25 SEP 2012

Startup Pirates @ Zaragoza

Last week, I went to Zaragoza to facilitate and support the first 4 days of Startup Pirates @ Zaragoza. It was my first time in the city and it was also my first real contact with the spanish startup ecosystem. After a 1:30h flight and a 4-hour bus trip, I arrived in Zaragoza, during the afternoon of the first day and was quite impressed with the background of the participants. Everyone seemed to be very interesting and the average age was higher than in our previous events. I couldn't wait to start hearing the pitches and see what were the ideas.



Because of the background of the participants, the ideas were very diverse, going from social entrepreneurship to tech startups. For some participants it was the first time they were pitching their ideas, but for others we could see that they were quite used to tell others their ideas. In the end, 5 ideas were selected and developed during the week.
After this first day, that is always the most "difficult" one, the event went quite smoothly. The speakers/mentors were really great and were always very willing to help with their knowledge, resources and experience. We also had some open sessions, open to the public, where local people joined us.

For me personally, it was an amazing experience. I always like to meet and help the Pirates that we have in our events. After just a few days, we really felt like a family and I'm missing them already. And I also did some origamis ;)
I can't finish this article without talking about Hugo Martins, our local Startup Pirates organizer. Hugo is one of the most fearless Pirates I know!! He organized the Startup Pirates @ Zaragoza alone and did an AWESOME job. I'm really proud of him and of what he has achieved!! Kudos!! Hugo has great plans for the startup ecosystem in Zaragoza. We won't stop and we'll always keep supporting him.

In November, we're going to have another event in Spain, but this time in Barcelona. Why don't you join us?!

Blog post by: Inês Santos Silva

17 SEP 2012

European Pirate Summit 2012

We know the guys behind the European Pirate Summit since the very beginning of Startup Pirates. We love what they are doing and we were sad because, last year we couldn't make it to the event. But this year, Inês was there for the two days! See what she has to say:



"On Monday and Tuesday, I was at the European Pirate Summit. This guys took the all conference experience to a completely different level. It was an awesome event, very detail focused and an experience I won't forget. From the venue to the people I had the pleasure to meet, to the different talks, the panels and the parties, everything was thought to make you feel comfortable and welcomed. There are no words to describe the experience I lived in those two days. Some say is a Burning Man for entrepreneurs, others say it is different from any other conference. I just have to say that is an awesome event and next year, we will be there!

A big kudos to the team! Keep rocking!!"

10 SEP 2012

New Partner, advantages to our Pirates!

Since our first program, we have been thinking about ways to keep supporting our entrepreneurs after the events. Firstly, fostering our local teams to partner with local incubators or accelerators to offer post-event opportunities to the teams keep developing their ideas. Secondly, by supporting those entrepreneurs the best way we can, for example, keeping promoting their activities or connecting them to people who can help them in a specific area. All those activities were important and have been helping our entrepreneurs and startups in their journeys.

Over the last weeks we have been working on other ways to develop the support to all those Pirates who pursued their adventures by starting their own startups. One of our first initiatives are the Perk Partnerships. We want to partner with companies willing to offer services to our participants and startups in order to help them grow. Today, we are thrilled to officially announce our first Perk Partner: Zendesk.



Zendesk is the leader in cloud-based customer support software and is the fastest way to enable great customer service for rapidly growing companies. Zendesk is currently supporting more than 20,000 organizations teams of all sizes including Groupon, Airbnb, Pinterest, and Box to trust Zendesk with their customers.

Because Mikkel, Alexander and Morten, Zendesk’s founders, never forget those first days back in Copenhagen, Zendesk has a special offer to companies founded by entrepreneurs from Startup Pirates programs: FREE access to Zendesk Plus+ for 12 months.

If you are one of those founders and you are interested to get one of these Startup Packs check the conditions here and start getting into Zendesk mode! If there is any further question please send us an email to hello(at)startuppirates.org.

28 AGO 2012

Berlin, Campus Party & Startup Pirates

Last Thursday our co-founder, Inês Silva, went to Berlin to speak at Campus Party! Let's hear what Inês has to say about the experience:



“Over the past 4 days, I was in Berlin for Campus Party, an annual weeklong, 24-hours-a-day technology festival where thousands of “campuseros” (hackers, developers, gamers and geeks) equipped with laptops camp on-site and immerse themselves in a truly unique environment. I talked there on Friday about Startup Pirates and what we've learned with our internationalization process. Then I was also interviewed for Friday at Six, a local StartUp Talkshow.

It was a great experience, that allowed me to meet interesting people and spread the word about Startup Pirates. I have a feeling that a few Startup Pirates events will come out of my presentation at Campus Party!! Let's see ;)

This was my third time in Berlin and once again I fell in love with the city! Berlin has a vibrant startup scene that, until now, I couldn't find anywhere else!! Can't wait to be back in Berlin ;)“

Check Inês' presentation:

16 AGO 2012

Startup Pirates @ Bratislava

On Thursday 9 of August, 2011, our cofounder Rafael Pires went to Bratislava to facilitate the Startup Pirates @ Bratislava program and meet the Pirate participants and the local crew. The program takes place between August 11th to 18th, so it's still running at Connect Coworking.
Let's hear what Rafael has to say about the experience there:



“My first impression about Bratislava was that it is a quiet and relaxing town with people jogging, rollerblading and cycling. Regarding their startup scene the impression is that they are still in a early stage trying to push it.
On Friday, I had the opportunity to be in one of the new places for entrepreneurs in Slovakia called The Spot. We saw some young people pitching their ideas, but unfortunately they were pitching in Slovak so I couldn't understand. I also talked with some local entrepreneurs about other supporting infrastructures for entrepreneurs and it looks like they have some incubators, but they aren't doing that much for the ecosystem or they are unknown. Maybe that's why the local organizing team partnered with Start Cube one incubator from Czech Republic.

