The Startup Grind Munich event series regularly invites experienced founders to a fireside chat: In a small group, leading figures from Munich's startup scene chat about their experiences and their lives as entrepreneurs. A year and a half ago, Sabine Flechet and her team revived the networking format in Munich. We spoke with the organizer.
Who is Startup Grind Munich aimed at?
Our audience is a community of entrepreneurs, founders, and makers who meet once a month to be inspired by some of the brightest minds our local ecosystem has to offer. Overall, Startup Grind is the largest independent startup community, actively educating, inspiring, and connecting over a million entrepreneurs in more than 365 cities. We support startup ecosystems in 120 countries through events, outreach, and partnerships with organizations like Google for Entrepreneurs. Our organization was founded in Silicon Valley and is rapidly becoming known as something like the TED Talks of the entrepreneurial world. Some of our community's milestones include:
- 2,500 volunteers
- 7,000 Fireside Chats in 2017
- 120,432 minutes of free education
- 30,754,351 minutes of video were viewed
Our Munich group is no different: We want to build a vibrant and connected startup community—online and offline. In doing so, we hope to stimulate innovation, economic growth, and success at a local level. To achieve this, we bring local hidden champions to the stage, share their entrepreneurial journeys, and give them global visibility.
Our growing community includes 1,300 founders and experts in emerging companies. This provides access to a vast talent pool for recruiting and investment, a learning platform for innovative solutions and trends, and a significant channel for finding future customers and suppliers.
Common values
Who is behind the Munich project? What motivates you?
The Munich chapter is supported by a truly passionate team dedicated to helping founders, entrepreneurs, and startups on their path to success. The team includes online marketing rockstars, experienced entrepreneurs, students seeking to connect with the startup ecosystem, and investors (VCs and business angels). We are driven by shared values: empathy, friendship, reliability, and generosity.
We want to Find friends, not contactsOne of our key success factors is providing our attendees with opportunities for matchmaking. This means that no attendee should leave one of our events without meeting someone relevant—be it a potential customer, a new employee, an interested investor, or simply a friend. We're here to help with the search for a mentor, a partner, a new employee, funding, or new users.
We want give and not take: All of our fireside chats and interview questions are designed to give the audience a glimpse into the journey of a successful entrepreneur—including key learnings and insights, as well as best practices and takeaways. We don't just want to share the headlines or cover stories for the media, but also the real entrepreneurial action behind the scenes.
We want to first help others before we help ourselves: Our goal is to make a startup's journey less lonely and more connected and memorable. Our Munich chapter of Startup Grind is a non-profit organization. Every team member works on a voluntary basis, and ticket revenue only covers the costs of the event (space, catering, technology, and marketing). Our reward is seeing attendees leave our events with insights, new acquaintances, and a satisfied, grateful smile (probably thanks to the free buffet and open bar!).
Fireside chats are available online
What does a typical Startup Grind event look like?
The cornerstone of our global community are monthly events featuring a successful local founder, innovator, expert, or investor who shares personal stories and experiences on their journey to building great companies. They represent profound leadership qualities, diligence, humility, and success, demonstrating their strength through dedication to the work they do every day. They encourage and inspire us all.
We'll spend an hour filming an informal, intimate fireside chat with this amazing person of the month, then we'll have a Q&A and a casual exchange, for which we'll provide delicious food and drinks.
Each event will be www.startupgrind.com (and our Startup Grind Local YouTube Channel) — some of the past interviews in Munich were with local celebrities such as the founders of FlixBus, IDNow and Bits & Pretzels, MyMuesli, Internationals, Global Savings Group (or CupoNations), carpooling.com (sold to the French Blablacar)... I could list more. These interviews offer a unique behind-the-scenes look at the lives, journeys, and aspirations of those who have already experienced the adventure, and incredibly exciting and inspiring events. They also provide a good insight into the Munich startup and business angel scene.
What distinguishes your events from other networking events?
I believe every event in Munich has its own DNA. Ours lies in the intimate atmosphere and in allowing our speakers to share their personal stories with the audience. Our goal is to make our community feel at home—as if they've invited our guest speaker into their living room for an informal coffee break. The fact that our guest speakers typically stay for several hours after the fireside chat, answering questions from our audience in person, is a step in this direction. I remember Felix Haas, Jochen Engert, and Andreas Fruth staying much longer than expected simply because they enjoyed sharing experiences with our participants so much.
Your event series has been running in Munich for over a year now. Ten guests joined you for a fireside chat. Which moments and guests stand out in your memory?
I remember some participants who traveled from Ingolstadt or Augsburg to listen to our speakers and discuss entrepreneurship with Finn Age Hänsel or Malte Zeeck.
Our Christmas party was the highlight of last year, with repeat attendees. On average, our guests attended three to four events in 2017.
Food entrepreneurs are also always welcome to present their products: Some have become long-term partners, such as Urban Soup, Heiland Liqueur, IsarBier and The Fresh ManufactoryIt's always a great opportunity for attendees: While they eat the samples, they can talk to the person next to them; it's a wonderful way to start a conversation!
To date, we've helped several entrepreneurs find mentors and funding, we've connected several members of established companies with potential partners and new hires, and we're reaching new users who are having great experiences. We hope to inspire many more in the future.
A Munich Startup Grind conference?
What have you learned so far? Where do you want to go next?
The Munich chapter of Startup Grind was relaunched a year and a half ago. We're placing a stronger focus on our everyday mission to educate, inspire, and connect—ultimately, we want to help every entrepreneur in the world.
We want our community to continue to grow. We're working with many other local organizations and individuals to shape Munich's ecosystem and create a more inclusive society: We've initiated discussions with our local contacts to increase visibility for the city and the region; I believe it's time to put Munich on the map and highlight more local founders and success stories! To achieve this goal, we've already expanded our team and are looking for more!
However, we will continue to hold our Fireside Chats in an intimate and informal setting, as this is the cornerstone of our format, and that's why people keep coming back 🙂
But why shouldn't we think about organizing a Startup Grind conference in Munich in the future (similar to those in Silicon Valley, London or Barcelona)?
Anyone who believes in our mission to educate, inspire, and connect—ultimately helping every entrepreneur in the world—should come to our events.
We want to do work we're proud of. We want to do work that helps others, even if only in a small way. Stay tuned for more!
