Dinner

As the saying goes: what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Anna has founded a total of six companies in ten years; which were her biggest mistakes, and what did she learn through them? Join this campfire to hear stories that are usually left untold; learn how to weather the perfect storm, sink your ship, and make it out alive.

At my company virtualQ we have grown the Development Team from zero to 12 developers and 3 data scientists within the last 6 months, and now have one of the best teams I have ever worked with. We have gone through hundreds of applications, lots of interviews, and many challenges during the process, for example - stemming a flood of unqualified applications from overseas - dealing with setbacks when the best candidates reject you last minute and how to prevent this from happening - advertise your job descriptions at the right places, and how - intentionally looking for remote devs and how to interview them and who to hire - presenting the right company culture to make your job attractive (e.g. "result only" work place?) In addition, I will extend the session with infos on how to "grow" a great agile development process, our focus being lean over process.

Let’s talk about mindfulness in life and at work! This Campfire is all about you, your mind and how to stay connected. Our world is hustling and bustling. At work and beyond we are constantly connected. So, when is the time to just be present and focused? How do we actually connect with ourselves? How does personal presence and focus contribute to our well-being at work? We would love to chat about your experiences in this area and will share our experiences regarding mindfulness as a pathway to more well-being, team spirit and creativity. We`re looking forward to meeting you at the Campfire. Kind regards Martina & Boris

Blackbeard was smart and calculated and did not rely on brutal force. He was a true leader, who had the blessing of his crew. Yet he is one of the most known pirates of his time. Those two elements - being smart and understanding people - are the key elements to a successfull pricing strategy. Given that this is one of THE most important tools to ensure your company is in the black, you ideally give it more than 5 minutes of your attention. Let’s discuss how Blackbeard would have sailed his business into the black by using a smart pricing strategy. Aye aye!

Speed-Networking - get to know the crowd of PIRATE Summit by participating in one of our famous speeddating rounds: 2 min 1on1 exchange with at least 10 new contacts. Meeting point will be at the Beergarden, just click participate here in Talque and come around on time

As the first generation of the maker’s movement ends - TechShop and Maker Faire are the main symbols to decline, from now on how can hardware startups build sustainable business? And how can founders take advantage of the current scenario to keep innovating in terms of business models with solutions that couldn’t have been developed a few years ago? This campfire will open a discussion about open possibilites for local ecosystems to support hardware startups that are already developing solutions that disrupt the way we live, just like Gutenberg did with printing media over 500 years ago.

There is huge potential to be unlocked in young, ambitious (tech) entrepreneurs. But what is the best way for them to leverage their potential? In this Fireside discussion, we want to discuss some of the challenges student/graduate founders face, the approaches they can take to raising funds, and the implications of deciding to take on VC financing at a very early stage. We also give some insights about the approaches of ASIF Ventures from Amsterdam and First Momentum Ventures from Karlsruhe, two young pre-seed Venture Capital funds, run by students.

We (PIRATE) are thinking about setting up a micro fund for #intheblack startups. We’d love to discuss: 1. Is there a need for this? What are the startups that qualify? 2. We think we should structure it as an Evergreen fund. However, there are a lot of challenges like the need for a secondary market. 3. In order to keep costs low we’d love to include successful founders as LPs and mentors. What are your thoughts? 4. How to sustain the fund. Fund size, management fee etc. 5. How to raise the initial capital. Crowdfunding... This is supposed to be a very open session. We don’t yet have many of the answers. If you are also currently setting up a fund or have already done so, please come by and share your experience.

In the early stages of a startup, the future looks bright and money is scarce. Why spending more than the absolute minimum amount of attention, time and money on legal aspects? The answer is: there's just too many examples where airy legal agreements have troubled massively, be it by competitors, customers or investors. P.S. This will be business talk, not legal talk.

