Materializing Innovation

Entrepreneurship. Why?

Athens Startup Weekend UniversitySeptember 28th – 30th 2012

Dimitris TsigosFounder & CEO

StartTechVentures

dtsigos@starttech.eu | http://twitter.com/tsigos | http://www.linkedin.com/in/tsigos

What does it make you cool?

To be sexy?

To be successful?

To be the best on earth?

Not really.

Who’s the happiest person on earth?

Solon before Croesus

Kleobis & Biton!

The happiest persons on earth

“In the legend, Kleobis and Biton were Argives, the sons of Cydippe, a priestess of Hera. Cydippe was travelling

from Argos to a festival in honor of Argive Hera. The oxen which were to pull her cart were overdue and her sons,

Kleobis and Biton, pulled the cart the entire way (45 stadia, or 8.3 km/5.1 miles). Cydippe was impressed with their

devotion to her and her goddess and she prayed to Hera, asking her to give her children the best gift a god could

give to a mortal. Hera ordained that the brothers would die in their sleep, and after the feast the youths lay down in the

temple of Hera, slept and never woke. Herodotus, who relates the story, says that the citizens of Argos donated a

pair of statues to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi.”

«Μηδένα προ του τέλους μακάριζε»

Entrepreneurship is about happiness

Why so many people unhappy?

Do we follow the right model?

From Pyramids to Pancakes

• Josephine Green: “From command and control to a truly flat world of collaboration!”

• No we do NOT!

• “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” -Albert Einstein

Are YOU insane?

• If not insane, then we need to follow the pancake model versus the pyramid one

• In other words:– It’s NOT about domination, but it is

about sustainability

Who could be Kleobis and Biton today, in Greece?

YOU!

How?

• Think of real problem that many people have

• Find an innovative way to solve it• Get a team that shares the passion to do

it• Making sure that the proposed solution is

sustainable

•As simple as that!

• Is it gonna be easy?

• Absolutely no!

• Is it gonna be fun?

•YES it certainly will!

• Entrepreneurship is about being useful to another person. Something so simple that makes you happy.

• It’s simple: Be useful!

Thank you