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Vienna Calling (@Copyright Image: FilmSpektakel)[/caption]
Enjoyable and cruel, Start-Uppers grinding along and enjoying themselves in Vienna now have a new format to look forward to with StartUpGrind finally arriving with the first Speaker Oliver Holle on board. (Copyright for Image: FilmSpektakel)
Vienna, by a lot described as the most liveable city in the world, but in recent years also sporting a strong and further developing start-up scene now got one aspect richer.
Start-Up Grind has arrived in the city of music, a format in touch with viennas attitude of getting around any obstactle (eventually), after much sweat, tears and swearing. It is here to stay and shows how to go through the grind of establishing a start-up in a city of nay-sayers for better or for worse.
Enterpreneurship and Start-Ups can easily be compared to the nice and easy dancing that you see around all those ball-rooms every year. It is not too hard to go and learn dancing and not look to bad, but it will cost you money. To actually earn money you need a combination of talent and even more sweat, tears and persistence to actually make it to those dancing making a living of it. If you reach it you can dance with the world-class and can compete with whoever comes along.
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Oliver Holle @ StartUpGrind[/caption]
First to talk about the grind will be Oliver Holle, well known for his role in the leading Super-Angel of Vienna SpeedInvest, who during the .COM did the grind during his years until they figured out that they needed to merge 3 companies to actual create something worthwhile enough to be sellable. In the end they got acquired by none other than VeriSign , and left for the US and Silicon Valley before coming back to establish the start-up culture in Vienna à Something that already pays off as we can see in the thriving fifth district, viennas start-up district where SpeedInvest is also located.
SpeedInvest is behind a couple of the most interesting Start-Ups in Vienna, like Indoo.rs, GAMINSIDE, wikifolio or holvi among others.
Austria, and Vienna especially, has long tradition of inventors and creative minds, especially in the classical engineering discipline where big impacts where created during the centuries. The basis for suchlike as Ressel (ship-propeller), Siegfried Marcus (158 patents, historians believe he actually invented the first working automotive car) and Zemanek (first fully-transistorized computer in Europe, IBM Fellow). Additional an economist having impact on the way we view innovation nowadays, Peter Drucker was Viennese and his strong impact theories of entrepreneurship and creativity let people worldwide search for the right thing to do even now.
Vienna finally gets closer to leveraging both its geographic role and its technology know-how to create a new industry of companies thinking and acting global.
Vienna is an old city and a new city alike, it has grandeur and shabby streets, risk aversion and a notable risky lifestyle at the same time. With this duality and its position right on the border between the “old west” and the "developing east” it is right in the centre of Europe and can combe ideas, talent and more & more capital injected into the scene to create one of the most thriving hubs in Europe. A good timing for Start-Ups as in the last 2-3 years a couple of very impressive Seed and A-rounds where closed and companies co-located all over the world.
We welcome everybody willing to join the dance to our first event in the center of Europe. StartUpGrind will fill the gap given by the current events (mostly topic oriented) by a more personal approach of giving personal insights into the mind of top-people when they talk about their experiences, up and a lot of their downs.
As Falco (also Viennese) said: “Vienna Calling” – join us at StartUpGrind on the 9th of October @ Sektor5