This is a 10-min meditation guided by Martina Dopfer to create peace and connection. What could possibly be better to start a Pirate Summit day than to fully connect with yourself before connecting with all the great minds out there. This meditation will help you to get clarity on what is going on with you today and potentially also on what you want to get out of your days at the Pirate Summit. Come join. Love and light***

Come and join our morning session of Yoga! We try to awake your body with some stretching and variations of sun salutations... Cant wait to flow with you....Yoga is for everyone! Find your balance on the mat and bring it to life. With every new breath you have the chance to make you shine. Dare to close your eyes, dive in, open your heart and let go.

Come with your questions and challenges and get answers by our experts!

We want to hear from you what we miss in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Aachen… NRW to help founders be successful. We will shortly present our idea for a new early-stage accelerator. And then we want to jointly debate (a) what’s lacking for your ventures and others, and (b) what to do about it. Take an hour of your time and make your contribution to the ecosystem!

The world of work is changing. Digitization, automation and demographic change are driving companies to think more and more about how tomorrow's world of work needs to be organized and shaped. Lifelong learning is an important component. Many skills will become obsolete, so the question is: What will be in demand in the future, what are the most important skills for the future? And how can we teach these skills and create an active learning environment?

From marriage contracts to short term paid dates, all addressing the same thing: money. Why is one stigmatized but the other one legitimate?

One could argue that governments have no influence at all on the development of startup ecosystems. But in some countries, great efforts are put into startup support and great success stories are written, due to or despite government support. We want to discuss if there is a role for governments in startup ecosystems: Do they create substantial startup ecosystems or startup zombies?

Speed-Networking - get to know the crowd of PIRATE Summit by participating in one of our famous speeddating rounds: 2 min 1on1 exchange with at least 10 new contacts. Meeting point will be at the Beergarden, just click participate here in Talque and come around on time

Bring your challenges: We offer support with going remote (first steps, recruiting, organizational development, feedback…)

Decision Makers have to validate investment decision from a numbers’ perspective. They want to understand the key assumptions on how leads are created, how leads convert into customers and how customers grow. However, business plans presented by startups or projects rarely answer these question nor do they show relevant key metrics such as unit economics. Let's discuss if and why this situation is acceptable, what the metrics are which matter, what solutions help to improve the situation, ...

Learn how to best drive business results using Facebook's family of apps from Angela Lin, Client Solutions Manager at Facebook, followed by a panel with Miriam Wiederer (Co-founder of Echte Mamas), Alexander Peiniger (Founder of Quintly) and Max Koziolek (Founder of Spectrm) who will discuss how they leveraged Facebook's platform and developer tools to organically grow their startups #intheblack. Hosted by Malte Goesche, Strategic Partner Manager at Facebook.

Imagine robots with artificial intelligence at their full potential... Maybe these creatures won’t battle us, but us humans will definitely struggle with competing them. These bots can beat us humans at every game! Or can’t they...? What is the superpower of (wo)man that will keep humanity relevant? In this campfire game master Esra and interviewer Martje from School for Ninja will playfully guide you through topics as ‘freedom of choice’, ‘rules’ and ‘adaptability’. Will you play along?

We have an epidemic on our hands. More and more founders and tech industry staff are struggling to deal with the pressures of running a startup, leading to self-destructive behavior. A veteran of the tech industry, and someone that has been through significant challenges throughout his career, Stewart Rogers will outline what's going wrong, what we can do to address these problems, and how you can ensure you deal with the daily self-imposed and external pressures of running a startup in 2019.

The campfire will provide a framework of China’s startup ecosystem, which includes fundraising, technologies, trends, challenges, and opportunities. It will help startups to identify their own China strategy and help to answer the question: “are you China ready?”.

Come with your questions and challenges about Venture Capital and get answers by our experts!

