New Beginnings

This weekend, in Kaunas, at Tech-Park Kaunas, an exclusive event took place – Startup Preschool Kaunas training, a format developed in Berlin and adaptable to different European cities. The 3-day intensive entrepreneurial course allowed 15 young creators and startup enthusiasts to deepen their entrepreneurial knowledge and improve their business planning skills. The event culminated in Saturday’s pitch presentations, where participants demonstrated how they were able to transform theory into actionable ideas in a short time.

The training was led by the charismatic Nicolai Strøm-Olsen, CEO of “Startup Migrants”, whose personal experience in building businesses and knowledge inspired the participants to achieve the highest results. “For founders by founders. That’s the main goal of this training, we aim to combine knowledge, and real experiences and share them. I am delighted that the teams prepared detailed pitches and prepared themselves to build a startup,” Strøm-Olsen emphasised the value of the curses.

Dr. Mantas Venslauskas, a member of the Tech-Park Kaunas community, also made an important contribution to the courses. As a visiting guest from local ecosystems, he shared his journey of creating an innovative health technology device, Vilimball, which reduces essential hand tremors and has already attracted a lot of interest and investment.

“Reflecting on my experience at “Startup Preschool Kaunas”, the most valuable aspect was learning practical techniques for problem identification,” said one of the participants, Zineb Benmya, a business administration student at KTU, “The workshops provided invaluable insights into understanding market dynamics and spotting untapped potential.”

Gytautas Kulakauskas, Investment Environment Project Manager of Business Division at “Kaunas IN”. His monthly “Kaunastic startups meetups” have become a platform for startups to share their experiences and discuss challenges and innovations in the sector.

“This concentrated course on the basics of entrepreneurship is a great example of how the right strategy and community synergies lead to the creation of a foundation for future attempts in the startup ecosystem in a short time. I hope that the event will also contribute to the establishment of future deep-tech startups and the strengthening of the entrepreneurial ecosystem,” says Jurgita Šarkienė, Head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Department at Tech-Park Kaunas and coordinator of the Horizon Europe project atTRACTION in Lithuania, which is aimed at strengthening the startup and investor community.

The courses were organised by “Startup Migrants” in collaboration with atTRACTION, the international deep tech community. “Startup Migrants” is a team based in Berlin and Oslo that helps future entrepreneurs learn the basics of entrepreneurship.