Directly from Finland, AudioDraft brings a free browser-based music tool that Teemu Yli-Hollo, Arto Tolonen, Tommi Koskinen and Kimmo Nurmisto have put together, so musicians from all over the world can collaborate and create music regardless of their location, using its 'Sketching' feature.

This platform is also a great environment for a fairly new concept in music: crowd-sourcing. The AudioDraft Sourcing service enables every company or individual to order their custom-made audio through a contest, which means that they get many options to choose from. This dramatically changes the traditional ordering process of custom-made audio. Not only is it an innovation for customers looking for their own customized music (as Teemu puts it, “you don't just get the audio, you get a powerful marketing campaign as well”) but it opens up many possibilities for musicians: “Artists and audio designers can also collaborate to make audio productions for companies. The combination of our Sourcing and Sketching service makes AudioDraft really unique. We are offering them more work opportunities and visibility”.

Now Teemu and his team are coming to Silicon Valley to take the US market by storm: “The US market is really appealing for us because of the significant advertisement and movie production markets. And Silicon Valley is a great starting point as it's really receptive for new technologies and services. Our goal is to get steady customerships in the US and be the natural way of ordering custom-made audio. We are confident that Opinno will help us get through the first steps and help us grow our customer base in the United States.” Here at Opinno, we are definitely thrilled to work with such an exciting startup!

The AudioDraft team is certainly being very active and it has just launched its first sourcing contests, including Phil McKinney's (Vice President / CTO of Hewlett-Packard's Personal Systems Group) audio logo.

Check them out:
http://beta.audiodraft.com/sourcing/contests/

It's impossible to get bored in this area. There is always something to do, somewhere to go to, someone to meet... Any time of the year, there is always something going on. This is what our calendar shows for the next few days:

• Women 2.0 Founder Friday (July 23rd): Networking event and in this occasion, also a little warm-up before the kick-off of the Startup Weekend.

http://www.women2.org/founder-friday-in-san-francisco-on-july-23rd/

 

• Startup Weekend, at Kicklabs (July 23-25): Build a startup in a weekend!

http://bayarea.startupweekend.org/

 

• Hackers and Founders Meetup (July 29). This gathering is actually taking place at Opinno's incubator. So please feel free to stop by and say hello!

  http://www.meetup.com/Hackers-and-Founders/calendar/13712630/?from=list&offset=0

   

• TechCrunch August Capital Party (July 30). Happening at Stanford University and Palo Alto, the TechCrunch crew have put together a mini-conference about social currency and a networking event afterwards.

  http://techcrunch.com/social-currency-crunchup-and-summer-party-at-august-capital/

Are you hosting any entrepreneurship event in San Francisco or the Bay Area sometime soon? Let us know!

The month of July brought with it an influx of startup founders and new Opinno team members at Pier 38 in San Francisco.  We have been enjoying the opportunity to get to know them all, and here is your chance to learn about them too!

Francesco Baschieri, Spreaker:  Francesco is the founder of the Italian startup, Spreaker, a social web radio that allows its user community to create their own radio shows (music, talk, entertainment) and to broadcast them live on internet-enabled radios.  Spreaker is one of our Open Office Startups this summer.  Surprised by the sheer number of people interested in listening to entrepreneurs and innovative ideas, he has taken full advantage of his time in the technology capital to spread the word about his product. He recently demo-ed to hundreds of founders and investors at SF Beta and looks forward to continuing to pitch his product and ideas over the next few months!

Anu Nigam, BuzzBox:  Anu has had experience as a lead team member at no less than 6 different startups, and is no foreigner to life in Silicon Valley. These startups include Hi5 Networks, 411Sync, and Siara Systems. Currently, he is running BuzzBox, a news platform that filters the top news stories, giving users a personalized list of news stories. In addition to his work as a founder, Anu is a member of the Opinno Investor Network and President of Sand Hill Angels.  He is enjoying the chance to work at the Pier 38 space and to form part of this community of startup founders and supporters.