Coming back to the subject, the event started on Saturday on a real boat in the Danube river. Could it be more Pirate then this? I loved it! The participants arrived and we quickly started with the program. The first day was more focused on team building in order to get all the participants to know each other. It's important that they get along with each other because in the end of the second day they have to form teams and work a full week together.
After hearing their introductions and their business ideas, I realised that there's potential in the group. They come from several backgrounds, as usual we have the tech guys, but also accountants, marketing/PR, computer graphics, teachers, user experience and even people with experience on the tea industry were also represented. Unfortunately, once again the girls aren't showing up in these initiatives, only one in the entire group. Kudos to Nikola Novotova!

The ideas pitched are very different from each other. From one that wants to solve the problem of abandoned historical buildings or other that wants to combine artificial intelligence with augmented reality and tables or even to a service to help people to complain. When the time to pick the teams came, the group split into 6 teams, which means 6 ideas to be developed during the week. Now during the week the teams are attending several workshops on different important subjects like Business Model, Finance or How to pitch an idea. Between the workshops they are working hard on their idea with the help of some experienced mentors that are joining them at Connect Coworking.

I couldn't finish this blogpost without pointing out the amazing work that the local organizing team is doing. They put up a great program with such a good environment. We started on a boat, then we were at Devin Castle canoeing and had a workshop on the grass. Then we moved to Connect Coworking that has an awesome big open space room in an old factory building.
Thank you Andrea Bajnokova for bringing Startup Pirates to Bratislava and Congratulations to the all crew, Andrea, Katka Nagyová, Bianka Čajová, Ľuboš Ľahký and Mišo Berezňák. I'm really looking forward to see the final pitches. Good Luck teams!“

14 AGO 2012

Meet a Pirate: Norman Saade

With 22 years, Norman Saade, is studying industrial engineering at the KIT- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He confessed to us... "I love the idea of one day having my own successful company and I'm working hard to get there."



Tell us what you have been up to, since the first edition of Startup Pirates @ Porto?

“Since the first edition of Startup Pirates I'm actively working on a startup with the name "Lehrbegleiter". With a team of four motivated students we develop a online work desk where teachers can structure their lessons.“

What do you want to achieve in...

The next month:
“Next semester I will study a semester in Indonesia. Therefore I have to organized a couple of stuff.”

The next year:
“Have a good time and work on some projects"

The next 10 years:
“Build a successful company.”

Who are your role models? Why?

“In Sports: Thomas Müller - Why? - Well because he is always smiling and shows always 100% commitment! He showed that with commitment and hard work everything is possible.
In personal surroundings: My friends and family!“

What do you want to say to people that are thinking about applying to a Startup Pirates event or are about to join one?

“Go for it! It is a great chance to start your very own THING! The Pirate team organize pretty much everything for you ... you only have to be enthusiastic about an idea and work on it.”

Find Norman on Facebook and Linkedin.

02 AGO 2012

Meet a Pirate: Carolina Pinto

Carolina Pinto is a storyteller and a social entrepreneur who moves the world boosting synergies. She is the founder of mobapi. Based on a collaborative attitude and wanderlust, mobapi shares handmade stories co-created with inspiring communities. She is an Alumnus Pirate from the first edition of Startup Pirates @ Lisboa, in February 2012.



Tell us what you have been up to, since the first edition of Startup Pirates @ Lisboa?

“After 5 months around Indonesia and Timor Leste, I arrived in Portugal one day before the Startup Pirates @ Lisboa and since that intense pirate week it has been a snowball of great opportunities: participation in the beta start acceleration program + speaker at ignite Portugal (2 times) + a photo exhibition in Rio de Janeiro + speaker at rio+20 (2 times).“

What do you want to achieve in...

The next month:
“Organize my ideas and boost new synergies after an intense month in Brazil.”

The next year:
“Share more mobapi stories and hope to inspire more people along the way to make a difference."

The next 10 years:
“Contribute to safeguard the cultural heritage of small communities around the world.”

Who are your role models? Why?

“I'm always surprised with what I learn with the people that I meet along the way. Every single interaction contains a lot of meaning. As an example, last month I was with Muhammad Yunus, young entrepreneurs from all over the world, Brazilian catadores (pickers of recyclable materials) in one of the biggest landfills in the world and Jeffery Sachs... each of them inspired me in a different way.“

What do you want to say to people that are thinking about applying to a Startup Pirates event or are about to join one?

“Youth is a powerful generation with the capacity to make a change. If you have a small idea, a lot of energy or the capacity to aspire, you will have a great pirate experience. Oh, by the way, we need more pirate girls! Arrrrg”

Find Carolina on Facebook and Linkedin.

24 JUL 2012

Meet a Pirate: Catarina Feijão

Catarina Feijão is a 20 year old Portuguese wanna be entrepreneur studying Management at Católica University. She is an Alumnus Pirate from the first edition of Startup Pirates @ Porto, in September 2011.



Tell us what you have been up to, since the first edition of Startup Pirates @ Porto?

