Best Practice: How one city in Germany developed a lively startup scene
This is part 2 of the miniseries about how cities can support the development of a startup scene.
In the first part of this miniseries about how cities can support the development of a startup environment, I wrote about the general conditions that cities should establish to make it more attractive for start-ups. In this second part I explain from practice what measures the city of Würzburg has taken and what other cities can learn from it.
The general conditions I wrote about are of course “nice to have”. But their presence does not necessarily create a startup scene or environment. Rather, they are only the prerequisite for establishing a startup community. These conditions are necessary in general for a liveable city — and of course this is worth a lot for the citizens of every city even without a startup scene or community. However, I believe that you still need in addition certain triggers to create and as a consequence develop a vital startup scene.
Würzburg (and its startups) were fortunate that the city administration was of the opinion that the individual offers for founders in Würzburg should be brought together on one platform. That was the starting signal for “Gründen@Würzburg”, the local platform organisation for the Würzburg startups. Afterwards we (I am one of the people who helped to bring the platform to live) took various measures to fuel this platform and therefore the evolving startup scene.
1. Regular ways to meet
It was important to us that the founders were given opportunities to meet in a relaxed environment. It should be a possibility that takes place regularly (at this point a big “Thank you” to Therese Gedda from Sweden, who gave me this piece of advice in 2015 at the SME Assembly in Luxembourg).
Fortunately, there was already an event in Würzburg that tried to offer to founders a regular meeting opportunity — the “Gründerstammtisch” (Founder’s Regular Table). The organizers, Jan Wiesner and Markus Sommer, have quickly realized that their event under the umbrella of Gründen@Würzburg brings benefits for all involved: The founders get an event that takes place every two months and gives them the opportunity to meet. Gründen@Würzburg acquires a fully organized event and the initiators get more coverage and exposure for their event.
So far no one here has tried to gain a greater advantage for themselves because of the platform of Gründen@Würzburg. Together, everyone involved got bigger benefits.
Over time, more meeting places for founders (and other interested parties) were added. For example the Vogel Communications Group regularly hosts the Social Media Business Lounge. This is a series of events focusing on social media activities. Since 2017 the Social Media Business Lounge takes place in cooperation with Gründen@Würzburg.
Additionally, several co-working spaces in Würzburg offer public events like lectures and once a year the “Startup Prize” is awarded by Gründen@Würzburg, which each June attracts more than 150 people.
2. A hallmark for the Würzburg startup scene
At this point, once again a huge “Thank you” to the already mentioned Therese Gedda (I did a video with here — you can find it here: LINK). Because she gave me the idea to create a hashtag for Würzburg so that all postings and all articles related to the Würzburg startup scene can be labeled.
The hashtag should be handy and also a bit “funny”, so that it can be easily remembered. My choice fell on “#wuekannstartup”. In the meantime, this hashtag has gotten around and is being used by more and more stakeholders and supporters of the Würzburg startup scene.
But that was not all. In a democratic process with a lot of local participants, a logo was decided on and drafted — already at the beginning of 2015 — for Gründen@Würzburg. This logo can also be found at most of the events associated with the Würzburg startup scene.
3. Show and develop the scene
Most importantly, one has to show and present the founders and the startup scene. To do this, one of the first ideas I developed was the video series “GründerTalk”.
At regular intervals, I conduct interviews with founders, talk about their startups and the challenges they had to master. In the meantime, more than 80 videos have come together and it goes on and on (the videos can be found on YouTube: LINK).
Also, the city of Würzburg designed the annual “Gründermagazin Mainfranken” (“Founder´s Magazin Mainfranken”) in 2017 (the second edition was published in 2018). And also since 2017 Rebecca Hahn, a founder herself, regularly blogs about the activities of the Würzburg startup scene on the website of Gründen@Würzburg, www.gruenden.wuerzburg.de.
In addition, the Startup Prize has brought a lot of attention in the regional and national press to the founders and their companies.
But in my opinion, it is also very important not to rest on your laurels. The scene needs to evolve and the support must go on.
The supporters of Gründen@Würzburg meet regularly every two months to discuss and initiate new activities. In this context the IGZ Würzburg (Innovations- & Gründerzentrum, “Innovation and Startup Center”) is to be mentioned, whose staff takes particular care of the organization of these meetings and the implementation of the measures decided there. Without them, the development of Gründen@Würzburg would certainly not have been so structured.
Preliminary conclusion
What can I say at this point: Is it possible to name the conditions that must exist to easily create a startup scene? Do you just have to create the appropriate conditions if they are not already there, and the scene is established? In my opinion this is not so easy.
I think that I am able to abstractly name and explain many of the conditions that are necessary to have the chance of creating a startup scene. But whether the this will ultimately work out is another matter.
All I can say at the moment is this: It is particularly important to have a not necessarily large, but at least very dedicated group of people who pursue a common goal over a longer period of time — as was the case in Würzburg with the creation of Gründen@Würzburg. It may not always be clear that you will succeed. But don´t give up, stay tuned and engaged. With this attitude you have at least a chance of success. And that is what a startup is all about….
Thanks for reading! :)
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I am the co-founder of “Gründen@Würzburg”, the startup initiative of the German city of Würzburg. I had the honor to be the President of the G20 Young Entrepreneurs´ Alliance (YEA) Germany and the Chairman of the Steering Committee of the G20 YEA, an organisation that is the voice of more than 500.000 young entrepreneurs in the G20 countries (www.g20yea.com) .
A corporate lawyer by profession and equipped with my own law firm, I advises German and international clients (who want to do business in Germany) in corporate and commercial legal matters. By invitation of the European Commission, I have the pleasure to participant every year in the annual SME Assembly, the most important event for small and medium-size enterprizes. Additionally, I am a member of the B20 Task Forces and was from 2014 to 2017 the General Legal Counsel and also a member of the national board of JCI Germany (WJD — Wirtschaftsjunioren Deutschland), the biggest organization for young leaders and entrepreneurs in Germany. Last but not least I am one of the ambassadors for the “Großer Preis des Mittelstands”, the most prominent German award for companies of the German Mittelstand.