In this Masterclass, participants will be taken through the critical concept of product-market fit, why it is so important, what it means exactly, innovative ways to achieve and how freaken awesome it feels once you got it. Working through the infamous startup curve, Genna will include her own experience of taking three years to finally nail down a market that needed her tech, and what that meant for her now multi-million euro revenue, growth stage startup. Key questions will be explored, including: “when do I need to hit product market fit?”, “how will I know when I have it?”, “how to I best achieve product market fit?” “what is a pivot and how do I make one?.” The goal of this masterclass is for all participants to leave with a solid sense of when their product, service or tech, has achieved a point in which their selected market will enable their company to truly scale. After all, even the most advanced and powerful machine gun can’t shoot a pigeon if it isn’t aimed in the right place…

Is the Silicon Valley Spirit a real thing? How is it different from Berlin? What is it like to be a foreign/German founder in the Bay Area? What motivates you to go there? What scares you about it? What helps, what doesn’t in starting a business in Silicon Valley? How is it to live there with or without family and friends? Sally and Ludwig have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past two years immersing in the startup ecosystem via startup, VC, different accelerators and a university degree. Hear their full story, what they’re up to next, and challenge their perspectives on the ecosystem, their decisions and their plans!

Psychology, neuroscience, meditation research, spiritual exploration and other fields of inquiry have increased the scientific understanding of the mechanisms behind human experiences like peace, compassion, embodiment, love, and our sense of who and what we are. Technology should serve our whole selves, not just our productivity. If we want technology to support and develop our psychological wellbeing, we have to design for it.

How has the role of the European Union evolved in supporting Startups and SMEs throughout the years? As a newly introduced form of direct support, the EIC Accelerator Pilot provides both a grant-only and a blended finance (combining grant and equity) option for Startups and SMEs from each European member state to get financed. The scheme supports high-risk, high-potential small and medium-sized innovative enterprises willing to develop and commercialise new products, services and business models that could drive economic growth and shape new markets or disrupt existing ones in Europe and worldwide.

Speed-Networking - get to know the crowd of PIRATE Summit by participating in one of our famous speeddating rounds: 2 min 1on1 exchange with at least 10 new contacts. Meeting point will be at the Beergarden, just click participate here in Talque and come around on time

In theory, OKR seems very simple. Organizations that get started with OKR, however, run into all sorts of practical problems with its application. In this clinic, Henrik-Jan (CEO of Perdoo) and Daniela (OKR Coach) will help you solve any problems you may have encountered while implementing OKR, and help you find practical solutions.

This session explores why VC funding might not be the right funding model for every company, or indeed, in the spirit of #intheblack, might not be needed at all. VC is an outlier, convexity driven business forcing a hi-octane execution model - will you end up building your business so the VC avoids their career risk, but it might not be the desirable outcome for you? Popular startup culture in the current cycle has romanticised overfunding of startups and rare outcomes, when the base rate and historical precedents are different. What are the things that have stood the test of time - what is it that we can learn from past cycles, from history, from the Classics and common sense that can serve entrepreneurs well? Can one succeed by bootstrapping and can one build large scale businesses without external VC funding? What are the trade-offs? And are the alternates desirable? This session will take a different look at the funding of early stage businesses and hope it can generate enough debate on whether VC funding is overrated or not.

The Silicon Valley model of a startup ecosystem does not work for many entrepreneurs worldwide - in Germany, it might be tricky to get VC Funding, in many other countries it is near impossible. In Palestine, the situation for entrepreneurs and hubs is characterized by inaccessibility of infrastructure critical to successful entrepreneurship due to the specific political position and occupation the country is under. Palestinian entrepreneurs have to actively labor to make things work, working across and around the specific and severe boundaries imposed upon them. Many of the text book methods of Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurship need to be tweaked, hacked, adapted or just flat out abandoned. Representatives of the Palestinian Innovation Ecosystem invite you to this Campfire to share and discuss their approaches to innovation, entrepreneurship and start-up support - and to get new ideas from you! Marah Hanoon and Victoria Wenzelmann are researchers in the joint research project “PIHUB Fostering the Palestinian Innovation Ecosystem” of University of Siegen and Birzeit University. They are joined by representatives of the Palestinian innovation ecosystem: Samar Kirresh, Hijazi Natsheh, and Maher Saleh.

