suiteme

SuiteMe Founder Emile telling the story of finding his perfect wedding suite and his challenges

Really impressed with the teams of 2014 batch of Startup Reykjavik. There were interesting companies, from making Protein Bars from Insects to Virtual Reality Desktop platforms. What really impresses me is the fact that we have come such a long way from 2008. The event was hosted in Arion Bank‘s headquarters, The President of Iceland and the Minister of Industry and Innovation were the chief guests with the CEO of Arion Bank delivering the welcome speech. The audience consisted of Angel Investors, Pension Fund Managers, Venture Fund Managers and everyone who is interested in Startups and Entrepreneurship. I continue to believe that things can move really fast in Iceland once there is understanding.

I believe all the teams are investable, will they return Venture Fund return requirements (read 3x to 10x in 3 to 5 years)? I am not sure. Actually if anyone says they know they are lying, the truth of the matter is no-one knows. I believe in a very different philosophy of investing, I don’t want to pick winners, I want to pick teams with great potential (read coachable, humble but self confident, personable, fun to work with, have capacity to get things done, hustlers but authentic, respects people and who really cares about the cause), coach them, train them, mentor them and provide them with all the resources like connection to their target customers, markets or region, bring discipline and the sense of urgency to get stuff done and see the magic happen. I retweet recently a 7 steps to getting lucky, yes I believe one has to get lucky to win in this world, and it is not chance but it is a skill.

Now that the investor day and the accelerator bootcamp is done, the teams need to really dig deep and focus on building a business. I am pretty sure they will.