7 lessons for startups from Slush 2015

Slush is an event held in Helsinki, Finland that brings together some of the world’s most promising startups to meet venture capitalists/investors that could possibly buy into their idea, making it a reality, a business in its own right.

What’s most impressive about this event is that it’s a non-profit event organized by a community of entrepreneurs, investors, students and event production professionals that grew from a crowd of 300 to over 15000 attendants this year!

Attending it this year, 2015, was an honor and I have some important lessons shared by many speakers at the event so make sure you read all of them:

1. Know your customers and what they need most and then get together with the right people when growing your business. That’s really important for any startup entrepreneur – Risto Siilasma, Chairman of Nokia

2. We need to challenge bureaucracy, changing the way the world views poverty, enhancing dignity. What if more people thought about what they can give to the world more than what they can take from it? – Jacqueline Novogratz  (above), co-founder and CEO of Acumen

3. As an eCommerce startup sometimes in the growth stage you make a mistake and focus only on scaling-up than building a longterm solution. The most important thing for any eCommerce platforms is for users to TRUST it works. As an eCommerce business make sure you deliver products that your team is proud of – Daniel Schneider of eCommerce platform Zalando.

4. If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late – Meni Morim of Findify

5. Learn from those who have made mistakes already as you create new products and design them. Be bold enough to experiment and let people give feedback on your product so you can redefine it to be perfect – Tuija Seipell of TheCoolHunter.net

6. When creating apps for children, make them visually appealing and work on audio quality too. I don’t like seeing kids on devices all the time so make tasks that encourage them to do activities outside the app as well – Lucas Zanotto of Yattatoy

7. When designing your brand as tech developer, get things done, plan, know your products. Get more people talking about your product e.g bloggers. Make sure your legal and administrative end is in order so you can focus on other things. Always remember that software never gets better than hardware allows it to – Konrad Bergström, co-founder and President at Zound Industries

These are all from successful entrepreneurs and I hope those brief statements pull you out of startup slumber and onto the next big idea.

All the best!

You can see more conversations from Slush on Twitter using the hashtag #slush15