making a final transaction or signing up just because they couldn’t find the answer to some simple question. It could be related to the product, to your check-out process or even to the shipping time: what matters is that by not being able to respond, at that moment, you just lost a conversion.

Use your live chat software for direct conversion optimization and to collect insights about what processes should be improved.

Support Channels Comparison

Overall there are three major advantages of using live chat as customer support channel in comparison with the standard phone and e-mail channels.  

Firstly, live chat is a low-barrier channel. The barrier of phone usage consists out of general phone-fear and bad experiences with waiting queues. The barrier of email usage consists out of uncertainty of when they will receive a response. Live chat has neither of these barriers, and combines the best of both worlds.

Second, live chat is an “on-the-spot” support channel, implemented on your website, meaning that users won’t have to go anywhere else or use any external device. This ensures one the one hand that the ‘conversion process’ is not disrupted, and on the other hand that issues can be resolved on the spot, making things a lot easier for everybody.

Considerations when implementing live chat:

The one obstacle to live chat is having someone to handle the chats. However, live chat is an activity which can easily be combined with many other tasks. You can go online when you have time and there are features you can use when you are not behind your computer. For example, you can set your chat system to show an offline notification together with a simple form to collect your visitor’s messages and contact details when you are offline, or you can simply hide the chat button. Next to this it is possible to connect Userlike to your smart phone in order to support your customers on-the-go.

We hope this gave you some insight into how you can use live chat. We hope to see you on the chat soon!

Blogpost by: Marta Wadsworth - Marketing at Userlike, Startup Pirates Perk Partner

Message from: Renan Freitas - Lead organizer at Startup Pirates @ Maringá

Hi everyone, I write from Maringá, Brazil. We conducted a Startup Pirates program here from April 26 to May 03.

First of all, let me explain about Maringá: it is city from the interior, with population of almost 400 thousand people, an agribusiness based economy, a strong IT sector focused on ERP technology and still few startups based here. But we have politicians aware of the need of innovation and technology.

Since here few people are engaged with this entrepreneurship purpose, we started working to build a startup ecosystem since last year to motivate and promote an easier way to create new startups. The biggest challenge - and our vision to the future - is to transform our town in a startup reference for brazilian entrepreneurs.

In the beginning of this year, our partner SEBRAE (a non profit organization focused on promoting entrepreneurship and helping business growth) gave us the responsibility to organize a Startup Pirates here, to mobilize entrepreneurs to build new startups. It was the second edition of the program in Brazil.

For me, especially, was an awesome experience to be part of the organization team. I must admit, for the most part of the time, I wished to be part of the participants to experience all of that.

This feeling is part of my admiration to the Pirates, that transformed our ecosystem and gave us a new look about startups.

There were some unexpected experiences and learnings that we carry on forever. Maybe this is not news for you, but like the famous sentence, “old but gold”, I must tell them here to share our learnings:

People are everything in a startup! Just forget the brilliant idea for a moment and pick up the right partners. If you choose the wrong person to be your partner, everything goes wrong. At the program, it was explicit and some teams just broke up because people thoughts didn’t match. On the other hand, teams with poor ideas in the beginning, but with powerful people, just pivoted and finished the program with awesome ideas.

If people is everything, put them to validate their ideas with focus on customer behavior. They just pivoted because they focused their work on people, understanding exactly what they expect and what they will buy.

The transformation that Startup Pirates program provides goes beyond the room. It transforms the whole ecosystem with new startups, new engaged entrepreneurs, new mentors and new experiences. After the program, we had an exponential growth on engagement of people with the ecosystem.

Engagement makes the difference. If you have the right people, then engage them with a purpose and you will have big results, like pirates. Picking up the right mentors to build the first part of the program makes the whole difference.

And at last, but not least, the program doesn't finish in the end of the week. It’s important to follow up the teams to make the projects happen and to support them with new events, new opportunities and more interesting content. It’s part of the motivation too.

I must admit, it wasn't easy to organize the whole Startup Pirates. Even with a team supporting us, we had to work hard and dedicated a lot of time of our days to make it happen. But after that, the learnings and experiences organizing, mentoring and meeting new people rewarded everything.

Thank you Rafael Pires and team for the opportunity to bring Startup Pirates to Brazil, the program causes large changes in people's lives.

Message by: Renan Freitas - Lead organizer at Startup Pirates @ Maringá

First of all we would like to kindly thank all of you for celebrating our 3rd birthday with us!

When a true Pirate arrives he or she demands to be noticed. We designed this t-shirt specially for this giveaway and 5 buccaneers will be able to pick their favorite color and size. Now, the wait is over... and the winners are:

Anaël Unchained from France

Karolina Zarychta from Poland

Oana Calugar from Romania

Renan Freitas from Brazil

Jasper Goyvaerts from Belgium

You are listed above? Congratulations! We are looking forward to seeing pictures of you wearing them all the time. Well, maybe it's better if you wash them once in a while. Expect an e-mail from us on how to get them.

You were not one of the lucky winners in our give away? Don't worry, we'll probably give more things away soon! Stay tuned to our facebook and twitter!

It's almost over, only one day left… Let's check who were the lucky winners of this cute collection of 9 pirate pins:

Janka Deli - Hungary

Maria Conde - Spain

Ivana Oven - Slovenia

Nikolco Gosev - Macedonia

Anca Albu - Romania

Is your name listed above? Expect an e-mail from us shortly requesting your address. They will be delivered at your door!

Third raffle done... It's Mailjet day and we already know who are the new owners of a Silver Mailjet package:

Ahmed Khalid - Pakistan

Vesela Milenkova - Slovakia

John Weland - USA 

Filipe Castro Matos - Portugal

Maria Stylianou - Switzerland

Message in a bottle arriving to your inboxes soon.

