Let’s Boot Camp!

Terrific speakers, awesome venue, promising startups! We are talking about the MtB Boot Camp that kicked off last Thursday in Milan (hosted by the Social Media Week) to continue for the 29 semifinalists at OGR – Officine Grandi Riparazioni in Turin.
More than 300 people attended the MtB Boot Camp Open Forum. Alberto Onetti (MtB Chairman) anticipated some data from the Mind the Bridge Survey 2011 “Startups in Italy. Facts and Trends” that will be presented in November at the Venture Camp. Then a group of terrific speakers animated the stage: James C. Roberts III (Lawyer & Managing Partner at Global Capital Law Group), Marco Magnocavallo (Co-Founder at Blogo and Wikli), Stefano Maruzzi (Country Director at Google Italy), Pietro Bezza (Managing Partner at Connect digital media ventures), Massimo Ciociola (Founder & CEO of MusiXMatch) and Piero Bassetti (President of the Giannino Bassetti Foundation).

Central theme for the day was the ability to embrace a culture of risk in Italy, magisterially captured by the “pony allegory” narrated by Charles Versaggi (President of Versaggi Biocommunications®), the MtB Boot Camp Director.
September 23 and September 24, different venue (Turin), but same enthusiasm: the 29 MtB semifinalists went boot-camping @OGR – Officine Grandi Riparazioni (Stazione Futuro the tag for our place, quite evocative), together with a stellar group of mentors.

Learning sessions in the morning and GYM pitching session in the afternoon. Hosted and sponsored by TOP-IX Consortium, this two days program represented both a great opportunity for startups to learn and get inspired by our Boot Camp instructors and an invaluable occasion to test themselves and improve their communication skills. Among the mentors, led by Charles Versaggi: Ivan Farneti (Partner at Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures), Marco Magnocavallo (Co-Founder at Blogo and Wikli), Elisabetta Ghisini (Founder at Verba - International Communications) and Stefano Bernardi (Dave McClure’s Shadow at 500 startups).
Moreover, as already specified in our previous posts, this event represented a further selection step in the process that will bring 15 startups to the MtB Venture Camp in Milan at Corriere della Sera and later on to Silicon Valley.
Curious to know about the top 15's names???

Just stay tuned!

It was a great Boot Camp!

In Varese we welcomed the 32 startups selected from our 2010 MTB Business Plan Competition. We opened them the doors to our Boot Camp, a 3-day training and coaching program, aimed at helping startups to clarify, create, and communicate their entrepreneurial vision into a viable business plan worthy of financial support. During the workshop, we continued our selection process, extracting the short list of 15 semi-finalists that will present @ Corriere della Sera in Milan on November 5th-6th.


The Boot Camp kicked off with a workshop and public forum designed to address the challenges and opportunities of Italian entrepreneurship. It was hosted at the Faculty of Science. During the Open Workshop Alberto Onetti presented some data about Italian startups and highlighted the main issues entrepreneurs face in Italy while starting up a company (here is the link for the slides). Charles Versaggi, the Boot Camp Program Director, explained how to tell your business story. At the end of the workshop Elizabeth Robinson (Co-founder, NicOX), Marco Asquini (Co-owner, General Manager, SUPER/FLUO) and Maurizio Liverani (Baryon Capital) told their own entrepreneurial story. Francesco Baschieri provided some feedbacks from his recent stay at the MtB Gym in San Francisco. You can access the videos from our MindtheBridgeTv channel on You Tube.


The remaining part of theBoot Camp was held in the gorgeous venue of Villa ToepliTz. The Program was run by top notch instructors and included the following topics:

- The Story: Articulating the Value Proposition (by C. Versaggi)
- Business models and strategy — understanding the value chain (by A. Onetti)
- Project, product or company? How to assess and qualify technologies as a basis for starting a company (by A. Onetti)
- Legal considerations in forming a company (by T. Cherubino)
- Financing: the capitalization process and financing strategies (by C. Maifredi)
- The capital raising process - Pre-money/post-money valuation, the term sheet (by M. Liveerani and A. Onetti)
- Anatomy of a Business Plan (by C. Versaggi and A. Onetti)

It was a great Boot Camp as you can perceive from the comments some participants posted on our Facebook Wall. You can feel the energy and passion we experienced during the 3 days we spent with the startups in Varese.

"Hello guys, I'm really happy to attended the Bootcamp, one of my best experiences. I met very smart people, from whom I learned a lot"
"Great BootCamp! All tutors where really top level. Charles was en-lighting. MtB organizers and Onetti have done a terrific job! Thanks all for the great experience and good luck to all partecipants"
"Thanks all for amazing experience. Thanks to MTB team and to Charles, that he sent us the right enthusiasm to take forward our plans well...See you all in Pavia soon"
"Thanks to all of you Folks! Continue in this direction with enthusiasm, passion and a vision to realize your business dreams!"