“After my experience at the first edition of Startup Pirates @ Porto, and because I learned so many different things and met incredible people, I wanted to continue to be part of the Pirates community and help in whatever I could. I did some volunteer work at Startup Pirates Battle and now I´m helping organizing the next Startup Pirates @ Porto 2012 event. I also became a member of Catolica Students’ Corporation, a very productive and creative Junior Enterprise of consulting services managed by students of all the courses of the UCP.“

What do you want to achieve in...

The next month:
“Next month I imagine myself finishing an internship and continuing to work on the projects I propose myself to.”

The next year:
“Next year I want to successfully finish my Management degree and continue being involved in exciting projects. I also want to have a first paid work experience, save some money and go visit China. (Working very hard on this one!)"

The next 10 years:
“To imagine my life with 10 years in advance it´s challenging and a bit scary!
I don´t have a clear vision of what I might be doing after finishing my studies. However, what I know for sure is that want to have knowledge and motivation to create impact whatever the job is. I truly believe in my country and I want to explore it better, helping increase the competitiveness comparing to other countries.”

Who are your role models? Why?

“I would definitely say my role models are my parents and my sister. They are always making sure I´m doing what is best for me and we support each other unconditionally. I used to say they´re the ones who will always help me go forward, never back.“

What do you want to say to people that are thinking about applying to a Startup Pirates event or are about to join one?

“I would immediately say “STOP thinking about it and go and apply NOW!”. Startup Pirates is a great opportunity for people to expose their own ideas and knowledge with others without any fears. Whatever you have an idea or not, do not worry because this event really create the perfect environment for you to grow and be creative enough to develop your potential. It´s a one-week life journey experience that´s really worth it!”

Find Catarina on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

17 JUL 2012

Meet a Pirate: João Loff

Like Miguel Ferreira, already featured on this blog post series, João Loff is also an Alumnus Pirate from the first edition of Startup Pirates @ Lisboa, in February 2012. We challenged him to describe himself in 4 sentences:
"Hard-worker. I'll work my way through it, even if I don't know how, I'll find a way - I assure you.
Patient. Whatever I'm involved with in life, I'll do it with no hurries and in an organized way. That's the only way I know you can achieve undeniably quality.
Perfectionist. I hate people that do the minimum possible to finish something. If I'm doing anything I'll do the best I can, and I get pissed if I know I could do better.
Self-learner. The 'new' in something, belongs in the 'new' in me. It fascinates me and makes me want to possess that. If you want to be the best at something, the only way is to learn the most you can about what you want to get better at, with no fears of what you might face in the process."



Tell us what you have been up to, since the first edition of Startup Pirates @ Lisboa?

“Since Startup Pirates I've focused mainly in finishing my degree, but now I have a whole new perspective and goal for it: get better at what I do, so I can start doing what I love. As boring as my degree sounds, I need it. I didn't put 'pirating' on hold, like you might think at first; I'm improving myself to be a better Pirate.
Because I don't want this to get boring, hard to imagine you wanting me to talk about my degree, I'll share with you three things I learned after my Startup Pirates experience:
Get better. You see, as a Pirate we need weapons to fight the Navy. And as entrepreneurship Pirates our weapons are our will and our knowledge. When I left Startup Pirates, my first ever entrepreneurship event, I left it with a clear conclusion: I need more. I wanted more. I decided to make a focused effort on improving my skills and myself. It is your only way to be the best Pirate ever: be the best, don't get satisfied with less.
Be selective. Continuing from the point above, after I left Startup Pirates, I wanted to learn it all, and I mean ALL. I went after everything I that could help me improve in any way possible. Little time after I found myself almost drowning in things I was doing/wanted to do. I had to stop and establish priorities. It was hard, because I wanted many things so much, but I knew I couldn't. I established priorities on what I wanted and what were the best opportunities for me to get better. Don't make the same mistake, choose what I you think it's the best for you to improve the most you can.
Don't forget your goals. While being selective and wanting to get better, you might loose track on what it is you want to achieve. You might find yourself improving just because you want to improve. You need a goal, and not a basic one. And don't forget: Aim high. Aim really high. You either change the world, or you are just one more that is passing by.“

What do you want to achieve in...

The next month:
“Finish my degree. Acquire more pirate weapons to fight for the right to have my own 'Black Pearl'.”

The next year:
“Build really solid foundations for 'Black Pearl', so I can apply to an incubator/accelerator."

The next 10 years:
“I'm the CEO, b*tch.”

Who are your role models? Why?

“I don't really like the notion of role models. You should write your own path, but you should take a bit out of everyone you cross path in your way no matter if it’s family, friends, teachers, co-workers or others. Take the best from them, absorb like a sponge, and move on. Said that, let me tell you a story about myself of someone I look up too, Kevin Durant.
If you don't like basketball you might be asking yourself "Kevin who?". Besides being one of the best basketball players in the world, Kevin, without him knowing, helped me in a rough period of my life. It was back in 2007 and Kevin was entering the NBA, he was fulfilling his childhood dream. As I was sitting by the TV watching his dream came true, and seeing how emotional he and his family were, something just stroke me: "Why can't I accomplish that? Why can't I live my dream?". And when he went up to the interview and said these words: "Hard work beats talent, when talent fails to work hard". I knew what had to change in my life. For that, I thank him.“

What do you want to say to people that are thinking about applying to a Startup Pirates event or are about to join one?

“When I applied to Startup Pirates I was hoping for something that my lost dream could hang on to for a couple more years. What I got was way more than that. I left with the certainty that I can do, I will do it, and I will have to fight for it - now! And no one was going to take that away from me, no one.
"Startup Pirates changed my life. Forever". I wrote this in a tweet for Startup Pirates first birthday. Are you ready to change your life forever?”

