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Campus Party: mixed feelings for startup founders

I’ve seen drones race at incredible speeds and crash even harder. I’ve played arcade games and I got my ass kicked by a football robot. I’ve seen juniors and seniors together, and got reunited with multiple old friends. I saw a CEO in a watermelon suit and wandered around in decorated caravans. Unfortunately, I also noticed a lot of empty space.

Startup talks at the Entrepreneurship area were clearly targeted at aspiring entrepreneurs on this Friday. Nothing wrong with that, au contraire. But the attendance was moderate to poor, even more so at the workshops. Actually, the whole event was kinda undercrowded.

As you can telI, I did and noticed lot in just a couple of hours at the first Campus Party in The Netherlands, in Utrecht. I might have forgotten that this event was about startups as well. So, what was their experience of an event with multiple target audiences?

Machine learning startup Scyfer from Amsterdam came here for the exposure and clients. However, the exposure felt limited to them due to an isolated space. “We talk to very few people who share our interests”, said research engineer Auke Wiggers. “We even say some founders already leave their spots.”
But what about talent? CEO Jörgen Sandig: “We’re good for now. Looking for talent here is like shooting with hail. There are better ways of recruiting.”

Roel Snel from Amersfoort-based image-to-postcard startup GrannyGram even felt a bit out of place. “I see a lot of kids under 18, so business wise it’s not really a success. I also don’t need talent, because I don’t require much tech. I won this spot from Computable (on of the partners of the event, red.), so I’m doing it for them, not necessarily for myself.”

Jolien Verburg, online marketeer for Watermelon, played a home game in Utrecht. “We’re here mostly for our reach, to learn from other companies and of course exposure. We always look for developers, but we’re not going to crimp people here or something.”

Stefan Tan from Amsterdam-based Dashmote was here for multiple reasons. He was moderator in a speaker session, was looking for partnerships with other startups but mostly he attended Campus Party to recruit people. “There’s a nice mix of people here, people you want at your startup.”

It was a Taiwanese startup however who got what it came when it comes to recruiting. Taiwanese entrepreneur “call me Ryan” from startup Vcool came here to understand the Dutch market and talk to investors. “When you want to expand to a new country, you got to have people and money. And here at Campus Party, there’s a lot of talent and we met a young engineer who might wants to work for us.”

Although there are mixed feelings for startup founders at Campus Party, it kind of fits the whole event. Ryan said “the whole aura of this event fits us”. Sander ten Kate, CEO of Senfal agreed: “the vibe here is amazing.” And however the event today was really the opposite of lively, I have to agree here. It’s got one thing very right and that’s atmosphere. Let’s hope next year Campus Party returns with a bang. And with ’bang’ I mean ’more crowd’.

Image: Campus Party

Lorenz van Gool
Lorenz is co-editor-in-chief of StartupJuncture. As a freelance editor and journalist, he writes about startups, innovation and (e)-business. Loves to report from conferences. Really likes cleantech and journalism startups. You can ask him anything about dinosaurs. Twitter: @lorenzroman

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