The best of 2011

Stating that it's been a busy year is just an understatement.

We started the year incubating 12 startups, in addition to our long term guests at the gym.

The Italian Innovation day at Stanford and then in New York were stunning successes, where our startups showed to the world to be ready for the premier league.

At least, that's what the world top VCs who judged our finalists told us (and that was pre-drinks, so we can assume they really think so).

We had a busy spring in Italy, with multiple events around the country as part of our usual MTB Italy Tour. 500+ people attended those events, dozen of startups had the opportunity to present and build their muscles.

In the meantime, the activities at the Gym got more and more dense. We hosted countless open-houses and demo days, often matched with large groups visiting from Italy (plenty!).

Among the several interesting friends we hosted Le Iene, RAI TV, Helmut Esslinger (Frog Design), Pierluigi Zappacosta (Logitech), Nerio Alessandri (Technogym) and many more.

Moreover, we launched our first Startup School: with the support of Wired, we run four 3-week sessions which got fully booked with 30+ participants.

In the midst of all this activity, we also moved our HQ from Pier 38 to the One Market landmark in San Francisco.

To top all off, November was Venture Camp month, with hundreds of participants, a memorable night with Le Iene and thousands of followers (we crossed the 3000 on FB).

What a year folks! The video says it all. As Simona, who made the video on Xmas eve, while cooking, puts it: "while putting together all those memorable moments, I re-lived the emotions and the fun while working with such a unique bunch. It's heaven."

That's exactly how I feel.

Have a memorable 2012.

Personally, I can't wait.

Stereomood wins Premio RCS 2011

Stereomood is the winner of the RCS Prize for 2011 as the most innovative startup in Digital Publishing.

As the name implies, Stereomood thrives to re-organize the way we approach, listen and discover music based not on a singer or playlist (still an extension of singers) but rather on your mood.

Feeling Christmas-y these days? Here's the right music for you!

Do you want to transmit a good karma? Here's the music that will fit you like a glove!

I personally tried the "making love" list. It didn't quite got me what I was hoping for. However it did get me pretty relaxed (and with a good karma too).

How do they do that? Their juice is their proprietary algorithm for music taxonomy: stereorank (kind of resembles the famous "pagerank" algorithm, that made Google Google - good karma?) collects tags from music blogs, crowdsource and music habits of listeners.

They are breaking the usual paradigm of listening to music (I listen what I like), and rather create an interesting alternative to discover new music, not the big hits, based on the atmosphere I'm trying to generate.

Something that theme parks or shopping malls have known for quite some time.

Love or not love, I can see why they have over 1M visitors/month with an amazing 75% of returning users. It's fun!

Monetizing their traffic won't be a walk in the park, but they are not alone in that struggle (ask Pandora, LastFM, Spotify and the likes).

And that's what they'll be working on in their 3 months incubation at the MTB GYM.

We'd better start working on the "traveling to San Francisco" music tagging...

Vinswer wins Premio Marzotto - MTB

Vinswer rules.
Last night in Vicenza, the Associazione Progetto Marzotto in collaboration with MTB, proclaimed Vinswer as the winner of the Gaetano Marzotto prize (hi-tech / international).

Vinswer provides a marketplace where professionals can sell their by-the-minute service to a relevant community.

Where's the beauty of it? Publishers can embed the service for free in minutes.

Think at an Adsense where, instead of text ads, publishers can earn significant revenue from B2C transactions... and with a better rev share plan.

The market can be enormous, the size of the infinite professional services that human beings can sell online.

Could be professional services by the minute (lawyers , designers, architects) but also, more importantly, regular folks with an interest and a talent, that can earn a few bucks in their spare time. How many Americans would love to learn Italian from a mother tongue on line or would appreciate some suggestions on how to furnish their home with taste from an Italian "interior designer"? How about cooking class?

Vinswer provides a community and a tachymeter (video, mobile or whatever).

Examples? Here's an initial implementation within the Bakeca website.

Congrats to the co-founders of Vinswer.

We'll be providing 4 months of full incubation, here at the Gym.

Get your ticket ready, we can't wait to see you in the Bay area ;-)

The finalists for the 2011 BPC are...

• Arkimedia (I Like TV)
• D-Orbit
• NextStyler
• Stereomood
• Timbuktu
• Vinswer
• Vivocha

Not much more to add, folks, it's all in the usual under-the-bridge video.
Representing ahigh diversity of Italian Innovation, played an important role in the decision.

