I recently returned from spending a week in San Francisco and Silicon Valley alongside my fellow European Seedcamp Finalists (check out the write-ups by Don Dodge and VentureBeat ). The guys over at Shout’em gave a nice day by day summary of events, so I’ll just jump to my conclusions.

Seedcamp put Joobili in front of some incredibly smart entrepreneurs and VCs, 95% of whom are altruistically focused on helping startups reach their potential (the other 5% come to meet fellow VCs or look for a job). Mentoring is cool, but mentoring alone would not be worth the transatlantic flight. Remember, Seedcamp is a platform. It is validation that some smart people from Seedcamp thought Joobili was interesting, and therefore other smart people should take a closer look at us. That’s it! But that’s also enough.

With the Seedcamp endorsement in hand, Joobili was able to get meetings with Founders and CEOs of 9 travel websites including some really dynamic entrepreneurs like Gregg Brockway from TripIt, Mike Cassidy from Ruba, Josh from NileGuide…the list goes on. The result was a lot of good advice specific to online travel, a few partnerships and some potential deals. The willingness to share sensitive information and open up personal networks is why The Valley will continue to have an innovation edge on the rest of the world.

Some of the meetings were facilitated by mentors we met in London, others were through our own network. The point is that, like most things in life, Seedcamp is what you make of it. It is a foot in the door, a good excuse to send an intro email, but ultimately it’s up to you to make it happen.

Speaking of making it happen…applications for Mini Seedcamp Prague have just opened. I encourage startups needing validation (read everyone), especially those from CEE to apply.

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Things have heated up here in Joobili land as we were in London last week along with 40 European startups competing to be invited to Seedcamp week.  (I blogged about the Mini Seedcamp event back in March). This is an incredible opportunity for us to meet some of Europe’s top entrepreneurs and investors…the people who have actually been down this road a dozen times and can help us avoid expensive mistakes. You can imagine how  excited we were to be selected as one of the final 21 teams who will spend next week in London.

The craziness continues as we prepare to make the most of our week, but I wanted to take a moment to jot down a few reasons I think Seedcamp is worth the effort (and believe me, it is a lot of work to do it right).

Support: When I lived in the San Francisco I could not walk into a coffee shop without seeing a group of hackers huddled over a computer or a poster for a tech meetup. The idea behind such frequent gatherings was not so much to meet key contacts, but rather to act as a support group of people who understand the roller coaster we are all riding. Let’s face it, the path we’ve chosen is not easy and it helps to see other people suffering alongside us, right? Seedcamp acts as one of these vital connection among European startups.

Focus: Last week we had to pitch Joobili in 3 minutes (idea, biz model, competition, achievements, etc). Not a lot of time to summarize ideas that have been swimming in our heads for 2 years. We had to strip away everything but the absolutely essential. It was a painful process that we probably wouldn’t have done on our own without Seedcamp. The result was that suddenly a 5 minute pitch suddenly felt easy (kinda). It’s like runners who train at high elevation to make a normal run feel easy.

Exposure: One of the problems with European startups is we tend to have more difficulty getting exposure beyond our home market. It is always “A Hungarian startup…” or a “British starup…” despite the fact the offering is pan-European. Winning the Mini Seedcamp event in Warsaw really propelled our launch. We are seeing a similar boost in interest as a Seedcamp Week finalist and the interest is all coming from outside our home market.

These were just a few advantages and I know there are many more. Expect a follow up post after Seedcamp Week. Wish us luck!