The Nordic startup scene is high on potential, but low on global recognition. A group of Nordic startup and tech writers have decided to work together to promote startups and entrepreneurs from the region.
Earlier this year, Nordic Innovation invited some regional tech writers to come to Copenhagen and discuss how they could collaborate to promote local startups and entrepreneurs in the best possible way.
“We even had plans to do it ourselves. However, we never came around to doing it. Not until Nordic Innovation stepped in and helped us realize it,” says Dmitri Sarle, CEO of the Finnish-based startup media ArcticStartup.
The result became a network of Nordic startup medias who help each other cover all the interesting startup and entrepreneurial stories from the Nordic region.
The network consists of:
- Øresund Startups
- CoFounder
- ArticStartup
- Trendsonline
- 3in
- Hybe
- The Nordic Web
- Silicon Vikings
- Nordic Startup Bits
Earlier this year some of the network members met at Tech BBQ in Copenhagen, where they talked about the network:
Awareness through collaboration
Since the media industry is changing fast, the 9 different medias think they can create more value and awareness by collaborating. They all have different niches, for example through focus on early-stage startups or quantitative, data-driven analysis. By working together, they believe that they can bring something different to the table.
“The better we understand how we differentiate from each other, the more we can work together to improve the Nordic startup scene as a whole,” says Pia Ella Elmegård from Nordic Startup Bits and Trendsonline.
Passion and love for the Nordic startup community is something that the writers have in common, and by joining forces they feel they have more impact in promoting the Nordic region – and in telling the whole #NordicMade story.
Showcasing the community globally
Nordic Innovation has taken the initial initiative to bring together the medias, and they are happy to see the benefits of collecting all the startups success stories under the same umbrella.
“Our philosophy is to engage in initiatives where the community is directly involved and creates the value – the #NordicMade hashtag is exactly such an initiative. We have helped facilitate the process that led to the hashtag, but the real value comes from the community filling the hashtag with stories, meaning, and value,” says communication adviser Frederik Waitz from Nordic Innovation.
Nordic Innovation are aiming to help facilitate different initiatives in the future, like the #NordicMade showcase in New York in August, to give even more value to the #Nordicmade label.
“Our belief is that we together as a region can raise more attention to the extremely talented Nordic startup scene and thus create even more great Nordic startup success,” Frederik Waitz adds.
Meetup at SLUSH
The second Nordic tech writer meetup will happen at SLUSH, and all tech journalists and writes are invited to join. SLUSH runs from November 11-12 in Helsinki, Finland and is one of the biggest startup conferences in the world, with more than 14,000 participants.
For more info about the Nordic Tech Writer Network and the SLUSH meetup please contact Frederik Waitz ([email protected]) or Joppe Quaedvlieg ([email protected]).