Sharing the secret formula for the winning marketplace startup

Inside sales is hard. It takes time to train new sales reps on the lingo, get them up to speed and make sure they know what to say on the phone. Let’s discuss how to structure, train and manage inside sales teams.

Will local Fintech's become irrelevant? Currently there is a new generation of Fintech's that are going global from day one and with RegTech, this is made possible. Eventually, local players will become redundant and lose market share. You can see this already in other sectors with companies like Slack, Uber, Google, Spotify etc that are globally accessible. In this session we’ll talk about how and why to expand your fintech globally.

A clinic is a session in which participants from the crowd share a challenge, which is then addressed by experts. In this case everybody that participates in the session can be an expert. This is a session that will be very interactive and a great learning experience for everyone. We'll work on 4-6 challenges.

We often ask how we can bring more women in tech, how about asking how we can keep the ones that already are in tech. A short voyage on women in tech and their challenges, followed by a discussion on how we can improve that.

Mexico, Uruguay, Canada und maybe by the end of the year the United States of America - legal weed is becoming reality all over the world and creates a multi-billion Dollar industry. Looking at Germany, things progress rather slowly and companies are mainly focussing on the medical field. But: big German VCs like Holzbrink Ventures or Heartbeat Labs start to feel comfortable with investing in the topic. Is medical the only area interesting and worthwhile for capital investments or are the real unicorns found in the recreational field? The world’s first cannabis unicorn “Canopy” could only achieve this status so quickly by catering to both: medical and recreational. The German recreational cannabis market is currently estimated 8.5 billion Euro by 2028, given a legal framework for the market. Where do we stand? What is possible? What can be done by entrepreneurs to un_lock this potential? And: Is Germany ready for legal weed, at all?

Especially nowadays everyone is talking about Omnichannel. Online companys starting to enter the “real world”. That means for a Start-up is it mandatory to have an additional channel to grow? Or to reach the customers you want to? Is a physical POS through Partnerships a beneficial customer experience? Avoiding friction? Indispensable for fintechs to be present offline? The digital challenge to be non-digital? And what are the right partners to do so? Looking forward to a vibrant discussion.

Can we apply the Game Theory to real startup life and benefit from it? Let’s check out some cases and discuss it together.

In the DocuSign masterclass we will talk about the electronic signature and how to complete approvals and agreements in minutes or hours instead of days - from almost anywhere in the world. We will show you how you could quickly and securely access and sign documents. Easily upload and send documents for others to sign. Send reminders and check signing status almost any time.

Virtual Reality was a limited not to say sh..ty thing. But now it finally turns into the medium to tell stories, to completely immerse an audience - It´s no longer a matter of latency, framerate or resolution. This thing is happening and it´s happening big.

In times when companies face a considerable shortage of skilled professionals and experts, the growth opportunities then get limited or faces constraints, as they must depend exclusively on local employees. This results in loss of opportunity to enhance revenues. In addition, entrepreneurial freedom suffers considerably from the constant pressure between the demands of highly sought-after employees and customer. This is a classic example of supplier vs supply imbalance. Manuel also faced these situations. Three of his important projects were highly impacted. Shortfalls and shortages had put his business at risk. With extreme pressure to deliver, Manuel re-organized the project teams and the whole company, entering a new "Universe of possibilities "

Speed-Networking - get to know the crowd of PIRATE Summit by participating in one of our famous speeddating rounds: 2 min 1on1 exchange with at least 10 new contacts. Meeting point will be at the Beergarden, just click participate here in Talque and come around on time

Come with your questions and challenges about Ecosystem and Community Building and get answers by our experts!

Having been on both sides of the table, Tim speaks from his experience both as a serial entrepreneur and founder and an angel investor with dozens of investments into start ups: Why do so many founders later become angel investors? Is it possible to do both? What are some of the pitfalls of founders aspiring to become angel investors?

