[Sweden] During the last 24 hours the cream of Sweden’s tech entrepreneur scene have exchanged jeans for yukatas (Japanese bathrobes), chairs for bean bags and isolated themselves in a zen style hotel outside Stockholm. Why? To come up with 60 new startups and then take over the world, of course! Well, maybe that isn’t what they think, but the location definitely has a Bond villain feel to it.
You have to hand it to the Swedes. Not only are they in amongst the forefront of web entrepreneurship in Europe, thanks to companies like Spotify and others, but they’re also hungry for more. This is the second 24 hour business camp of the year (the first ever event was held in January). During the last camp about 52 startups were created. And now they’re aiming for more. In bathrobes. In Autumn.
The event was created by Ted Valentin as a way of encouraging Swedish entrepreneurship. According to him the point of isn’t to come up with the next Spotify, but to build small projects that could survive longer than 24 hours. And it seems to be a concept that works. About 70 percent of the businesses created in January were still running three months after the event.
There wont be any winners however. Although Swedish media company Bonnier will choose an idea that will get 250 000 SEK (about €24 000 and $36 000) in ad space. Many of the teams are building on existing APIs and of course Bonnier has opened up their systems for developers. During the first day of the event another Swedish media group Wyatt (which among other things run social networking sites Lunarstorm and Bilddagboken) matched Bonnier’s offer and will also provide one of the teams with 250 000 SEK in ad space plus a trip to San Fransisco.
The level of ambition at the event varies. Some teams bring in a lot of experience and knowledge (and fame), other teams are in it for the lolz. Mostly the entrepreneurs seem to look at the event as an opportunity to get their heads down and work on those pet projects that they otherwise never have the time for. Some of the more interesting demos to come out of the event are.
Lokaliker.com
A project where manpower and experience seems to have made a difference. The people behind mobile video streaming site Bambuser decided to come up with a real time review app for locations. Lokaliker allows its users to rate locations and find out which restaurants, pubs, Japanese spa hotels are hot right now. The team plan on launching an iPhone app during the weekend.
Sharity.org
The team behind this site have done a lot of prep before the event and are definitely counting on their idea surviving for more than 24 hours. Sharity is a service that allows people to search for charities, donate money through the site and then share their donations with friends on different social networking sites. The team behind the idea already have some Swedish charities on board and say they’ve been more than enthusiastic about the service. If successful, the website could make chugging a thing of the past and would allow charities to reach the public through viral marketing instead.
Another interesting site to come out of the event is TweetedBrands, brought to you by the people behind RSS reader Bloglovin. The site lists the most tweeted brands out there. Not surprisingly Twitter itself tops the list.
Those who’re interested in what Swedish entrepreneurs can come up with in 24 hours can read up on the different startups at the 24hbc website (most of it is in Swedish, but there’s always Google translate for that)
The event was organised by The Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship. Bonnier will announce their winner on Saturday and Wyatt in about two weeks.