Find João on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

12 JUL 2012

Meet a Pirate: Miguel Ferreira

This is the second edition of our Meet a Pirate blog post series. This time we interviewed Miguel Ferreira. He is an Alumnus Pirate from the first edition of Startup Pirates @ Lisboa, in February 2012. He describes himself as "I’m a non-conformist, dreamer, idea starter and avid student of life. I treat work as play and live by the philosophy hell yeah or no!". Miguel is co-founder/Marketing Ninja at Foodzai and Founder of Gruv Lisbon.



Tell us what you have been up to, since the first edition of Startup Pirates @ Lisboa?

“Wow, I don’t even know where to start! I’ve been working with two pirates (André Jordão and José Mendonça) to bring Foodzai.com to life. After we won Startup Pirates Lisboa we were selected to do a one month acceleration program called Beta Start and since then we’ve been working hard to launch our beta website and to devise & implement a marketing game plan that inspires foodies and amateur chefs around the World to join us in our unwavering mission to crack up the traditional restaurant concept and change the way how people meet and eat.
What else? I’ve also been working with two friends on a project I founded in 2011. It's called Gruv Lisbon and it’s a fanfunding movement for electronic music events in Lisbon. We just hosted our second party in May and it was pretty humbling to see the feedback we had from the fans and from the DJ (a wonderkid from Rotterdam called D-Ribeiro). It was an afternoon party and at the end we all went out for dinner. Fans + the DJ and his Manager! How awesome is that?
Oh... and I also ended joining the new Startup Pirates Lisboa crew. The pirate movement literally changed my life so I felt it was time to give back what the pirate movement gave me. So I’m helping out this really awesome bunch of pirates host an epic 2nd edition in September.“

What do you want to achieve in...

The next month:
“To help our Foodzai team host the first “Stir Up!” meetup powered by Foodzai. We want to start bringing the local foodie communities together and build a sense of community. This is a concept we’re testing first in Lisbon. You'll hear more about it soon.”

The next year:
“Foodzai was created with the revolutionary idea that by connecting everyone in the World through the food they love, we can better it and live rich. So in the next year I just want to enjoy the ride and help scale the message and impact of Foodzai. It would be awesome if we started receiving letters from Foodzai users sharing with us their stories about why Foodzai inspired them to start doing what they were meant to be doing, which is to follow their dreams doing what they love, unleashing the rockstar chef in them.
I also want to see the Gruv Lisbon movement slowly grow and want to carry on enjoying the awesome vibe we’ve been feeling at our parties. Oh… and I also want to help Startup Pirates Lisboa host an epic life-changing event in September!”

The next 10 years:
“I don't like 10 year plans. The only thing I know is that about 1 year ago I discovered what I have to offer to the world and what really inspires me. I discovered that my life mission is to contribute to helping create an economy based on meaning, not on superficial stuff. So I want to carry on living by my own rules and make meaningful things happen, things that positively impact other people's lives. So answering your question…in 10 years I will carry on being involved in projects that are still aligned with this mission, doing things I love surrounded by people who inspire me and bring out the best in me.”

Who are your role models? Why?

“This is such a hard question! Ron Paul is definitely on top of the list. I'm deeply inspired by his message of liberty and I believe he’s the most inspiring political activist since Martin Luther King.
Danny Howells, a british DJ I really love, is also near the top of the list because I believe he’s the perfect example of how you can impact millions of people doing what you love and never selling out. In such a competitive world like the DJing world, Danny Howells has a unique sound no one else has, and he never sold out. You can really sense his connection with the crowd wherever he plays. That’s inspiring!
Simon Sinek is also a role model. His book "Start with why" had a deep impact in me and changed my life and the way how I see the World.
Last but not least I will have to mention Derek Sivers. His "Hell Yeah or no!" philosophy deeply inspires me and because of it I’m no longer saying “yes” to projects or things I’m only kind of interested in – now it’s either “HELL YEAH” or “no.”“

What do you want to say to people that are thinking about applying to a Startup Pirates event or are about to join one?

“Think less, act more. Just do it (I promise Nike didn’t pay me to say this! ha). Seriously! The opportunity you have to meet, work & network with like-minded people is mindblowing! Startup Pirates is so much more than an event. Startup Pirates changed my life…and it may change yours as well.”

Find Miguel on Twitter, Facebook and Zerply.

01 JUL 2012

Meet a Pirate: Henrique Cruz

This time we are starting a new blog post series. We are going to interview several Startup Pirates alumni to know what they are doing now. Our first issue is about Henrique Cruz. He is a 20 year old Industrial Engineering and Management student.



Tell us what you have been up to, since the first edition of Startup Pirates @ Porto?

“That is an interesting question since a quite lot changed after my participation in the Startup Pirates Porto.
Short after the event, and following a very active year in the organization, I became the Vice President of Finance of ESTIEM. For those who do not know, ESTIEM is the European organization of Industrial Engineering and Management Students.
This means that alongside with my studies, I have been travelling trough Europe most of time, trying to lead the organization forward, and having the time of my life doing so.“

What do you want to achieve in...

The next month:
“It might not seem much exciting, but I would say that in the next month I am aiming at passing all my exams and finishing my Engineering bachelor.”

The next year:
“In the next year, I would like to either be doing an internship somewhere, or engage in a some kind of project life will throw at me at that time.”

