Joining HackFwd

I’m excited to announce today that I’m joining a fantastic European startup accelerator HackFwd. I’m really impressed with the staff they have put together to celebrate some of Europe’s most talented geeks (a term they use liberally for anyone that has a passion for accomplishing great things). David Bizer found me speaking at a great event in Paris and in a whirlwind of events I ended up interviewing for a new opening at HackFwd. I met Jana Von Dach, Stephie Gerth and Angus Wyrwa as I interviewed with Lars Hinrichs at their Hamburg office. I was impressed and it looks like this is a great fit of interest, expertise and good old fashion excitement.

HackFwd has been around since 2010. They worked hard with IDEO to really come up with an innovative and interesting model that brought great value and startups into the front of the European scene. Their network of referrers spot quality European teams and get them in touch with the staff to perhaps join up with HackFwd opposed to an application model. There is no season of investing or area of investment beyond showing innovation with the web.

This past weekend I joined HackFwd at a “Build” event where they bring together mentors and some of their startups for three days of taking a step back and reworking their parts of their startup. It was their 11th event and I was impressed with their attention to detail. It was phenomenally run and matches their ambitions goals.

Here is the crew from last weekend:

I started Startup Weekend as an almost mistake. I stumbled into my passion for community. For startups. For the ambitions goals and the hard work. For the great people that you influence on the way. For the ways to help better the world.

Somewhere in the mix of traveling and volunteering for startups I fell in love with the following idea: your talent develops with your goals and community, when one is pushed, the others become stronger. Coming back from a big old trip left me with a curiosity to put my past ambitions to work with a great community, and I feel like I’ve found it.

I sit in a cafe in Istanbul after working a full day on some of my favorite startups in the world I just have to smile. I am enjoying being ‘back at it’ and figuring out just how I can help the teams. Send me an email if you want to learn more about HackFwd, you can find me at [email protected].

Questions? Leave them in the comments!