Wow…where to start. On Wednesday, Joobili was selected one of the winners of Seedcamp’s Warsaw competition. Each of the 20 finalists had 5 minutes to present their startup to a room full of investors and entrepreneurs. The rest of the day was filled with individual sessions where we received incredible feedback about Joobili from an all-star group of mentors.

For me there were two themes on the day: Focus and Capital-Efficiency. Startups need to be very focused on a what problem they are solving and not try to be everything to everyone. For Joobili, this means we need to stay focused on becoming the best resource for time-sensitive travel inspiration. We were told to avoid trying to become yet another travel social network where people can collect travel “friends” online. Capital-efficiency means doing more with less money. In this tough economy, investors want to see startups that can keep expenses low. Setting up shop in Budapest gives Joobili a big advantage here. The Seedcamp mentors seemed impressed with what we’ve accomplished with so little money.

So what did we win? Seedcamp opened a lot of doors for us. We were invited to pitch Joobili in London to a few of the VC companies we met in Warsaw. We’ll also benefit from ongoing mentoring in the coming months from the fantastic team at Seedcamp. Lastly, Joobili saw a huge spike in traffic and new members due to the buzz surrounding our win. Here are just a few of the articles:
Leading Polish blog votes Joobili as the best of the winners
Hungary’s biggest newspaper
TechCrunch UK announces the winners

A big thanks to Seedcamp for supporting the European startup community!