We all have to fight for our ideas from time to time. Entrepreneurs in the making however do it every day. On the third day of the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Milan, the Battle of Ideas gave entrepreneurs the chance to do just this. Startups from a variety of countries pitched their ideas in multiple rounds.
It started with a typical three minute pitch, followed by a rap pitch. Competitors had to rap about their ideas in the most creative way, while a DJ laid down hip-hop beats.
In round three, the entrepreneurs had to explain their ideas in a way that a grandmother could understand it – to a real grandmother, knitting and all. To make it more challenging, the grandmother only understood Italian. While many of the participants did a good job, ConceptKicker from Canada and Breezometer from Israel took home the top prizes.
“People were really excited to see a pitch competition like this,” explained Denny Hollick, ConceptKicker cofounder. “I don’t think I’ll be becoming a rapper anytime soon though.”
Maria Contreras-Sweet, administrator of the SBA, talked about her grandmother in a session earlier the same day as part of the Research + Policy Summit. When Contreras-Sweet first landed a job in the United States, she phoned back home to Mexico to tell her family about it. They were all happy for her of course, but her grandma reminded her, "It is not the title that's important, but what you make of the title."
Contreras-Sweet also shared an example in her keynote address about entrepreneurs who had fought for their ideas. A group of college students found a way to make a compostable packaging material out of fungus. Coming out of school, they all got lucrative job offers from large companies but were persuaded by their professor to follow their dream and start a business around their idea. They made fighting for their idea their top priority and now, Dell is one of the companies now using their product.
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Jonas Gustafsson is an editor and communications officer at the Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research Institute (ESBRI) in Sweden, the official host organization behind GEW Sweden. ESBRI disseminates knowledge on entrepreneurship, innovation and small business.
Gustafsson is a trained journalist and previously worked as an independent writer and editor in the fields of entrepreneurship, science, technology, popular culture and the labor market. He has degrees in journalism, psychology and business administration. In addition to his work at ESBRI, Gustafsson is anxiously awaiting the arrival of his second child and the newest season of Game of Thrones.