#eegloo

Different kind of ideas

Being an IT incubator I'm used to people pitching ideas that require developing apps, websites and everything in between. I've also heard a few pitches of technological startups, However, the scale and direction of the students’ ideas were far beyond what I expected. They pitched economically viable ways to decrease CO2 emissions from factories, generate green energy, and create better medical equipment. Running a bit ahead of myself after the event I thought, “Some people want an app, others want to harness the power of the ocean”.

Learning to be an entrepreneur

The students are in their final year for their Masters and making a startup is part of their program. Awesome, right? Perhaps it’s not so surprising for students of a Ivy League university, but here in Latvia, creating a startup as part of a degree is something unthinkable. Unfortunately. Teaching young people entrepreneurial skills is among the top thing you can teach them today. Unless you’re training doctors :)

The startup culture is here

All this comes down to a bigger point, the startup culture. Working so closely with startups, hearing people pitch, and attending events shows that the startup culture is entering the Baltics. Here, in Latvia and indeed the Baltics, startups are still a relatively new thing. Garage48 started in 2010. TechChill Baltics launched in 2011. TechHub Riga opened in 2012. Startup Weekend came to Riga for the very first time this year! As the startup culture enters our lives more and more are embracing it! People want to build things that change the world and change themselves in the process. I think it's amazing.

A huge shout out to the Brown University students who visited us. We enjoyed your company, your pitches, and enthusiasm. Hope you get to make your startups happen and change the world for the better!

Ev Williams (photo via wired), the founder of Twitter, spoke at the XOXO conference in Portland and said he has figured out the internet. The core idea of his talk was simple – solve basic human problems and you will profit. Inventing the next big thing leads to problems because people come to the internet not to do new things, but to do the things we’ve always done.

“Here’s the formula if you want to build a billion-dollar internet company,” he said. “Take a human desire, preferably one that has been around for a really long time…Identify that desire and use modern technology to take out steps.” Uber is a good example. “How old is the desire of getting from here to there?” he said. “How hard was it really to do? They took out some steps in that process…They formed a connection between you and the driver.”.

When you think about it, Ev is correct. Twitter is an overly simplified messaging service, today’s blogging platforms do pretty much everything for you except generate content. I’m sure you’re noticing how things get simpler and simpler. Solving basic human problems faster and more convenient than others is what we, the internet, want. We don’t want to wait and we don’t want to think, we want to get what we want. FAST. Remember the time when we had to enter the email and password TWICE to register an account anywhere? I rest my case. :)

By now you’re probably thinking about knocking off a few steps from a service we all use and become the next billion-dollar company... Yeah, me too :) But an idea is worthless unless it’s implemented. Some people hold on to their ideas for years, thinking they are worth gold (which they rarely are) and never acting on implementing them out of fear someone will steal them, implement them better or for some other reason. It doesn’t really matter why. What I’m trying to say is, if you have an idea that could help people or solve problems, don’t just lock it away. Look for people who can help build it with you. Assemble a team and start working on it!

Pavel & Ilya want to solve the problem for lazy and busy people. We need more such ideas :)

Pitching over, time to discuss the ideas and get our thoughts on the table. Everything is casual and friendly.

That’s it for today. Keep an eye out for our next event and feel free to submit your ideas to http://eegloo.net/apply Or simply come to meet us and watch the presentations.