Spring Sprout Retrospective
This year, we kicked off the University of Vaasa's structured activities by launching the Spring Sprout program at the Vaasa Startup Factory.
The structured three-week program provides a low-threshold opportunity for entrepreneurially minded students at the University to compete for a place in the EUNICE Start Cup.
The three weeks go through some basic entrepreneurial skills, such as: 1) Identifying a real problem, 2) identifying the people who have that problem, and 3) coming up with viable business hypotheses that could lead to some initial testing. Additionally, pitching takes centre stage as an activity. Pitching is coached via a structured resource called Pitching For Life, originally written by Walid O. El Cheikh, and adapted to the course materials. The Pitching For Life method ensures that we all learn that pitching is not just for entrepreneurs, but for everyone. Beyond the pitching for life, the Spring Sprout program is structured around the newly developed Vaasa Core Playbook methodology for entrepreneurial programs. The Core Playbook provides the canvasses and methods for each skill that we identified as crucial for everyone to learn.
In this edition of Spring Sprout we had five teams complete the program, with ideas ranging from solving the textile waste challenge to product ideas relating to crisis management in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.
Over the three weeks, all five teams worked hard to develop their ideas, with some teams executing pivots - a major challenge in the three week span! Eventually, by pitch day all the teams had a final presentation ready to present to a mixed jury.
On finals day, our jury was composed of two Alumni from a previous Vaasa Startup Factory program, a EUNICE project member, and myself (Riccardo) - the program leader. We had the privilege to invite Two alums from the pilot Summer Bloom to give them a taste of what being a judge might be. From the EUNICE project, Jonas Weissmantel joined to keep the judging table objective and have a strategic eye for what EUNICE Start Cup might benefit from the most.
After three weeks of hard work, it was tough to choose a single winner. It also showed in the scoring, with the winner being separated from second place by less than a single criteria point! However, the judges did their work, and after we tabulated the results we ended up with Sina. Sina presented his innovative idea around (hyper-)local usage of vacant spaces for cultural and utilitarian purposes: Renpace.
If you're interested to follow the journey - keep your eyes peeled for future editions of this blog, as we will follow Sina's Start Cup Journey, from the local phase all the way to Poland.
If you're curious about our structured programs - feel free to reach out to riccardo.notarangelo@uwasa.fi !