The next 10 years:
“I can honestly say that I have no clue. I can only hope that, either while working as an industrial engineer in a production line of a major corporation, leading an international NGO or putting myself to the test in the exciting world of the entrepreneurship, I can be somehow making a difference, waking up every morning excited about what that day might bring.”

Who are your role models? Why?

“I don´t think I have one single role model or a single person I look up. I would rather say that my role models are the all hard-working people around us who do all they can do achieve their goals and are still able to enjoy what they do. In terms of people that are closer to me, I´d say that my parents are my daily role models and the ones I look up the most.“

What do you want to say to people that are thinking about applying to a Startup Pirates event or are about to join one?

“The first thought that jumps into my mind is that there isn´t much thinking involved. It is truly a great opportunity taking part in an event with the quality that the Startup Pirates has been accustoming us to.
Regardless of what are your expectations going to the event, I can assure you that you will meet great people, get to know a different side of the world, learn what you wouldn´t elsewhere, and who knows, maybe you will start working on the idea that will change your life!”

Find Henrique on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

03 JUN 2012

Avast Ye for 12FeetTallStudio!

Here we are for our second article from the series of interviews “Avast Ye… ". This time we interviewed 12FeetTallStudio.

After being one of the 3 winners of the Startup Pirates @ Porto 2011, Rui Pedro Lima and Sandrine Silva started 12FeetTallStudio. They are a company dedicated to simply existing solutions, transforming them into platform-free applications (desktop/laptop computers, tablet computers, etc), development of home brew creative projects, web app consulting and marketing campaigns for home brew products. Their area of expertise and dedication is the line between usability, simplicity and attractive design.



Lets hear what they have to say...

Can you tell us a bit more about your project? What are you doing?
“Ok, our project can be resumed to a CRM/ERP free of charge for every animal lover. There are some registry dependencies such as, for animal disease history and treatments, a professional veterinarian number, or if you want access to stocks and clients’ management it is required a valid Portuguese NIF number (we are working on validation for internationalization).
The software is totally free of charge because we included stores that supply everything for the business, from a clinic, to an animal store, to an independent veterinarian, much like Valve’s® Steam™ Store or Apple® iTunes™ store.
Right now we are gathering clients while developing, always focusing on user feedback (our clients point what’s needed and what’s not and we make it super functional and extra pretty).
Also we have some outsourcing projects (so we can pay taxes and expenses and keep the machine alive).
And we are praying for being accepted in Amsterdam’s Startup Bootcamp, starting in April.
We have in plan to release the first closed beta during Spring :-D“

Describe in a few sentences how these past months have been.
“Lots of work, like tons of work, non-stop! Weekends and everything. Xmas tasted like a regular sunday :-)
A few disappointments, mostly because of the tax load which nobody, not even the government, can explain why we pay it, and on trying to gather clients and businesses, once again, because of the low level of confidence around the Portuguese businessmen.
But mostly, they have been awesome and we have been loving to work for our own and meeting amazing people and having amazing people looking for us. Has been a huge rewarding experience.”

What were the biggest challenges that you faced until now? And accomplishments?
“The biggest challenge has been keeping the office door open hehehe.
Also, competition is terrible. Like mean people trying to cut us off. But i guess it’s how stuff works so, and since we aren’t a single project company, if one fails, 10 more show up. Infinite imagination and gigantic passion for working under our own conditions have being fueling us almost thru everything :-)“

Next moves?
“Amsterdam!!!! Please accept us!!! :-D
Right now we are focused on delivering the main project and side projects that we are into so we can “invent” something new. But we feel that being in another country for a couple of months could be the thing we need to grow both as a company and as human beings.”

What would you say to a person who has a business idea and wants to turn it into a reality?
“If you’re crazy enough, get your hands dirty and start working! If you plan on going out every weekend, buying fancy cloths and stuff like that, well, keep your job and give that idea to someone crazy enough to take the chances :-) like meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee XD
I love this way of living but i feel the lack of social life and stuff like that. It takes a lot to dive into these waters but, well, it depends on the person. But i have no regrets so, i guess it answers it.“

Find 12FeetTallStudio on Twitter.
Founders twitter account: Rui Pedro Lima / Sandrine Silva. They said "Feel free to say something. We loooooove to chat :-)".

27 MAY 2012

Startup Pirates still on the road & a Big Thank you!

Over the past 3 months, we've been attending lots of events! From the Global Entrepreneurship Congress to the MIT Global Startup Workshop. From Re:publica to Next Berlin. From the TransEurope Express 2012 to the Maastricht Week of Entrepreneurship. It has been an amazing learning experience and all the inputs and advice we've been receiving helped us shape what we want with Startup Pirates, but most importantly, how we can do a better job helping entrepreneurs in the making develop their ideas into a business. At Startup Pirates we are always learning, improving our methodology, asking for advice and help and making sure that everyday we provide a better service both to our participants, but also to all the amazing organizers from all over the world that make Startup Pirates happen in their cities.



Almost a year ago, we launched Startup Pirates with a small party for some friends and family. Back then, we didn't know what Startup Pirates could be. We had lots of hopes and dreams, but not in our wildest dreams we could guess that in less than a year we could be in so many different countries and continents. We couldn't guess that we would meet so many amazing participants and organizers, we couldn't guess that we would help create so many startups and projects and we couldn't guess that we would receive the support from so many amazing entrepreneurs.

Thank you all!! It has been an incredible ride! And we can't wait for the next months...

09 MAY 2012

Get your Pirate flag!

