Startup Iceland 2019 is scheduled for June 3rd and the one-on-one mentoring sessions will on June 4th in Reykjavik University. This is the 8th year we are hosting the event. Startup Iceland has created a movement around starting up and founders, it has been fascinating for me to participate and watch Iceland go from a prairie to a vibrant evergreen ecosystem. We now have a number of activities and support for founders and startups. A vibrant ecosystem is a per-requisite for successful startups and founders.
We are going to focus this year on Founders and Foundations. Startup Iceland is always been about empowering founders and providing the platform for founders in Iceland to expand their network. Networks and people in your network make an exponential impact in the journey of building something new. Starting something new is always a strange experience, I relate to being involved with starting with a number of founders and I can say the experience is unique, however the foundations and fundamental strategies are important. Being able to start something on the “right” foot is extremely important. I agree with Peter Thiel’s law on Startups. A startup messed up in the beginning cannot be fixed. So focusing on foundations seems like the right thing to do. In addition, the overwhelming response from the founders has been to focus the theme of Startup Iceland to the basics and foundations and founders.
First Lady of Iceland, Eliza Reid
Focusing on Founders, I am happy to announce the Keynote Opening this year will be done by the First Lady of Iceland, Her Excellency Eliza Reid. The First Lady is a co-founder of Iceland Writer’s Retreat. I think She understands the founder’s journey and more importantly being an immigrant from Canada to Iceland she has a very different perspective of starting new in a new country. She is a fantastic speaker and I am excited to hear about her experience as a founder and as the first lady of Iceland.
The early bird tickets are open but they will not last long so I encourage all founders to get their tickets earlier than at the last minute, also note that tickets with lower numbers get priority when we are allocating the first-come-first-served mentoring sessions with all the speakers and mentors participating in Startup Iceland this year. Watch this space for further announcements of meetups, hackathons, speakers and mentors. I am excited to kick-off this years Startup Iceland activities.
