Running Start

Alumni Spotlight focuses on reconnecting with alumni of the global 3DS network to see how they are impacting the entrepreneurship landscape in their community. For this interview, I sat down with Cultural Attache to the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, Nathanael Lynn to learn more about his diplomatic experience in Vienna, the entrepreneurial landscape in Austria, and his advice on how to succeed as an Austrian entrepreneur.

 

Nathaneal Lynn LinkedIn:

3 Day Startup

As a 3 Day Startup alumni, organizer, and facilitator, Nina Ho dealt with strategy and goal setting for the organization, which was hard... But not as hard as starting her own company, Collective Blue. As CEO and Creative Director of this rising diverse lifestyle brand, Nina has experienced how important it is to set goals and prioritize responsibilities. She sat down with Nick to go deeper.

Expert Hour series invites entrepreneurs, mentors, and change-makers from around the world to discuss everything entrepreneurship like fundraising, social impact, and much much more. What does a venture capital firm look for in a startup? What are some factors I should be aware of when looking to win an investment from a venture capital firm? May Samali, partner of NextGen Venture Partners in San Francisco sat down with guest host and serial podcaster Moby Hayat to answer these questions, and more.

Expert Hour series invites entrepreneurs, mentors, and change-makers from around the world to discuss everything entrepreneurship like fundraising, social impact, and much much more. For those startups outside of the United States, a common goal is to scale or even move your business into the U.S. markets. How and when is it a good idea to consider that? Ali Syed is the International Partnerships Coordinator at Capital Factory in Austin, Texas and as someone who leads efforts to bring international companies to the U.S., he knows a thing or two that can help us answer these questions.

Expert Hour series invites entrepreneurs, mentors, and change-makers from around the world to discuss everything entrepreneurship like fundraising, social impact, and much much more. It's important to solve a problem for your target customer segment and continuing to bring in business from those customers, but when is it time to consider scaling and spreading your impact? Jason Skipton, Executive Director at Growing Gardens in Portland, Oregon, discusses how to always make business decisions with scalability in mind.

Expert Hour series invites entrepreneurs, mentors, and change-makers from around the world to discuss everything entrepreneurship like fundraising, social impact, and much much more. Its a good idea for a company to take a step back and evaluate what they are succeeding in, where their shortfalls are, and external factors they should be aware of. The SWOT Analysis is a good tool to do just that. Startup mentor and serial entrepreneur, Bart Bohn, talks with Nick about how to utilize this tool to help see opportunities and threats in the market based on your company’s strengths and weaknesses.

Expert Hour series invites entrepreneurs, mentors, and change-makers from around the world to discuss everything entrepreneurship like fundraising, social impact, and much much more. As the VP of Client Strategy and as a mentor at Capital Factory in Austin, Texas, Marc Nathan guide technology companies them through the complicated process of raising investment capital through Seed and later stage financing rounds for emerging and established businesses. Marc forges many mentor/mentee relationships with startups, but the question is: how does a mentee manage that relationship? What should mentors and mentees expect out of this relationship?  On this episode, Nick dug deep with Marc into the underpinnings of this relationship.

Expert Hour series invites entrepreneurs, mentors, and change-makers from around the world to discuss everything entrepreneurship like fundraising, social impact, and much much more. There is always buzz in the tech and startup world about how many investor dollars a company is raising, but can companies just cover the startup costs with their revenue? As Cofounder of Reset, a startup that partners with restaurants to use as coworking spaces, Silva Gentchev has managed to launch this business without any outside investment. She sits down with Nick to talk about bootstrapping and how a company can make this work.

Expert Hour series invites entrepreneurs, mentors, and change-makers from around the world to discuss everything entrepreneurship like fundraising, social impact, and much much more. As an avid social entrepreneur and Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Miami University, Dr. Chris Sutter works with hundreds of early-stage student entrepreneurs every semester to focus on the problem more than the solution. This is because focusing on the customer’s problems and pains give an entrepreneur better insight as to whether the product they are building is something people want, and more importantly, something people need.

Alumni Spotlight focuses on reconnecting with alumni of the global 3DS network to see how they are impacting the entrepreneurship landscape in their community. For this interview, we sit down with previous Austria to Austin Student Exchange participant Stefan Salcher to learn more about his ATA exchange experience, how he met his co-founder, and see where his entrepreneurial career has taken him since. 

Question Guide:

1:30 What was your inspiration for wanting to participate in the exchange program?

2:30: Did the exchange experience alter your perspective on entrepreneurship?

3:55 What business idea did you work on during the exchange?

5:35: What lessons were you able to apply from working on the 3 Day Startup Business (Adventure Offline) to your actual business you are working on today (Druckster)?

6:30 Explain what your current company (Druckster) is all about)

10:15: Did you have the idea for Druckster before the exchange program or after?

12:30: Stefan discusses meeting co-founder at the exchange

13:45: What advice would you give to future Austria to Austin Exchange participants

17:00: What would you like 3DS Alumni and entrepreneurs to contact you about?

19:00 How can people stay connected to you and Druckster?

 

Resources & Links:

Stefan Salcher LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefansalcher/

Druckster

https://www.druckster.at/

3DS Graz Program Application

https://3dsnp.wufoo.com/forms/s14ihg2u0bh38h6/

Austria to Austin Roadshow Information

https://austriastartups.3daystartup.org/home/ataroadshow/