Eli Rabek:  Eli has joined us here in San Francisco after having spent the last 10 months leading challenges for companies in Spain from the Opinno office in Madrid.  He will continue directing Venture Challenges.  Eli is currently trying to figure out how to cope with all the fog in San Francisco after leaving sunny Spain!

Carlos Pastor Laín:  Carlos will be interning with Opinno for a month this summer.  He just completed his second year of Mechanical Engineering in Valencia, and is looking forward to the opportunity to practice his English and learn more about the world of entrepreneurship here in the United States.

Alejandra Lynberg:  Alejandra is majoring in International Relations at Stanford.  While studying in Madrid earlier this year she was exposed to Opinno’s work through an internship.  She enjoyed her experience and has decided to continue her internship at Opinno’s San Francisco office this summer helping lead Opinno’s Open Office program.   

This is just a sneak-peak of the kinds of people and companies you will have the opportunity to meet in San Francisco!  There is still room for you to join us in San Francisco through our Open Office Program during August and September.  Fill out an application today!

The main focus of the OSCON convention, as you probably have guessed by now, is technology. By organizing this event, O'Reilly has the intention of analyzing the major trends in this industry and finding answers to the challenges that are going to be faced in the upcoming year in relation to it. OSCON is, without a doubt, the best place to speak with experts in different fields, network with numerous people and find inspiration for your own projects, all in relation to the Open Source phenomenon. In addition, this event is used every year to make major announcements and revealing releases. If you want to be the first to know what is happening with the Open Source you will certainly not be disappointed coming to Oregon!

As Zack Urlocker from InfoWorld puts it, ‘for those who have not been to OSCON, it's a great technical conference covering the whole spectrum of open source, including Linux, MySQL, the LAMP stack, Perl, Python, Ruby on Rails, middleware, applications, cloud computing, and more. OSCON always has great keynotes, tutorials, and evening Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. As with many conferences, a lot of the
meat takes place in hallway conversations and impromptu sessions.’

Get a 15% discount on the price using our special code "os10opi" Click here to register!

So, dear visitors, you'll get to our office at the Pier 38 and then you'll realize San Francisco is out there, willing to be explored. You'll be quickly itching to venture yourselves in the city. What will you find?

1. Right next door to us, there's a kayak rental place - It's really fun to paddle in the bay and contemplate the city from a different perspective.
 
2. The AT&T Park - Literally at stone's throw. Many days, crowds of people will be passing by the Pier, showing off their SF Giants jerseys, on their way to the ball park. When you come over from Europe, a baseball game is probably one of the best ways to experience the American culture.

3. The Embarcadero - One of the nicest places in town for a walk with beautiful views of the bay, the Bay Bridge and the city skyline. Both the modern Muni trams and the old-fashioned ones can be boarded along this promenade and the latter go to the Fisherman's Wharf.

4. The Ferry Building - It's the San Francisco Port landmark and a great area for restaurants and shopping. A street market also livens up the area several days a week.

5. The MOMA - The Museum Of Modern Art has always interesting exhibitions on: Paul Klee, Avendon, Warhol... The best artists on display. The museum is currently celebrating its 75th anniversary, so you can expect exciting stuff!

6. The Yerbabuena Gardens - Opposite to the MOMA, this is the kind of garden you would never expect to find in the middle of a city. They are surrounded by the Moscone Center, the Center for the Arts and an ice rink. Plenty of choice for entertainment.

7. Market St - the Financial District, punctuated by both modern and majestic buildings, is always buzzing with people, buskers and stores.  At the junction with Stockton St, you'll find the emblematic Apple Store. By Powell St, you can get a ride on the famous cable cars.

8. Union Square - If you like fashion, this is your place. All the best brands in a few blocks. Go to Macy's and then pay a visit to the Cheesecake Factory. Check its fabulous views overlooking the square, and of course, grab one of its gigantic cheesecakes. Definitely the cherry on the cake after a spending spree.

9. China Town - The largest chinatown outside Asia and the oldest in North America. The famous Dragon Gate on Grant & Bush welcomes visitors to an area full of history, restaurants, shops and attractions.

