Android Dev Camp Amsterdam was a big success. Thank you to the 250 attendees for coming, Kumpany for planning everything and T-Mobile for initiating and supporting the event.
Also, if you were the person who emailed me in Dutch about building an app (that’s all I remember), I’m sorry but I seem to have completely lost your email. Can you please email me again?
I am so excited about Jailbreaking Picnic. It’s today (Thursday September 25) at the Westergasfabriek. A bunch of Amsterdam startups setting up a huge party on the public park right in front of PICNIC and showing that you don’t need money to kick ass. I hope it doesn’t sound silly to say that I’m really proud of them.
Also, I really love how Boulder, CO startups are getting together to recruit developers. The Amsterdam startups should do the same.
I am part of the Hot 100 ‘up-and-coming creative media talent of the Netherlands’ and will be at the Picnic Conference in Amsterdam on September 25. Since there’s 100 of us, I think it’s mostly just a networking event. Either way, I’m excited to be part of the day.
On October 2 I will be at the ArcticStartup birthday party in Helsinki and will talk about the startup scenes in Amsterdam, Silicon Valley, and Helsinki. I had a great time in Helsinki last May attending BarCampHelsinki (there’s a second one on September 27) and look forward to talking to all the Finnish startups.
Also, the iPhone Dev Camp was a great success and articles have popped-up all over the Dutch media. Bright.tv made a nice video on which you can hear me blabber about the event, and there were also articles at iPhone Club (1 and 2), NU.nl (and also a mention of the Bright.tv video), iPhoned.nl, MacWereld.nl and LifeHacking.nl. A few of the articles mentioned me, so that was nice publicity!
A friend doing a research project at LSE sent me some questions about the relationship to culture and entrepreneurship. I think my answers might be interesting, so I’m reposting them here.
Please describe your past or current internet projects.
Currently I make websites for startups under the moniker Bubble Foundry. I’m very passionate about improving the climate for tech startups in the Netherlands, and even Europe, and so I organize a variety of events, from Lunch 2.0 to BarCamp to iPhone Dev Camp. As for current projects, beyond my clients, i have made the should/ought series of websites with my friend Raina Kumra: www.hillaryshould.com, www.mccainshould.com, www.obamashould.com, http://[any name here].ought.to.
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Every week I attend a get-together here in Amsterdam called OpenCoffee. The regular crowd includes people from Fleck, Wakoopa, IRL, and more. It’s a nice scene and everyone there has caught the entrepreneurial bug and is looking to develop web companies. However, one significant challenge that many face is getting their ideas built. This is not for lack of skill or drive but simply the fact that programmers are few and far between. Or rather, programmers in Amsterdam who are interested in joining start-ups for an equity stake are rare. This is a significant restriction on start-ups here, as it makes bootstrapping quite difficult.
There’s no easy easy solution to this problem but one way I can help is true try to broaden the entrepreneurial community to include more of the tech world here. To that effect I am starting the Dutch version of Lunch 2.0, a regular serious of social events at technology companies. We should have the first events finalized in the next few weeks, so stay tuned for more information.
Update, 2007-12-17: Lunch 2.0.nl is now live!
