Startup Weekend is a global movement that brings together people with ideas, aspirations and different backgrounds, in order to help each other achieve a common goal. It helps people develop confidence, since they can see their ideas come to life almost in a blink of an eye. And it also provides them with mentorship from real life entrepreneurs that have succeeded already, and are there to help.
This year Startup Weekend Cluj will have its 4th edition which will take place on 24-26 of April. We could tell you a number of reasons why it's such a great and inspiring place to start your startup, but we decided instead to ask some of the winners of the last editions to tell you themselves. In order to do that, we came up with a few questions for them. Here are some of their answers:
"The idea was born in February 2014, in a sunny afternoon on the bench in front of Cluj Cowork where we were working at the time with ZenQ co-founder Mircea. He told me he had this idea of a place where you can get a personality profile built by your friends. You could use it for discovering your strengths, looking for jobs, generating online trust with people who don't know you.
I immediately remembered of another idea I had, which was about building a habit of appreciating the people around you for who they are and the great things they do for you every day. I had it in my relationships with some of the most awesome people in my life and wanted to find a way to use technology to scale it. The ideas just clicked together and so ZenQ started."
Zornitsa Tomova (ZenQ) - Winner at SWCluj 2014
"After SWCluj we needed to get to really understanding how Employee Engagement works and if the tool that we envisioned at the conference really impacts and influences engagement. It seems like it does, but we needed to see if the research supports what we believed. This is what we've been working on. It took a long time because Engagement is a relatively new field so the research doesn't yet have clear cut answers."
Antonia Onaca (Engagement Management)- Winner at SWCluj 2014
"Not moving fast enough, not keeping in touch with all the incredible people we've met during events and thereby not seizing all the available opportunities."
Mara Steiu (Teentrepreneur) - Winner at SWCluj 2014
"Considering our current team, the answer is no. Considering some of the great, inspirational mentors we've had the chance to meet at SW, the answer is yes."
Mara Steiu (Teentrepreneur) - Winner at SWCluj 2014
"I wouldn't do anything different - I think I was quite lucky with how things turned out. The only advice I could give is - go to Startup Weekend not only to have fun. Go in as a winner, in your mind, as you walk in. It makes a big difference on how much fun you will have".
Zornitsa Tomova (ZenQ) - Winner at SW 2014
"The shock of meeting, interacting with so many awesome people, in such a short time, while also working on my project!"
Mara Steiu (Teentrepreneur) - Winner at SWCluj 2014
This was just a sneak peak. You can read the full interviews on our blog.
Also, keep in mind that there is the special "Early bird" offer available just till the end of March. You can be the winner of this year's edition, all you need to do is grab a seat and bring an idea. Maybe it's you who we'll ask an interview the next year?
by Diana Muntea