What's next? The month of February will be incubation time, at our GYM in San Francisco.
We'll top it off with a Demo Day for investors.

Given the substantial improvement of the quality of the presenting startups, chances are that, down the line, there will be opportunities for some of the other semi-finalists.

Just a few days, and you'll hear about the winners of the 2011 Prizes.
Stay tuned. Same channels.

Venture Camp 2011: here's what happened

33 speakers, 15 startups, 375 participants, #MTBVentureCamp the top discussion topic in Italy on Twitter, just to name a few numbers.

Part of the discussions we had, ended up on the Italian Government official website. Santoro has been chasing us and our speakers every since. The real "Iene" wanted to exchange T-shirts, like you do at the end of the worldcup (expect that we run out of ours).

Established entrepreneurs who attended the events are saying our startups are officially ready to play the major league, meaning Silicon Valley (Massimo Sgrelli: "Startup italiane pronte per la Serie A")

Even more established industrialists, at the very end, communicating they want to invest heavily and directly in the Mind the Bridge Foundation (Gaetano Marzotto: min. -38)

But what happened really?? It's all kind of blurred now. I remember showing up with Iene-like sunglasses, talking with Rampagna (RCS) about the role of larger companies in Italy (to acquire startups!), with Villanueva (McKinsey) of the role of governments in promoting Startup Chile-like programs, with Earner (VC) about the chances of Italy to survive at the current pace of innovation production, while discussing the always spicy assessments of my good friend Vivek Wadhwa (Washington post, Techcrunch, etc)

I then remember Loris Degioanni and Bonzio talk about the role of role-models and father figures in one's success ("Chi vola vale, chi vale vola, chi non vola non vale (ed e' un vile)")

Bassetti, Marzotto and Beretta (that is, the best of Italian brands in the world!) kind of looking back and see how to leave a significant imprint for younger generation of entrepreneurs.

And then Vito Lomele (Jobrapido, $20M+ revenues in less than 5 years), Mario Mariani (ex Tiscali), Leandro Agro' and Gabriele Gresta (Bibop) proud representatives of a new Italy that is making waves, against all odds!

And then Nick Heller (Google) describing Google's new efforts in the "startup-incubation'

space (new incubator in London, support for similar programs in Israel and South Africa), Gesess and Baldini about their recently launched new funds.

And then Byers (Stanford) and de L'Etraz (IE) addressing the key questions entrepreneurs should answer.

And how to forget a highly inspired and always funny, Lady Innova, bringing the wisdom of the crowds (=Twitter and Facebook) in the room with the speakers.

And the evening event? Playing Light Painting with Claudio Bonoldi (boy, is that difficult!), listing to the live music of the Trio Fabio Mariani and... being totally disrupted by the Il Moralizzatore from the IENE... all flown in from Rome to attend our evening event.

Was it all real??

Did you miss it? Really??? Listen up. This is your last chance: in a few days you'll be able to see all the videos from our YT Channel.

PS the awesome pics are by Paolo Bonnacorsi, photographer (Paolo, you rock!)

The new MTB GYM @ One Market is open for business

It's been barely 3 weeks. And yet, it seems like a new era had started.
It seems like yesterday that we had to move from our beloved pirate cove, Pier38.
In the typical Silicon Valley way, where everything is dynamic and accelerated, so was our move.
And exactly on Oct 3rd, together with most of the Pier38 Startups, we moved.
Where?
It's arguably the most iconic business building in San Francisco, also known as "The Landmark", home of dozen among the most successful companies in the Bay Area (Salesforce.com and Autodesk, just to mention a couple).
One Market is the dream location for any company, a stone throw from the Ferry Building, a stunning view of the bay, and the most desirable location for public transportation, restaurants or a relaxing walk along the Embarcadero.

We occupy the entire fifth floor of the Steuart Tower, on the South-East corner of the One Market Plaza complex.
I kid you not. This is not the usual bare-bone space you are used to associate with the scrappy startup world. This is a full blown, top corporate space. How on earth can startups afford such a space? As they say here: "don't ask, don't tell" ;-)
There is still plenty of space available (30K sqf total), but things are coming together pretty quickly, including the famous common area that has been transported entirely from Pier 38.
As far as we are concerned, we took a spacious wing of the floor, filled natural light, where we can run our loud presentations, training modules, etc without killing the other startups that are busy changing the world.
In fact, since we moved in, we've been running our October session of our Startup School, and things, so far, have gone as smooth as silk.
Last night, we even hosted the first official Open House event in our new home.