Today we are sharing a message from André Jordão, a pirate who attended the Startup Pirates @ Lisboa in February 2012. During the program André and his team (Miguel Ferreira and José Mendonça) developed Foodzai and they actually won. Foodzai is an online platform that connects amateur chefs with foodies. It’s something like a “peer to peer cooking”. A couple weeks after attending Startup Pirates @ Lisboa they got a lot of national press and have been nominated as one of the top 5 portuguese startups to keep an eye on by a national major tech blog (tek sapo)!



Here is his message about Startup Pirates:

“Will you be a creator or just a consumer?
Put your heart into something. Say something that no one else dares to say.

At Startup Pirates you greet every speaker with an ARRRRG. Because something cool is going to happen. Always.
Many VIP entrepreneurs will talk to you as a peer and give you a cutting insight.
The talks are inspiring. One of the best talks I ever saw live... was at Startup Pirates.
You boost your networking. Actually, you boost your spirit.
I would swear sometimes I heard Hans Zimmer as background music.

Startup Pirates forces you to think. What it takes to be a pirate? Not only a brave mindset but also and mainly the right point of sail. If you can find that... dolphins will come to you.

An intensive and exhausting week... but what you get, boy, is something really priceless.
In the month following the Pirates ​​our team made the best startup acceleration program in Portugal, was considered one of the five most promising portuguese ideas, had requests for interviews and is preparing the first release of the platform.

But the most important of all: we know we will never take our pirate flag down.

ARRRG!"

Find Foodzai on Facebook and Twitter.

21 APR 2012

Avast Ye for Uniplaces!

We are doing a series of interviews with the startups that came out of Startup Pirates. It’s called “Avast Ye for… ". “Avast Ye" is a hailing pirate phrase to indicate that the hailed must "stop" and give attention. That’s exactly what we aim! We are checking out how the startups are going!

The first Startup we are featuring is Uniplaces. They were one of the winners of Startup Pirates @ Porto 2011. They have as mission “Make searching for accommodation near your universities easy and accessible”. Uniplaces is a student accommodation platform, connecting students with landlords in an easy and efficient way. It offers students the largest availability of rooms, while giving landlords targeted and direct access to a vast pool of students. Moreover, by forming strategic partnerships with Universities and student organizations, Uniplaces is becoming recognized as the official student accommodation portal in the country. Considering the photo from left to the right the founders are Miguel Santo Amaro, Leo Lara, Ben Grech and Mariano Kostelec that is missing in the photo.



Can you tell us a bit more about your project? What are you doing?
“Since September we have pivoted to the long-term rentals (same rental market; different business model in a different niche) due to a feasibility analysis and a specific need that we found when talking to consumers.“

Describe in a few sentences how these past months have been.
“Set up an office in Porto in October (@UPTEC). Worked in AdeonaRentals and few other business ideas until end of November. Won Startup Weekend 2011 with UniPlaces and decided to focus on UniPlaces. Applied to Startup Chile and got accepted. In January, we changed our office to Startup Lisboa (still have a virtual office space in UPTEC). We’re commuting to often to Lisbon - most of our university partners were in Lisbon and started talking to investors from Lisbon. In January, Leo joined the team as a technical co-founder. Great project management and engineering skills – a real boost in the ambition of our team. In February, we recruited two more people (one engineer and one designer) and started working on a new version of our website from scratch (using PHP language). In March, we started talking to investors about our first round of financing (Seed Round) and we’ve opened our office in Chile. We signed already a term sheet with the investors (UK and Portuguese) and should have the deal done before the end of the current month. Customers seem to appreciate the value of the product and we currently have +20 university partners and a considerable amount of traffic.”

What were the biggest challenges that you faced until now? And accomplishments?
“Biggest challenges have been keeping up the momentum of the team (we’ve seen a high level of growth since the beginning and is important we keep it), making sure we respond on time and positively to all demands of our customers (within our limited startup resources), dealing with some bureaucracy in Portugal (we all expect things to happen considerably faster) as well as managing the engineering and business teams in a very effective way (engineers and managers speak very different languages). Regarding accomplishments, we have managed to build a team of great people (both skilled and personality wise) that are ambitious and fully committed to the team (we have two married guys that moved to Lisbon to work with us and we’re very proud of them!). We’re also very satisfied with the expansion targets (expanding to Chile in less than 6 months of launching the business) and our customer satisfaction (university partners and landlords that use the website). “

Next moves?
“Within the current financial year, we aim to close the seed round of financing, consolidate our market positions in Portugal and Chile and expand operations to Spain.”

What would you say to a person who has a business idea and wants to turn it into a reality?
“Priorities: 1. Team. 2. Market. 3. Product. Get the best team (the first important lesson for any entrepreneur is to convince someone else to join the team/idea/dream). Then, make sure you have a huge market (total addressable market) – you can have an ok product in a huge market, but you shouldn’t have a great product in a very small market. Finally, you should develop a product that customers will love (not you, but your customers – it’s easy to fall in love with your product). If you can, create some barriers of entry /protectionism and make sure it scales fast!“

Find Uniplaces on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Angelist and Github.

23 MAR 2012

Upcoming Startup Pirates events

In February we had the super successful Startup Pirates @ Lisboa! If you want to see what happened check their final report. In December we announced our first Startup Pirates in Africa, the Startup Pirates @ Algiers.



And now, only after six months from our first event, we are very pleased to announce 3 new Startup Pirates events:

In August, we will be in Bratislava, in September, we will be once again in Porto and in November we will be in Cape Town. We couldn’t be more happy and we can’t wait to meet the courageous pirates that will attend our events around the world.

