We knewed it for one month, but we were told not to tell it publicly. Yesterday was the day: the German Ministry of Economics and Technology (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie) awarded SnipClip a prize for its unique and innovative business concept. Find more information on our (new) news site.

53 teams filed a business plan, 10 teams were invited to present their business idea, 6 were elected to the 4th place, two to the 3rd place, one to the 2nd and one to the 1st place at the senkrechtstarter business plan competition. No, we didn’t make it into the top 3 (a.k.a. top 4), but nevertheless, we are happy! Not because of the money, but because of the feedback. Thanks to the jury! And thanks to the organizer (= Bochum 2015 and the mayor of Bochum)! I hope more German cities like Bochum will organize a business plan competition. Btw: Bochum lost Nokia, but announced today that RIM (a.k.a. Blackberry) will open a research institute at Bochum. Gratulation!

Senkrechtstarter (“vertical take-off aircraft”) is the name of a business plan competition from the city of Bochum. We are invited to present our business idea to a jury at Friday. 57 teams applied for the competition, but only ten were invited. Next week we know which team will be in the top 3.

Wish us luck and have a good time!

We didn’t make it into the top ten of the start2grow teams :( But, of course, we will continue – Senkrechtstarter, MBPW, NUK, …, and don’t forget the start2grow competition especially for IT companies!

Have a good time and wish us luck!

We had 45 minutes left to upload our business plan to the website of the Senkrechtstarter business plan competition. I had to leave our office 10 minutes before, because I had to get the last train to Augsburg, where I live. So I’m blogging out of the train – thanks to my UMTS card from Vodafone (no, it doesn’t work very well; just GPRS and a lot of blue screens). We all (Andi, Sebastian and myself) had a hard work day; thirteen hours or so. Tomorrow there is another deadline: we have to send in our presentation for Monday (start2grow competition).

Btw: thanks Lenz, Mark and Olivia for giving us feedback! We appreciate that very much!

Have a good night!

We are happy to announce that our team is invited to present our business idea to the jury of the start2grow business plan contest (phase 2) on March 31th in Dortmund.

start2grow is an initiative of the dortmund-project. Its aim is to support founders especially with money and know-how. The contest is not restricted to companies from Dortmund. There are three different contests each year: one for IT start-ups, one for microelectronics and one, which is open to all industries. We participated in the last one. The contest is further divided into two phases. To win the first phase you just need to send in a concept. For the second phase you need a complete and detailed business plan.

For the second phase 63 business plans were send in. Twenty of them were chosen to be reviewed by an interdisciplinary jury. However, the jury does not only judge the business plans, but also the teams. So we will to travel to Dortmund on March 31th and present our idea to the jury in five minutes! Sounds like a lot of fun ;)

Wish us luck and have a good time!

Andi and Sebastian had a long work day (12 hours or so) to finish our business plan. Tomorrow, Sebastian will send it to Dortmund where it hopefully arrives at Monday. This is the dead line for the start2grow competition. Wish us luck and have a good time!

PS: Thanks to Katja and Mark (from the UnternehmerTUM) for supporting us!

Yesterday, we had a meeting with our business angels. They liked our demo! I hope they like our business plan, too. In March we will know more …

Have a good time!

Sebastian is working hard to integrate our demo into Facebook. Why we’ve chosen Facebook? Because we think, the customer should not come to us, but we have to go where the customers are! You remember the four “P”: product, price, promotion and place. Some people think that the Internet is one gigantic distribution channel. It is not! The Internet is just one medium. The channels are the different community sites on the net, like Facebook or MySpace. Thanks to technologies like Open APIs and Widgets these channels can now be used by anyone and any company. And so we do.

In the meantime Andi is working on our “One. Two. Three.” illustration. Three icons to explain our USP to the customer? Puuh … (Btw: Thank you Mr. Jopen for your inspiration and critical feedback at Friday evening!)

Finally, I’ve set up this blog and work on our business plan. In two weeks there will be a presentation meeting with our business angels. The plan changes again and again. Like most of the human body is replaced multiple times a life by the regeneration of cells our document evolves.

Have a good time and enjoy the weekend!