So how was it?

We’ve been long overdue a good night’s sleep. Now we’re back and we want to thoroughly wrap things up & share the story of Techstars Startup Weekend Romania with you. We’ve learned a lot during this entire journey of supporting new initiatives within Romania and the fight against problems created by COVID-19.

It all started with an enthusiastic A-Team bringing in together a relentless approach to creating an impactful event for the national community.

After setting things up, the registrations and idea submissions were opened. The participants had the opportunity to submit an idea, together with an elevator pitch and a full description. Prior to the event start, on Thursday morning, 19 mentors rated the 120+ submitted ideas to come up with a final list of 45 selected ideas that would be worked on within the weekend. Be it upcoming business or social entrepreneurship, the initiatives ranged from MedTech to education, from technology-based startups using AI to a new way of approaching dating post-COVID19.

The team leaders of the selected ideas had now the challenge to recruit a team while the other participants had the chance to join one of the founders. We had 32 active teams within the weekend. Some founders merged, some didn’t make it, while some already had a team to tackle the weekend!

Within the weekend, together with the help of very dedicated mentors, the participants worked on figuring out the struggles of upcoming initiatives. Be it figuring out a business model or validation all the way to that perfect pitch deck and pitch video to submit. The mentors supported teams even beyond their initial availability and in some particular cases all through the night.

Here come Sunday and the deadline for the final pitch form was right around the corner. 25 teams made it! 25 restless teams of entrepreneurs. The jury members had a tough time going through the list and ranking TOP3.

We wouldn’t be able to wrap things up without a few words from our participants:

“The mentors were very helpful and awesome” — Alex (Notary Online)

“Happy with the people I met here and formed a team with! Stressful at the beginning, learned a lot from the mentors” — Madalina (Tooting)

“Being an online event it brought Romanians from abroad together” — Victor (Biotech)

To sum it up:

• 100k Facebook Event Reach
• 552 registered participants
• 150k lines of chat on Discord
• 24 mentors with 150+ mentoring sessions
• 5 rockstar judges coming with Education, Community, Investment & Tech Startups experience
• 120+ ideas submitted
• 45 selected ideas -> 32 active teams -> 25 submitted pitches -> 3 winners: MediNav (3rd), SusTrack (2nd) and Virmed (1st)
• 25 amazing organizers

All under one national initiative!

A big kudos to all the participants! We’d like to thank again everyone who either backed up this initiative or supported it actively like judges, mentors, organizers and volunteers.