Overview Of The SummerCamp4Startups 2014 Event
SummerCamp4Startups took place once again on the 14-15th of August in Nelijärve, a beautiful location near Tallinn. Trinidad was represented by Marko Nemberg (as a mentor) and myself, Katri. The goal of the event was to bring together folks who already have a startup, are planning to build one, or are interested in the startup lifestyle.
Coffee, presentations and group work
It seems that these startup enthusiasts are not your typical bunch of Estonians as business cards were exchanged already on the bus. After the relatively short bus ride we arrived at the venue, surrounded by a curious bunch of bumblebees, who seemingly wanted to get to know us better, and scare some of us in the process.
The host of the event was Dmitri Sarle, the dancing entrepreneur and Arctic Startup’s head honcho. After the short introduction Dmitri welcomed Gary Planthaber to the stage.
Gary talked mostly about his own sales experiences in the past and gave the crowd some helpful hints on how to improve the sales process in their teams. After a short break, the stage was ready for 4 Estonian startup superstars – Pipedrive, Testlio (our testing partner), Qminder and Toggl.
The startups talked about their secrets of success in both marketing and sales, suprisingly Toggl could not be at the camp physically. Instead they sent a short, but sweet video presentation.
Later on the participants were divided into groups. The first task was the same for everyone. Build a windmill using only paper, scissors and glue.
The 10 minutes given for the task eventually turned into 25. Once completed, the windmills were put to the test. Only 2 of the 16 managed to work. How did you get the wind, you ask? Blow dryers to the rescue!
Now on to the workshop
Every group had to think of ways of improving the user base of the 4 startups. Each mentor had 3 groups to manage. We were lucky to get Toggl’s group. The task from Toggl was to raise their onboarding rate from 28 to 35 percent. Onboarding rate is the nr of users who start using the service after they are registered.
To our surprise the teams moved away from A/B testing and suggested user testing, interviews and gamification elements instead. This had a valid point because sometimes you can get much better information from interviews and understanding why people behave the way they do.
Each mentor had to pick a winner out of the three groups who would present their ideas on the main stage. This was a complicated task and we couldn’t choose just one. Hence, all three of them got the chance to present their ideas.
Beer, sauna, and running out of business cards
The mood was great, despite the somewhat cold weather. People made the most of the saunas and the lake, many of them were caught swimming late in the night, in pitch black darkness, with only their heads popping out every now and then.
The next morning we all had a chance to take part of the psych tests provided by, well, the Psych Bus, a group of traveling psychologists doing various experiments. We had the chance to try out the Oculus Rift (awesome!), see how messed up our senses got when exposed to a backwards world, and move objects with our thoughts.
Tests and experiments completed, it was time to leave. We had a lovely time, so you can bet that you will see us again next year!