Some of the basic KPIs that you need to steer your company and that you report to investors are simple enough to choose. But as a startup you often have a unique, new business model with its own specialties. If you want to determine key issues about your current state of business you need to identify the KPIs that are critical to your particular business case. What is needed to model your business in depth to gain further insights? Which parameters do you need to choose for a cashflow projection for your pitch deck? We use event storming to refine our business model and determine the KPIs relevant to our business. ""Event storming"" is a technique originally devised to gain further insight into the technical structures you want to realize within your software development to better represent your business case. I suggest that the same technique can also be used to refine your financial planning and gain further insight on your business model by bringing key stakeholders together the visually aided communication process called ""event storming"". Let's discuss whether that is a sensible approach!

Pivots, investor readiness and competition - when are you really investor ready?

Come with your questions and challenges about Founding and get answers by our experts!

I'll briefly explain how Chainbreakers realized a $130k crowdsale on Ethereum. With this funding we are already creating a 3D browser-RPG that allows players to monetize their playtime. This is possible due to decentralized finance and a smart-contract-based game economy executed and stored on a blockchain.

If you’re making decisions based on what you THINK your users need, and not based on what you know from data, you are missing out on a huge business opportunity. Because here’s the truth… Your startup will be way more successful when you base business decisions on insight about your users. The Insight-Driven mindset and tools have already been proven by many fast-scaling startups such as Zalando, Spotify, Pipedrive and more. VCs love investing in startups who know their users through actual user data. Join this Masterclass to learn more about the tracking, tools, metrics, dashboards, and Investor KPIs to achieve insight-driven growth.

Let your child become a superhero. Together, we are going on a journey into the world of coding. In small teams, they will send their robots on a quest to solve challenges in a fun and interactive way. This session will be held in German and English.

We are blessed with a world full of choice, cool brands and good cars, so why would you bother to start a new car brand? Because there is a need, a need for mobility and a way to offer it in a totally different way. Now is the time for change, not for another car manufacturer. In this fast-paced, connectedworld we live in, we need to strive to constantly innovate in our approach as much aswe do our products - this is what new brands should be all about. It can’t be another version of something that already exists, it has to be something that almost reinventsan industry, just look at what has happened in other industries, Spotify in the musicindustry, Netflix in the film industry, Uber in the taxi industry, Airbnb in the hotelindustry. Who will do the same to the auto industry?

Founder and CEO of Cannamedical® David Henn will give an insight into how and why he founded the company and what the challenges are that come with starting a company in a fast moving and revolutionary market, such as the cannabis market. He will give an introduction into Cannamedical® and its core business and partnerships as well as an overview about the German and European medical cannabis market. Lastly, David will give a short outlook on the expected developments in the industry.

This session is addressing startups and investors alike. We’re going to talk about why and how to start or expand your business in Romania. We will discuss case studies from Cluj-Napoca, the tech hub of Transylvania. In Cluj-Napoca alone, more than 15.000 people work in the local tech sector, and the city is home to nearly 300 tech startups and mature companies, which mostly focus on outsourcing and process optimization. The city is home to more than 80.000 students, which means access to a fantastic pool of engineering, marketing and international languages talent.

We will discuss the assumption that raising money as a female is more difficult, the reasons why and what potentially can be the solution.

Announcing the Pitch Winner of the "Walk the Plank" Pitch Competition.

Scott has helped grow GitHub to 450 employees. He is doing it again with Chatterbug, an online language learning school based in San Francisco and Berlin. Chatterbug has built in an international DNA from the start. In this tactical session he will share the challenges and learnings on the way. E.g. how to set up remote structures that work, implementing a stock option plan, paying fair salaries in different markets and dealing with regulatory differences.

Utilizing the power of peer-to-peer learning Fedor became the #1 poker player worldwide amassing over 30M$ in cashes and is sharing his story and how to apply it to other professions.

Technologie is like food. We are what we eat, but also are what we consume online. How can we change that? Can we build an healthier internet? This is what this talk will be about exploring new ideas like Slow Web to build a more ethical internet.