We do have plenty of space, so that we are starting renting out desks to folks who are a good fit with our philosophy.
If you are interested, start having a look at the pictures here. Wondering why our pictures look so professional? Because a real pro took them, Paolo Bonaccorsi, one of the brilliant participants to our October Startup School (thanks Paolo!!).

The Venture Camp Gala Dinner. A dream venue for a rocking party.

A terrific event requires a royal celebration … and when it is time to celebrate we never refuse.
We are going to put together all the ingredients for a great party. A dream venue, fun and amazing people. And yes, we have them all!

A very special venue. The selected venue for this year Dinner Party is the Showroom EDRA, an Italian design company that has found the keys to success through fantasy, risk and imagination. We like that. And we are sure you’ll fall in love with this place at first glance.
Fun. Games and entertainment, networking and yes … pure fun (someone says Le Iene will be there..). And sure, you’ll get surprised..
Amazing people. However, what really makes the difference is you! Wanna have a proof?
Look at the pics of the last year HEROS. This year we wanna do even more..

Mark your calendar and join us for an unusual night of fun, networking and…a lot more.

yes, we are IENE too

It's true. We are IENE inside.

Following last night's airing of the Iene's special on the brain-drain in Italy, we finally showed our true self. For the few that don't know IENE (Italian for hyenas), they are the investigative reporting news show.

When Lucci contacted us (via Loris Degioanni), it wasn't quite clear what kind of cut he wanted to give to the topic.

What highly controversial story did they want to build around us?

Truth being told, both Loris and I were quite apprehensive to be devoured by "the hyenas" we all grew up with.

Now, the day after, it's all clear.

The hundreds of emails, messages, facebook/linkedin connections we received within the few hours after the show, really made it clear.

We posted some of those on our blog on Corriere.

The truth is that in Italy there's a whole world in the 20-something generation (but not only) that today is in pain.

Their well expressed messages are a clear request for help: to have the opportunity to make a difference, to feel appreciated or, sometimes, just to express their dismay about their future.

Nothing to ask really, mostly the need to talk to "an entity" that could feel their pain.

For us, being identified with that role is not only flattering. It's our life juice. It's what gets us going. It's an honour and a privilege.

Thanks.

Venture Camp 2011 warm up

5 weeks only!

The countdown is on for the MTB Venture Camp 2011, the top event hosted by Corriere della Sera, bridging technology and startup world from Silicon Valley to Italy (and back).

At its 4th edition, the event will have the usual format: a 2-day conference focused on promoting the new Italian talents coming from the MTB Business Plan competition, learn from success stories of who "made it" and address the issues that today are impeding the Italian entrepreneurial ecosystem to blossom.

Some joucey news coming: significant prizes from our partners (ie Marzotto, RCS), top speakers lineup and our renowned (un-)usual Friday night party (see picture...).

Tickets are available here. Remember, they go fast!

Significant discount for you early birds until Oct 10, so act now....

Here are the 15 startups admitted to 2011 Venture Camp

Here we are. After collecting the feedback from all the Instructors @ MtB Boot Camp in Turin, our Selection Committee has finally completed its job. They had a hard time to pick-up the best 15... since all the 29 startups we selected for the Boot Camp in Turin were actually very good. But a choice has to be made. And, most of the time, it is a tougher to say no than yes...

Below you can find the list of the 15 startups admitted to pitch at the Venture Camp in November (Milan @ Corriere della Sera). The final ranking merges the original evaluation from the desk analysis and the qualitative analisys we performed during the 3-day Boot Camp we organized last week.

Kudos to the selected startups but also to those that did not make it: you are good, tune a bit your business plan and never give up! We are working to organize an event dedicated to you as well as a subset of the startups that have not been admitted to the Boot Camp. We are confident that some of them have a great potential and can be the next protagonists! We are going to work with you guys...



STARTUPS ADMITTED TO 2011 MIND THE BRIDGE VENTURE CAMP

Arkimedia
D-Orbit
Frestyl
Gowar
Iubenda
Mangatar
Naevi in silico
NextStyler
Phlur
Sounday
stereomood
Timbuktu
Treedom
Vinswer
Vivocha

See you in Milan @ Venture Camp and leverage the support of your brand new Stanford interns (more info here)