150 people at the StartItUp! festival

More than 150 people visited Novo mesto on Saturday afternoon of the first Saturday in September, where they listened to six speakers from the startup world, on themes ranging from the mountain tourism to wine and cuisine. All speakers were successful Slovenian entrepreneurs. The organizer, Startup Novo mesto, will start its accelerator program called KickUP on 16th September. People who are interested in entrepreneurship, computers or design and want to create their own startup, are welcome to apply.

On 7th September the StartItUp! festival attracted more than 150 people who listened to as much as 6 speakers, all successful Slovenian entrepreneurs. They have shared their personal stories on how they got into the business world, faced its challenges and skipped its obstacles to run their business successfully even today.

Dejan Romih from MountVacation encouraged the participants to follow their dreams and do what they want. Few years ago he left his regular job and started a venture that follows his passion: skiing. MountVacation is currently one of the largest web portals for mountain tourism in Europe.

Milena Jakovljevic from Mediodrom, a Novo Mesto native, talked about women in startups, and highlighted the importance of a mentor who can help a newbie entrepreneur cross initial obstacles.

Matjaz Mrgole from Confidly is simply attracted to a diversity of a startup life. Years ago, he left a well-paid but monotonous IT job and started working on various business ideas. His third attempt has led him to the TS Startup accelerator, where he and his co-founder Jelena completely changed their idea only one month prior to the Demo Day but managed to win and got their first investment to the company.

Matej Golob from 30Lean talked about the power and influence of the business social network LinkedIn. Golob worked for a major international IT company for over a decade and now advises big companies on implementation of the lean startup approach to in-house projects.

Stas Stankovic of Lumu asked the participants not to take life as dictated by society, but to change it and make it exciting. The Lumu team, that surprised Slovenian tech scene this summer with a very successful Kickstarter project, is currently visiting San Francisco and presenting their product at one of the largest startup conferences, TechCrunch Disrupt.

The event ended in unusual way with wine tasting organized by Meta Kocjan, entrepreneur, sommelier and owner of Malamacka, a wine butique. Meta also replaced a regular job for a business that goes along with her passion, wine and cuisine. Besides wine tasting she highlighted the opportunities in the wine industry where, thanks to a new wave of young wine entrepreneurs, information technologies are more and more involved.

Startup Novo mesto is starting its accelerator program called KickUP in mid September. People who are interested in entrepreneurship, programming or design and want to create their own startup are invited. StartUP Novo mesto provides coworking space, mentors and training – everything that a young entrepreneur needs to develop their business idea and test the market. The KickUP winning startup will be awarded a trip to Amsterdam, visiting Rockstart accelerator for two weeks. More information about the program is presented on the site: http://start-up.si/en/kickup. The Info Day will be held on 16th September at the Podbreznik Incubator in Novo Mesto.

The organizers of the event would like to thank the main sponsors and partners of the festival: Si.mobil center Novo mesto, Banka Koper, Mozilla Slovenia and Razvojni center Novo mesto.

Gallery: http://start-up.si/en/startitup-2013/