Isn't this a good day to win prizes? Oh, yes it is!

Today is our second day of giveaway and we're delivering a special package from Joox Cards:

50 business cards + 100 mini cards + 24 stickers +  1 Square (24) + 1 board

And the lucky buccaneers are:

Giuditta Bassous - Belgium

Stefan Cvetkovski - Macedonia

Gowthami Ganapavarapu - USA

Vincent Sanders - Netherlands

Tiago Morais - Portugal

Congratulations, you'll be receiveing an e-mail from us soon.

Today was the Treehouse day on our Crazy Pirate Giveaway and we already know the big winners! Drumroll, please...

- Dimitris Sapikas from Greece - Sérgio Fonseca from Portugal - Milan Vukas from Canada - Saeid Ghafouri from Iran - Pascal Samsoon from Mauritius

Congratulation lucky winners, we'll get in touch with you shortly via e-mail!

If you like honey, you’ll love this post. If you don’t like honey, you definitely need to try Beesweet to change your mind.

No, the image above is not of an expensive and luxurious skin care product. It’s of a velvety, sexy and unusual honey.

Resorting to ancient and natural techniques, Beesweet is presenting to the market an innovative and Premium kind of honey, exclusive and rare, made from blueberries and with special flavours.

The story of this project started 3 generations ago. Ana Pais (on the left) and Carla Pereira (on the right), the third generation of beekeepers, once were exploring their attic when they found old books, recipes, materials and beekeeping clothes from their grandfather.They decided to explore and rediscover those recipes, which ended on the creation of a range of intense to softer honey flavours.

Beesweet has gone through Startup Pirates @ Coimbra. Ana says that “All contacts collected and developed had wide effects. It was possible to acquire tools and know how to align the project with other visions and to align the product with the market”.

Even having some legal barriers to overcome in what comes to certificate the raw honey and all the flavours, they are about to incorporate the company. Meanwhile, internationalisation is a reality. As a prize for winning Startup Pirates @ Coimbra, they integrated, along with the Association of Young Entrepreneurs Portugal-China an important mission in Macau, Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Jiangmen. They presented their product at Interwine and established a bridge to the country where the product was very much appreciated. They are also establishing partnerships with European retailers, so Beesweet can soon be a reality in major cities all around the continent.

When we asked them what would they say to a person who has a business idea and wants to turn it into reality, they just said:

“Start working now!”

They sure are, so they deserve all the luck in the world.

  Explore a bit more about the product and the project on their website.

Blogpost by: Inês Santos Silva - Co-Founder of Startup Pirates

B2B Startups are becoming sexy in Europe. We are starting to see more and more entrepreneurs developing enterprise solutions and they should definitely do so. There is a huge market waiting for them where the chances of success are much higher. 

So, it was with excitement that I’ve heard about the NEXT B2B Forum and I was even more excited when I was invited to speak at the event. Organized by Karim Mustaghni, successful entrepreneur and investor, in collaboration with the Global Shapers Hub in Frankfurt, NEXT B2B Forum aimed at igniting the discussion around B2B startups in Europe and also positioning Frankfurt as the B2B epicenter of Europe.

NEXT B2B Forum was a success. A perfect balance between corporate executives and startup founders and lots of opportunities in the room for B2B entrepreneurs. This was one of those conferences where all panels and keynote speeches were interesting and made you think.

One of my favourite talks was by Frank Riemensperger, CEO of Accenture for Germany. He talked about same-day delivery, context delivery, patient centric services, wearable technology and the digitization of everything. There is a world of opportunities out there ready to be taken.

I found interesting and funny to hear Dr. Christian Nagel, Partner at Earlybird, saying that Earlybird only invests in startups that can be bought by USA companies. The acquisition market in Europe is definitely growing but it is still very small.

I also liked to see that Lufthansa is making an effort to get closer to startups and it’s looking at startups as innovation engines in several different areas.

Finally, it was great for me to give my small contribution to the Frankfurt Startup Ecosystem. I had the opportunity to meet some local entrepreneurs and community leaders and found a growing startup scene, that still has a long way to go but already has all the right elements to succeed. Hopefully, I’ll be back in Frankfurt soon.

P.S: Renaud Visage, Co-Founder & CTO of Eventbrite, showed the picture bellow in one of his slides and I loved it. It’s so true.

Blogpost by: Inês Santos Silva - Co-Founder of Startup Pirates

On the 5th July 2011, Startup Pirates was launched on a small party gathering the startup community in Porto. The concept was still being developed and it took 2 months to our first program ever.

Together with the community, our pirate family and Startup Pirates itself grew up. The communities are the reason why our programs work and are the reason why we got where we are now.

So, 35 programs later, we want to celebrate our 3rd anniversary with you!

It's our birthday but you get all the gifts!

Together with some partners, we put together a crazy pirate giveaway: 5 days, 5 prizes per day, 25 in total!

The prizes will be given away from the 1st to the 5t July but you can now join the contest!

Curious? Visit our dedicated website and join the game…

Blogpost by: Inês Santos Silva - Co-Founder of Startup Pirates

I love the World Cup. Not only because I love soccer, but mainly because of the commercials. Instead of watching cute cats on Youtube, I watch commercials.

Some of them are quite old, others are more recent, but more importantly, they inspire, motivate and help me get in the flow to get on my own game.

This year, I’ve decided to release my personal favourites. These 4 commercials, while very different, are truly inspirational. What about you? What is your favorite World Cup Commercial?

1. Nike Football: Winner Stays

2. Nike Football: The Last Game

3. Beats by Dre | The Game Before The Game

4. Chile Team World Cup 2014 - Miners Propaganda

Blogpost by: Inês Santos Silva - Co-Founder of Startup Pirates