Re: New Europe investors unite

[Maxim Gurvits]

Thanks Chris, Lyuben,

I agree with Chris.

Lyuben, specifically regarding your points: I share your concern about the "purely political" character. I find it actually hard to approach media with an 'empty' message full of conditional future superlatives. For a fact, I know that media like TechCrunch or TheNextWeb will not be interested, unless we specify a clear list of goals and activities that we will undertake.

What do you guys think is the best approach?

Also agree with you on the point about community leaders. I expressed this already in an e-mail before our meeting: we are not the leaders, not one of us. We are all facilitators. The true leaders are the awesome founders that we support.

Regarding your point on New Europe; I disagree. The term New Europe became colloquial after Donald Rumsfeld used it when he set off the conservative and closed mindset of Western Europe against the progressive mentality in "Eastern" Europe. When Ivo, Vukasin, myself, and a bunch of others kicked off the entrepreneurs community on Facebook after Seedcamp Ljubljana last year, we specifically named it New Europe Startups because the name rang so well. I see no need to use corporate and journalist lingo like CEE: it's too broad and puts a geographical limitation that not everyone is comfortable with. Austria and Finland for instance are not usually considered CEE.

Max

From: Krzysztof Kowalczyk <ch...@hardgamma.com>
Date: Thursday, November 1, 2012 12:20 PM
To: Ivo Spigel <ivo.s...@gmail.com>, Maxim Gurvits <ma...@eleven.bg>
Subject: Re: New Europe investors unite

Ivo, Max,

I'm ok with the text you prepared, once again thanks for finding the time for doing that.

Regarding Lyuben Belov's mail - of course we can spend another week on wording and getting celebrities' quotes and then approvals, but then the "window of attention" for PF12 will be gone. So if majority will ok the doc prepared I'll rather send it out today then end up in the endless discussions.

All the best!

Chris

On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 8:12 AM, Ivo Spigel <ivo.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

I suggest we do the following to get this out today without multi-spamming our friends in the press:

1. Everyone take a look at the current version of the document. Judging by previous comments it should (hopefully!) be ok with everyone. If so, please email me & Max (so as not to overspam the whole group) with your approval.

2. Once we have everyone's ok I will ask Max to create a PDF, post it to GDocs and also send to everyone as an attachment.

3. We can all then send it out to our various local press contacts in the individual countries. Those of you (Czech, Bulgaria) where there were more from one country please coordinate amongst yourselves.

4. For international press contacts let's send it from one address, I would suggest Max and I coordinate that. I'd say those we need to send it to are Mike Butcher, Ben Rooney, Milo Yiannopoulos, Robin Wouters and Natasha Starkell. Additional suggestions welcome but let's not overdo it...

Waiting for your feedback / approval

Ivo

On Nov 1, 2012 4:57 AM, "Maxim Gurvits (Google Drive)" <ma...@eleven.bg> wrote:

I've shared New Europe investors unite

Message from ma...@eleven.bg:

Guys,

Here is the updated and edited version of the manifest. Post, repost, and let's make it happen:)

Max

Click to open:

• New Europe investors unite

Google Drive: create, share, and keep all your stuff in one place.

--
Krzysztof Kowalczyk
ch...@hardgamma.com             http://hardgamma.com/
                                                http://www.gammarebels.com/

@kkowalcz

http://about.me/kkowalcz
http://pl.linkedin.com/in/krzysztofkowalczyk

[Ivo Spigel]

Donald Rumsfeld?! Yuck! Had no idea, what a horrible association...

Regardless, I say we have an MVP, let's ship and refine later on.

I agree Butcher, Wouters & crew probably won't cover at this point but I'm fine with that.

How about the rest of the gang, any more inputs?

Cheers

Ivo

[Ivo Spigel]

Hey people,

I've added names of the participants to the document (thanks for the suggestion Denny!) and created a PDF which I will share with the group right away. Please take a look to make sure I haven't misspelled anyone's name.

Regarding discussions about the text itself, it seems that a majority, at least of those who have discussed, agree that we should distribute as it is so I suggest we do that.

Cheers!

Ivo