I sat through a series of presentations a couple of weeks back that were universally terrible. Slide after slide of PowerPoint, most of which the presenters simply read out (why not just send a mail if that’s all they are going to do??). Probably in a monotone, but given the fact that I could also hardly hear most of the presenters, it's hard to tell. These were all relatively short presentations, up to ten minutes maximum, but even so, it's amazing how quickly one's attention can drift off if a presenter doesn't capture and hold our attention.
(original version available at mamstartup.pl) A good startup is one which...
Changes something. A good startup is one which doesn’t have to spend loads of money on marketing, because you can’t fail to notice it. Spotify is a good example - people queued up to use it!
The most important characteristic of a startup founder is...
Stubbornness, stubbornness and stubbornness. Apart from that, strategic thinking, focus on your vision, and belief that you’ll succeed. It’s also important to be able to communicate your idea and your vision to the rest of the world. It helps if you can work well without sleep too ;-)
They take place all over the world. They happen almost every week. Last week it was Bangkok and Tunis - a week before that it was Gaza, Lille, St. Petersburg, Penang and Delhi. And already in less than a month from now it will be Cairo, New York, Bangalore, Palo Alto and finally... Krakow!!!
Dear busy bees, It feels great to share that the next Hive meetup will take place on Sunday December 11th at the legendary Piwnica pod Baranami (Market Square 27) - the prominent long-lasting anchor on the artistic and creative map of Krakow. Our special guest that evening will be Amanda Rose - entrepreneur, event manager, digital strategist and advisor. She is the Founder of Connect the Dots Foundation and Twestival movement. More about Amanda below. Event agenda: 18:00 Welcome drink 18:15 Interview and Q&A with Amanda 19:00 Pitch session (register at pitches@joinhive.com) 19:15 Announcements 19:30 Networking  The rules for pitching are: - max 60 seconds - no slides - in English Each of those pitching will receive instant feedback and will have a chance to win tickets to Startup Weekend Krakow and a coaching session from Rafał Han and 2 more great startup mentors (it's a suprise!). It's a great opportunity to practice, get feedback and get noticed. The pitch session and prizes are sponsored by BrightBerries who have been our supporters from the very beginning.
 We are also very happy to announce a new sponsor - Fundacja Nowe Technologie is helping us make this event possible. Let us know you're coming by clicking "I'm Attending" on our Facebook event page, get your beeesiness cards ready and see you Dec 11th!
 Amanda Rose is the Founder of Connect the Dots Foundation; established in 2009 to incubate and craft fresh global campaigns and initiatives that use technology to connect people offline for a good cause. She co-founded Space-2, an innovative film and event locations consultancy where she has coordinated events for British Royalty and the Prime Minister of Canada, the Brit Awards and London Fashion Week. In 2007, inspired by the shift towards social networks Amanda decided to complete a Masters in Communications Management and spent a year researching a newly forming communications platform called Twitter. This offered unique insight as the global founder and architect of a movement called Twestival, an international volunteer effort to use social media like Twitter to raise money for important causes. Twestival has been able to build 55 wells with charity: water and recent efforts with Concern Worldwide will give thousands of students the chance at an education. Advising technology startups and those with a social good focus keep her energized. She is passionate about developing unique digital and creative strategies for brands and organizations looking to take the next step. Amanda is currently in development on an exciting new project that is still to be announced.
 The time has come and we have to grow the Hive team a bit. To be able to keep the current quality of Hive meetups and make them even better for the future we need some extra hands! Details: It's a 100% volunteering engagement and won't take you more than 10 hours a month. The only requirements are good energy and good written and spoken English. We're nice and easy-going and getting involved in Hive could help you reach the startup community. Email volunteers@joinhive.com to apply. Talk to you soon!
It has only been a week since Sandy Swarm and we already have another great opportunity to meet again. We'd like to invite you all to a meetup which will take place on Monday November 14th at 6pm at 'u Louisa' club. Our special guest that evening will be Nalin Mittal - an entrepreneur all the way from Sillicon Valley. We know it's a bit short notice but we hope you'll be able to make it nonetheless. It'll be well worth it. We will have an open discussion about fundraising in the Valley, mobile apps and other startup-related topics. Let us know you're attending on our Facebook event page and see you there.  Nalin MittalNalin is the co-founder and CTO of Appstores.com - a San Francisco based company backed by - among others - Sand Hill Angels, Alfred Lin (TellMe, Zappos, Sequoia), Dave McClure’s 500 Startups and i/o Ventures. Prior to Appstores, Nalin started Blu Sky Labs where he created My.Zappos.com - a social shopping experience for Zappos. He's an entrepreneur with passion for creating consumer web based software. Follow him on Twitter @nalin.
We're really happy and excited to announce that the next Hive meetup will take place on Friday November 4th and the venue will be the great Plaża Kraków. Right - it's not just a sandy beach, they have a great indoor part too! Pictures below. We'll be starting, as always, at 6pm. What's so special about this Hive? First, Mike Butcher, the editor of TechCrunch Europe and a big supporter of ours agreed to be our guest. Mike will share startup PR tips with Hive community (yes, if you are reading this, you are a part of the community!). This is a great opportunity and we already know that some befriended startups from Warsaw Gamma Rebels will be driving South ;-). On top of that, we're planning five 60-second pitches - each followed by a round of feedback from Mike, Rafał Han and Marek Przystaś. It's a great opportunity to practice, get feedback and, well, get noticed. You can sign up for the pitching session by sending us an email (piotr@joinhive.com).
