StartUP Factory 2018

From the simple idea to a viable business model in 52 hours - that was the challenge 40 people interested in building their own startup had to face at the weekend from 23rd to 25th November at the StartUP Factory 2018. The event was initiated by the Digital Startup Initiative Upper Palatinate (DGO) and hosted by the BioPark Regensburg.

The event started on Friday evening with welcoming words and an introduction by Dr. Thomas Diefenthal, CEO of the BioPark Regensburg GmbH and Dr. Veronika Fetzer, Manager of the DGO. Next  Prof. Saßmannshausen gave a lecture providing insights into the principles of the "Lean Start-up" and motivated the participants to work on their ideas. Then the winners of last year's event and founders of Evanium Healthcare talked about the development of their business, the obstacles they had to overcome and what route this had led them down till now since their participation in the StartUP Factory. Afterwards the participants were able to attract fellow competitors with their ideas or take part in challenges from the sponsors (Krones, Techniker Krankenkasse and Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen). In the end seven teams were formed and started to work on their ideas. Their goal: developing a so-called minimum viable product - including client validation, market research and business model development.

It became exciting on late Sunday afternoon, when the seven teams presented their results to a renowned specialist jury. The ideas ranged from a novel beverage system, to diverse apps to make life easier for both the end consumer as well as the companies, to the recycling of batteries from electric cars for domestic temporary energy storage. The most convincing was Team "bill.e" who wanted to digitalize the receipt to avoid tons of paper waste as well as to give the customer an optimal overview over their expenses and help them to avoid the onerous search for the receipt when exchanging items. The five winners are able to enjoy professional trademark branding or strategic patent analysis to the value of 1,000 Euro, funded by the BioPark, the marketing agency Bauer.com and the patent attorneys Dehmel & Bettenhausen as well as an office rent-free for six months at TechBase.