10. The Fisherman's Wharf - One of the most popular places in San Francisco, especially the Pier 39, with shops, restaurants, seafood stalls and sea lions! You can hop on the ferry to Alcatraz, Sausalito, Tiburón and Angel Island. You can also rent bikes - a very good option to reach the Golden Gate Bridge- and 'go cars', which is another fun way to explore the city.

More information on this Opinno Open Office program link.

By guest writer Emily Goligoski

One of the companies that HIT attendees have expressed the most anticipation about seeing at the conference, Tesla Motors, will be represented by European Sales and Operations VP Cristiano Carlutti. Prior to joining the company in its EU headquarters in Windsor, UK, in January, he led divisions at Fiat and served as press chief for the Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy. Despite having lived and worked in Germany, Russia, Ireland, and the US, Carlutti said that in Barcelona he sees an innovative marketplace and one with non-trivial incentives for drivers of new cars that are gentler on the planet.

Q: What are you most looking forward to seeing on the innovation front during HIT?

A: I don't have much time to attend conferences, but a symposium focused on radical disruption and innovation is obviously quite interesting for someone at Tesla, a company whose entire business model is focused on the paradigm shift in personal transportation. I am primarily interested in talking to people at the conference who understand this intuitively and understand what it implies for the company culture, the product, the industry, the world. Tesla is aggressively recruiting in California and around the world, and we are always interested in meeting people who want to work extremely hard and be part of a disruptive force.

I've worked at a variety of companies based in several countries, and it's probably true there is a bit of a "hometown homerism" at work nearly everywhere. Most people work hard and believe that their approach makes most sense. However, the auto industry is one of the world's most global sectors, so in my humble opinion fewer people seem to buy into the regional misperceptions and stereotypes.

In the case of Tesla, we are taking a "best practices" approach and learning from the best in the field, regardless of country of origin. In May 2009, Tesla forged a strategic partnership with Daimler that focuses in part on engineering; obviously the maker of Mercedes is a formidable company from that respect. And about one year later, just last month, Tesla forged a strategic partnership with Toyota focusing in part on manufacturing and production; the "Toyota Production System" is widely acknowledged to be the world leader for quality and efficiency. We'll take the best of the auto industry and modify and iterate according to our continuous improvement philosophy.

I am focused in part on growing Tesla's sales and service network -- not only to increase the current sales momentum today but to ensure that the company has the retail footprint to sell more affordable cars to mainstream, mass-market consumers. The Model S sedan, which we intend to begin producing in 2012, is expected to be about half the price of the current Roadster, a premium sports car aimed at affluent early adopters and thought leaders.

Working at Tesla at this time in history is an incredibly exciting prospect: As you can imagine, there aren't many places where you can essentially create a new retail paradigm from scratch! And just yesterday I was able to see the fruits of our efforts with the grand opening of our newest store, which is in Zurich on Pelikan Strasse in the heart of the city's most glamorous neighborhood of boutiques, restaurants and foot traffic. It's rewarding and also just plain fun!

What incentives do you see as most promising for encouraging entrepreneurs to develop car technologies? And what role do you believe government subsidies play in this development in Europe?

Numerous countries have incentives on electric cars, and the reason is simple: Given concerns with climate change and the prospect of big price spikes at the pump, governments want to encourage people to "go green" and reduce dependence on oil. Would consumers make green choices without such incentives? I would like to think so -- but it's impossible to say whether consumer behavior would change quickly enough, given the big challenges our planet faces.

There are numerous incentives throughout Europe that aim at encouraging consumers to make the right choices. As just one example--because the conference is in Barcelona--in Spain the Roadster qualifies for a national rebate of at least €6,000 and provincial rebates of €3,000 or more. Spanish owners get 75 percent off the yearly car tax. Roadsters get free metered parking and free use of the high-occupancy vehicle and bus lanes – a priceless advantage in the dense traffic of Madrid and Barcelona. There are numerous other incentives in other countries -- some more, some less.