But we have more news! In June we’ll have a Startup Pirates Battle in Lisbon in partnership with Startup Lisboa. In this big event, we want to have the best start-ups in Portugal competing for great prizes and glory!

Stay tuned!! We’ll announce more events, more initiatives and more surprises soon!

19 MAR 2012

Startup Pirates at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress

Last week, we had the pleasure to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Congress organized by the Global Entrepreneurship Week with the support of the Kauffman Foundation. For the first time in Europe, the Global Entrepreneurship Congress gathered in Liverpool, people from all over the world, that are working in the field of entrepreneurship by being entrepreneurs, promoting entrepreneurship or doing research on the topic.



It was great to be surrounded by people, that like us, want to help the world to become a more entrepreneurial place and want to empower entrepreneurs and start-ups. It was great to participate in discussions about the importance of new companies in today’s economy, about what we can do to help entrepreneurs and start-ups, the role of the state and experienced entrepreneurs in promoting entrepreneurship and what all those programs that are working hard to foster entrepreneurship need to do to be successful in the future.

For us, the two main take aways were:
1 - The importance of having data showing the output of the different start-up programs;
2 - The different ways we have to start an entrepreneurial ecosystem and how hard it is to do so.

Besides this, it was exciting for us to share the vision and goals we have for Startup Pirates. We received great feedback and great new ideas and we are thrilled to start working with the people we met.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be at the MIT GSW in Istanbul and at the Transeuropa Express 2012 in Rome. Contact us if you are going to be around! We would love to have a chat with you!!

17 FEB 2012

Startup Pirates @ Lisboa, what a week!

"What a week! After eight beautiful sunny days (one of them in a boat), more than thirty awesome young entrepreneurs from six different countries, ten workshops, eight motivational and entrepreneur talks, one treasure hunt in Lisbon by night, eighteen mentors, twenty eight pitched ideas, nine passionated teams, 2498 post-its and one wedding proposal... again... what a week! In the end, motivated pirates were born. Incredible people that are not afraid to discover their own potential and set the sails in the right direction. No matter winds or tides, they will succeed in their trip. They will be themselves in their awesomeness. They will be PIRATES." - The Startup Pirates @ Lisboa Team



After a super intense week of work, the Startup Pirates @ Lisboa is now over. It has been a long way until here and we couldn't be more happy with the amazing work done by the local organizers team. Since the very beginning, the Startup Pirates @ Lisboa team definided very ambitious goals. They wanted to start the event in a boat and they wanted to create a bootcamp in the first weekend. Above all, they wanted to provide the participants the best content and experience possible. They managed to do everything and much more. It's great to see that during the week 9 ideas were developed. More than 30 entrepreneurs, mentors and investors stopped by and gave their contribution. The participants had access to 10 workshops and several entrepreneurs talks and they could always count on the supported of a group of very experienced mentors.

But, nothing better to assess the quality of the event, than to read some feedback that we received:

"Startup Pirates Lisboa in one word: Awesomeness! Do I need to say more? It started on a boat! The Crew worked so much to be sure that we were having a wonderful week! The Pirates were so much fun! We learned so much from the Mentors and Speakers! It was intense and inspiring! Only for people passionate about entrepreneurship, that work hard and love to learn." by Ana Sofia Pinho

"My pirate journey started when I was in Sicily, at one entrepreneurship event. There I had the pleasure to be participant at a workshop about networking given by Rafael and Daniela, two co-founders of Sartup Pirates. Excited like never before, I decided to organize Startup Pirates in my country too. That was one of the main reason why I came to Lisboa to experience the event by myself and then be able to transfer the same spirit to my country. I expected a lot, however, Startup Pirates @ Lisboa completely suprised me. It was one of the most intense events I have ever been to, with amazing 31 other brave pirates who made the week unforgettable. The quality of the speakers, mentors and the workshops was unbelievably high. I learned a lot of information about starting up your own business, however just when I saw demostrations in the city center of Lisboa by hundreds of people complaning about the current situation, I realized that the world more than even needs pirates and events like this to change something. In short, thank you Pirate Crew for a mind-blowing and life-changing event, it was AWESOME! Arrrrgh" by Andrea Bajnokova

26 JAN 2012

The Future of Work with Podio

A team or a company become stronger when people work together in a collaborative way to get to a common purpose. And that’s where Podio, a collaborative working platform, aims to make a statement. But why is Podio different from other known working platforms? With Podio you have the possibility to customize and adapt your working space to your needs: “Change the way we work, an app at the time”.

From the very beginning, we have been exploring and using Podio to centralize information on the Startup Pirates projects, to keep everyone updated, to manage tasks and meetings or to ask for comments and take decisions. We even use the Podio apps to create application forms to the Startup Pirates events. And we could keep naming the Podio features you can use, but we’ll let you discover them by yourselves.

As we’ve told you before, Podio is one of our partners since the very beginning, so we decided to maximize the potential of our partnership. Together, we managed to organize an event under the name “Future of Work - Portugal”. And that’s how Kasper Hulthin, one of Podio’s co-founders, has visited us last January 23rd, to present his story and vision.
The visit started at UPTEC, the local incubator, from entrepreneur to entrepreneur, lifting lots of curiosity on Podio and Kasper’ journey.



Later on, in an informal meetup at “Maus Hábitos”, 30 attendees joined us to welcome Kasper and Podio to Portugal. Kasper shared the impressive Podio’s history, from Copenhagen to San Francisco. Then he made a live demo of the platform, featuring the main characteristics of Podio. But what let people curious, was the possibility of anyone, even "code dummies", to be able to create an application on Podio. So, after answering the crowd questions, Kasper finished by creating an app with everyone’s collaboration. Check all the photos...

