It’s That Time of The Year Again. Apply for BootCamp Fall 2010 Now!

Aalto Entrepreneurship Society is recruiting talents to come out and test the viability of their business ideas in BootCamp Fall 2010. The application deadline stands at Wednesday 8th of September at midnight, so there’s plenty of time to gather a team – and hell yeah, why not even to brainstorm an idea still, to join the fall BootCamp. AaltoES itself has underlined that the BootCamp will steal a vast majority of your time, so anyone who wants to get elected should be ready to give everything; time, brains, heart and soul for the sake of entrepreneurship during the camp. During the camp, the teams will learn secrets of start-up entrepreneurship from experienced coaches and hopefully form start-ups that continue long after the camp is gone.

Altogether 14 teams were chosen out of 49 applicants to take part to the first BootCamp in spring. The intensive schedule was basically filled with challenges and obstacles that start-up teams needed to learn to tackle in order to survive the start-up lifecycle.  During their adventure, the teams were sparred by names like Taneli Tikka, Mårten Mickos, Petteri Koponen, Risto Siilasmaa and many others.

The spring BootCamp was a success in many ways. Besides the fact it started a half a dozen of businesses (Widsen, Hipui, lucSens, Shobble, AudioDraft, PhotonyPump), the camp also established itself amongst the entrepreneurial community. I don’t think there are many people in the Finnish start-up scene, who aren’t yet today familiar with Aaltoes, BootCamps and Summer of Startups. The ambition being stated, there won’t be many international influencers unfamiliar with the camps tomorrow, right?. That being said, it’s great what has been started here and I’m sure that the programs will be a leading force in making Finland, Helsinki and Otaniemi the next business hub in the world. It has been also most inspiring to see the serial entrepreneurs supporting the growth of the new wave of Finnish start-ups. The list of mentors involved is most impressive and it totally shakes you to understand just how big thing we are dealing here with.

One of the biggest concerns for the Finnish ecosystem has been the lack of international venture capital, which we earlier covered comprehensively. In order to rise that challenge, Finland will need to create more competitive deal flow for the VCs. That is precisely the challenge the AaltoES programs are addressing. However, it’s good to bear in mind the start-up camps can’t take this problem on its own, and the ecosystem is in massive need of collaboration and improved peer-to-peer marketing and aid. I truly hope that AaltoES, together with the emerging entrepreneurship community (see the coverage of first ES summit here), can spark the enthusiasm to the community to work continuously on this problem. 

The BootCamp applications can be filled here. I have to say, that the web-based application seems pretty smooth and streamlined for me, and that’s how it supposed to be. Once you come to think of it, why don’t all Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (TEKES), Finnvera, Veraventure,  financing events, Bootcamps and whatever other organizations demanding entrepreneurs' time and attention, wouldn’t just collaborate one template for start-ups that would be suitable for any occasion? This would dramatically reduce the time the start-ups are currently using for demonstrating and clarifying their business models for various stakeholders, and actually release the resources for developing the core businesses. Without a doubt, the single template couldn’t answer all specific questions from each organization, but could serve as a template to determine whether the interest towards the business is mutual.

Well, still waiting that to happen but BootCamp is here already!