This is good news for all of us. Yesterday Antti wrote about how The Economist argues that culture makes almost all the difference beyond everything else, be it incubators, university programs, smart people, VCs, all of it. This is a view that we subscribe to and consequntly aim to help create a radically optimistic entrepreneurial culture here in the Nordics and Baltics. Now, I believe we’re are one step closer to such a culture of which Grand One is a very vivid, even if a small example.
Before it was cool thing say to your friends that you play in a band, now increasingly the cool thing to do is telling them you’re an entrepreneur.
At Grand One we saw some of these modern day rock starts: Muxlim won the best Startup category, Eat.fi won the best Info Design category and Tripsay picked-up honorary mentions in several categories.
Congrats to all the finalists! It’s nice to be in a band, but nothing compares to be an entrepreneur.
Disclosure: The writer was a judge at the Grand One 2009 Startup category