All that will be possible...  Thanks to our sponsors - Brightberries. They have been great supporters of the growing startup and entrepreneurship scene in Krakow.
But hey, there's more! It's a great coincidence that the kids at Applicake will be celebrating their 5th birthday that very night and all Hive busy bees are invited to join that celebration! The party will kick off as soon as Hive is over and it is going to be a blast! Let us know you're attending on our Facebook event page, get your business cards ready, practice your pitches and see you Nov 4th. Get ready for a long night!  Mike ButcherMike is the editor of TechCrunch Europe. He is also involved in a project to bring European technology entrepreneurs and investors together in a club environment called TechHub ( @TechHub). A long time journalist, Mike has written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. He is a former editor of New Media Age magazine, the leading new media weekly in the UK, and the European edition of The Industry Standard magazine. Since 1996 he has launched or re-launched numerous media web sites and in 2000 he was nominated as NetMedia’s European Internet Journalist of the Year. In August 2008 TechCrunch Europe was awarded the best “Web 2.0 and business blog” in the UK, by the readers of Computer Weekly magazine. In 2011 Mike was named as one of London’s 100 ‘Secret Power Brokers’. He’s ranked as in the top five of the UK’s 100 most influential journalists online. Mike is a regular commentator on the technology business, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, Channel 4 and Bloomberg. Mike’s personal blog is mbites, while he Twitters as @mikebutcher.
Dear busy bees, We'd like to invite you all to our second Hive meetup. It will take place on Tuesday September 20th at 6pm at Betel. Our guest speaker that evening will be Uzi Shmilovici - an amazing entrepreneur, Founder & CEO of Future Simple. He will give a presentation on the future of software. There will be an interview and time for Q&A afterwards. We will also have an elevator pitch session. If you'd like to share your idea, present your company or simply practice your pitch let us know via email ( piotr@joinhive.com) or on the event wall. The only rules of pitching are: - max 60 seconds - no slides So let us know you're coming by clicking "I'm Attending" on our Facebook event page, get your beeesiness cards ready and see you on Tuesday!  Uzi Shmilovici is an internet entrepreneur. He co-founded Netcraft - an Israeli web agency in 2003. Over the years, Netcraft set the tone and became an industry leader in Israel, setting standards in user experience, design and development for the web. Those achievements were recognized when he was named one of the Top-40 Israeli Internet Startup Professionals by TheMarker Magazine in 2008 (the most prominent business magazine in Israel). Netcraft was later acquired by Tapuz, a leading Israeli internet company. In late 2009, Uzi moved to Chicago where he embarked on a new challenge to change the boring and obsolete world of business software with Future Simple. Future Simple creates exciting online business applications with breakthrough designs and user interfaces. The mission of Future Simple is to free business owners from the tyranny of the old age software companies.
First Swarm is finally behind us - we had a ton of fun and we hope that despite the heat all of you did too.
We'd like to give big thanks to our speakers - Rafał Han, Piotr Konieczny and Jakub Krzych - for coming and sharing their experiences.
Close to 80 bees showed up at Hive that day to listen, discuss and network busily afterwards. Thank you all for coming and bringing positive attitudes and energy with you.
We hope to see you all the next time around... and don't forget to bring your beee-friends with you. Bzzzzz. Oh, and one more thing - we took some pictures so go ahead and find yourself in our Facebook album.
Dear busy bees, We're very happy to announce that the first Hive meetup will take place on Thursday August 25th at 6pm at Betel. We've created the Facebook event page so feel free to click "I'm Attending". The first round of speakers - our honey to lure you in - whom we will group-interview consists of 3 great entrepreneurs with different career paths: (alphabetically) Rafał Han, Piotr Konieczny and Kuba Krzych, more about them below. We also want everyone attending Hive to say a few words about what YOU do. Get your beeesiness cards ready and see you on Thursday!  Rafał HanSerial entrepreneur, coach and investor in innovative projects and extraordinary teams. Founder and CEO at HanBright – Kids edutainment projects such as ciufcia.pl – largest polish website with edutainment games for preschoolers. HanBright is currently focusing on foreign markets, mobile app and merchandising. Founder of BrightBerries – Angel Seed funding group focused on mentoring, advising, sharing business knowledge and promoting early stage startups from eastern and central Europe ( webshake.tv, futbolowo.pl, lingapp.com, heartpick.com and others). BrightBerries is especially interested in web and mobile projects. Rafal works with startups on their ideas, strategic directions, entrepreneurial skills and marketing.
 Piotr KoniecznyFor the last 7 years Piotr has been helping the biggest Polish and international companies in securing their networks and web applications. After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University he started working in British division of Philips Electronics. Few years later he founded Niebezpiecznik.pl, a consulting company and the biggest Polish portal about IT security. Within Niebezpiecznik.pl Piotr manages the team responsible for penetration testing and security audits of ICT systems. He also runs a series of popular web application security workshops for programmers.
 Jakub KrzychCreator and Co-Founder of AdTaily.com, a self-service advertising platform acquired by Agora SA. In 2009 the prestigious magazine CNBC Business considered AdTaily one of the 25 most innovative European companies. Jakub is currently holding position of the Board Member of AdTaily, leading product team of 12 people in Krakow. Prior to founding AdTaily, he was a strategy and technology consultant in a Norwegian agency based in Oslo, working on design and technology projects for the Norwegian Government, airline companies and large corporations. Jakub graduated from the Jagiellonian University in Applied Computer Science and Computational Physics. He is passionate about meeting new people sharing startup visions and entrepreneurship experiences.
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