Don’t miss the future of work, get aboard!

19 DEC 2011

Startup Pirates @ Lisboa

After a very successful event in Porto, a team of adventurous pirates has decided to take the event to Lisbon and spread the Pirates entrepreneurial spirit!

On February 4 a group of 30 wannabe entrepreneurs will gather in Instituto Superior Técnico for a very intense week. The event will start with a 2-day bootcamp, where participants have the opportunity to meet each other and attend workshops on creativity, trends, and pitch among others. In the other 6 days, participants will attend workshops on various topics, work on their business ideas and in the end present their ideas to a group of investors.



If you are considering creating your own company or you are looking for a co-founder, the Startup Pirates @ Lisboa is the right place to go. Join the event; work on your own idea and with our help launch a successful start-up!

23 Oct 2011

Startup Pirates experience at EBSpreneurship Forum 2011

One week ago, the Startup Pirates team was at the EBSpreneurship Forum 2011. It was our first presence in an international event, and we must say, a unique experience.

After an amazing opening by Mike Butcher, Editor at Tech Crunch Europe, the program kept going with awesome speakers, entertaining activities, parties and great networking opportunities. There, we had the chance to make a presentation about our project among the participants. We’ve shared the reasons why we believe Entrepreneurs are so similar to Pirates and also, what are our motivations and main goals. We guess we’ve nailed it!

Next, we were present in a round table discussing the theme “Entrepreneurship in Europe – Quo vadis” with Tim Lagerpusch (CIE-KIT), Maeva Tordo (Makesense), Mihai Mafteianu (Cronian Labs) and Sven Schmidt (Accel Partners). An interesting conversation, with a full room carefully listening to it.

And as if it was not enough, we were also at the Innovation Fair with our Pirate exhibition booth. We were gently approached by many people and had the pleasure to share our project with them.



Describing the event in three words: energy, learning and networking.

Check their website and our photo report on our Flickr set.

It was a pitty we couldn’t stay to enjoy the rest of the program the EBS9 had prepared.

We must commend the exquisite organization and hope we’ll have the opportunity to repeat the experience at the EBSpreneurship Forum 2012 and meet you all there.

Guess the Pirate spirit is spreading!

Be Brave, Be Crazy, Be a Pirate!

17 Oct 2011

Startup Pirates and Podio

It’s always difficult to manage a team when you’re starting a new project. It’s even more difficult when that team is spread across three different countries, in three different time zones, and you have an event to organize, deadlines to meet, and goals to accomplish.

In May 2011, Startup Pirates was born. Startup Pirates is a movement working on the promotion of the entrepreneurship among wannabe entrepreneurs and empowering them with the essential tools to create a company. We are a team of five friends that after many passionate discussions about the importance of teaching entrepreneurship at university, and the importance of start-ups for our economy, decided to create a program to address the gap we’ve seen in our current education system.

We started working on the project in May and decided to organize the first Startup Pirates @ Porto event in the first week of September. In the meantime, João went to Istanbul for a summer internship and Inês travelled to Zurich where she will stay for the next five months. With our hectic schedule and dispersed team we urgently needed a project manager tool to help structure our work, keep communication flowing and achieve our milestones.

We had previously tried different online tools but we weren’t 100% happy with them. However, Inês was using Podio in another project and she liked it so we decided to go with Podio. We have to say now that we couldn’t manage Startup Pirates without Podio. Podio keeps the different projects inside Startup Pirates super organized, and improves the communication flow between team members.

Startup Pirates now has a partnership with Podio and all the attendees at local Startup Pirates events to have access to premium accounts. We really recommend that everyone with a project, big or small, use Podio and some of our partners are already exploring it. It’s easy to use, it saves time, money, increase efficiency and the team behind Podio is amazing.

Keep rocking, Podio Team! And don’t forget...

Be Brave, Be Crazy, Be a Pirate!

01 Jul 2011

First event - Porto

We have the pleasure to announce, our first event will take place during the first week of September at Porto. We believe Porto is the right place for the launch of Startup Pirates and we are very happy and excited to help spread an entrepreneurship culture in Porto. Our goal is to give the right tools to wannabe entrepreneurs and guide them in the first steps of the process of creating a company.

We are going to have experienced and very talented entrepreneurs that are going to share their experience and thoughts on entrepreneurship. We'll soon announce the first speakers and mentors so stay tuned and check our local website at www.startuppirates.org/porto

01 Jul 2011

Welcome aboard Pirate!

We are happy to announce the launch of Startup Pirates. After weeks waiting and after receiving lots of emails and feedback from hundreds of people we are now prepared to launch Startup Pirates.

More than a company, a project or a non-profit, Startup Pirates is a Movement. We want to spread an entrepreneurship culture around the world and show that it's possible to build a company right after college or even during a college degree. For us, age, genre, location or professional status aren't obstacles but opportunities to create companies and change the World. There are many ways to change the world and we at Startup Pirates picked entrepreneurship as the way to do it.

Our goal is to create one-week startup schools around the world. By making the perfect match between the academic world and the entrepreneurship environment, we want to bring together the latest discoveries done in terms of business models, marketing management, Human resources management and the latest achievements in the technological field. We believe this mix is the secret sauce to make startups successful.

So, join us at Startup Pirates, give us feedback, organize your own startup school, with our help or be an attendee at one of the upcoming events.

Be brave, be crazy, be a Pirate!!