After an extraordinary day full of inspiration, motivation, and networking, you’ll be part of an unforgettable moment: the wooden statue, based on an old Cologne Carnival tradition called “Nubbelverbrennung”, will be lit on fire right before the infamous party. Grab a bottle of rum and rethink your past experiences as entrepreneur while watching the statue burn.

Come and join our morning session of Yoga! We try to awake your body with some stretching and variations of sun salutations... Cant wait to flow with you....Yoga is for everyone! Find your balance on the mat and bring it to life. With every new breath you have the chance to make you shine. Dare to close your eyes, dive in, open your heart and let go.

We live in a world of big data, which drives sextillion of decisions in a given second. Still, the data about the biggest threat ahead of humanity, climate change, is still not enough (or convincing enough) to get us, our companies and governments to take an active stance. Why is this so? How can we harness the data to make the planet cleaner and healthier and more safe from extreme weather events? What can each one of us to do to get involved?

Are the digital products, we're using every day too male-dominated, especially in design and functionality? Do women build better tech products? Hanne and Bernhard are going to discuss with you and amongst each other the various aspects of building and setting up tech teams that build better products.

During the workshop, we meet and tune in to the past days at the Pirates. Instead of leaving this great venue with a full mind, we reflect on the experiences of the past days and clarify, what it is we take away from it. Along 6 mind hacks based on the methods of the mindful REBELS, Martina, the Chief Mindful REBEL, will guide us through 6 mind hacks. Using those hacks will facilitate 1) letting go of thoughts 2) conceptualizing the impressions of the event 3) prioritizing impulses for action 4) letting go of limitations 5) visualizing milestones and 6) going ahead. Let’s see how mindfulness supports strategic action after a great Pirates conference. Short Bio Dr. Martina Dopfer has founded The Mindful Rebels together with Boris Behringer. The Rebels offer 8-week mindfulness journeys for employees, teams, and firms. During those unique learning journeys participants learn and experience easy mindfulness techniques. They learn how to apply them to their daily lives in order to use the chances that come with the digital transformation and the new work era. Martina talks about mindful living in her podcast LebensLiebe, she is a yoga- and mindfulness teacher and coaches startups in Berlin. Her know-how on innovation, startups and business models bases on 10 years of experience in the Berlin startup scene. She also worked as consultant and in innovation management for firms like Deutsche Telekom or Daimler. She received her PhD, which she wrote on startup business model development, from the University of St. Gallen. mindfulrebels.com // martina.dopfer@mindfulrebels.com

In the Campfire "Black Pearl or Flying Dutchmen" Markus and Matteo talk about two different models, how a cybersecurity startup can be established. XignSys of Markus has after 3 years of bootstrapping decided to take aboard investors and get into the waters of a classic startup while the AWARE7 bootstrap their business with cybersecurity services. The contestants discuss pros and cons and get valuable insights into the different approaches. In addition, location-related challenges and opportunities - both companies are real pirates from Emscherstrand in Gelsenkirchen, are going to be discussed.

Discussion around the diversity of European Cities & their various maturity stages when it comes to Investment / ecosystem structure & the bricks to build it up OR how to learn from leading hubs in investment & scale-up growth around Europe.

Does this sound familiar: You have sat in a conference session or meeting and by the end of the session you remember the color of the speaker's tie, remember that guy with the very interesting shirt three rows down and you are up to date with the current news feed but you do NOT remember what the speaker was actually speaking about? Why not use Sketchnoting to make more of your time in these sessions and have fun while doing it. Dip your toes into Sketchnoting with this workshop and get to know the basics.

Shortly before we are wrapping up PIRATE Summit, we want to hear about your experience and impressions. What are your takeaways? What inspired you? Who did you meet? What did you like? How can we improve? This session is meant as a feedback for us but also as a wrap up for the participants. Also this is the chance for you to ask everything you always wanted to know about PIRATE and PIRATE Summit. Manuel and Till, two of the founders will answer your questions!

Join us for a last beer at the brewery "Päffgen" after the Offsite Tours. Address: Brauerei Päffgen, Friesenstraße 64-66, 50670 Köln