Article by Emily Goligoski

Author and urbanist Richard Florida said his first visit to Barcelona since 1985 has seen dramatic changes to the city. Credit private and public partnerships or hosting Olympic Games (“but many cities have done that”)—he says that a combination of these factors along with political vision has made the Spanish city a metropolitan area that stands apart as the focal point of its economy. “Today in Spain, as in the US, 30 percent or more of people work in the creative sector—design, science, tech, arts, media, management, research—and that’s up from less than five percent 50 years ago,” Florida told the Symposium on Urban Clusters and Parks as part of the HiT innovation summit

A few weeks after the English publication of his book “The Great Reset,” Florida, founder of the The Creative Class Group and author of the book of the same name, is no stranger to the effects that the financial crisis has had on global business. In observing solutions he's looked to innovation centers, particularly “mega regions,” that attempt to tap their citizens’ creative potential. Those that make best use of dense space—and Barcelona falls within the eleventh largest mega region—increase livability with access to mobility (including high-speed rails), education, and natural spaces. Abundant green areas fall within the latter, says Florida, who doesn’t underestimate the impact of protected bike lanes or bicycle sharing programs (bravo Barcelona). Consider them constructive and creative.



Thanks to guest writer Emily Goligoski for this post.

In celebration of Dia de L’Emprenedor (the Spanish celebration of entrepreneurship), startup advisor and Founders Fund manager Dave McClure spoke with foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley about his entrepreneurial beginnings at the HiT Barcelona innovation summit. Crowley told McClure (a self-described critic of check-ins for mainstream consumers) that he’s an accidental entrepreneur and “self-taught geek.” “I’ve found that it’s not about being a great coder but teaching yourself enough to make weekend projects work,” said Crowley, who says he learned basic programming through books when he couldn’t find already existing products he’d want to work on full-time. His two-person company Dodgeball grew to a Google acquisition before he enlisted the help of an engineer he’d poached from the company and 10 angel investors to grow foursquare.

“The roadmap goes out further than we can build because we’ve gotten distracted by things like building relationships with local merchants,” said Crowley, who described himself as having a competitive advantage because of his past experience selling a company. But monetization has still—and understandably–been a major question for the VCs he’s met with, and his answer has been local advertising through incentivizing companies’ best regular customers with check-ins (or “poor man’s tweets”).

With 40 percent of the product’s activity taking place internationally, it’s surprising to hear that the startup hasn’t yet created specific gaming systems for languages other than English. “We don’t want to create more reasons for people everywhere to use their phones when they’re with friends,” Crowley said, but with the world’s most checked in location being in Japan, it’s seems that battle may be lost.

Friends of Opinno, meet these outstanding personalities:

Keynote Speakers

Bradley Horowitz, VP Product, Google

Dennis Crowley, Founder, Foursquare (previously at Dodgeball & Google)

Speakers 

Dave McClure, Founders Fund (previously at Paypal)
Gurbaksh Chahal, Founder, GWallet (previously at Blue Lithium & Click Agents)
 Mika Salmi, Chairman, Sulake (previously at MTV & Atom Entertainment)
Cristiano Carlutti, VP Operations, Tesla (previously at Fiat)
Hans De Boer, Head, Business Development, Better Place (previously at GreenPeace & Vodafone)
Raul-David Poblano, Lead, MIT Smart Cities Project
Irene Au, Director, User Experience and Design, Google (previously at Yahoo! & Netscape)
Anu Nigam, President, SandHill Angels (previously at Hi5)

HIT Barcelona features practical, in-depth discussions on the future of innovation and entrepreneurship along with a Global Business Plan Competition with 23 participating countries.

Throughout a week of entrepreneurial events, 10,000 attendees will come through the Fira De Barcelona to gain insights on innovation in technology and new practices in entrepreneurship.

We are thrilled to bring so many sharp, strong and smart minds with us to Barcelona. If you are going to be in the area, please join us!

Follow us on Twitter @opinno and @hitbcn

With a little more than a week until the kickoff of HIT participants would be hard pressed to find anyone who’s anticipating the summit more than Luis Font. The Spain-based businessman whose Twitter description — “absolutely passionate about technology, entrepreneurs and Barcelona!” — is just one indicator of his interests in IT consulting and startup management. After 12 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, he opened 12 international offices for software-as-a-service company NTRglobal and guides entrepreneurs, for which he’s a fantastic advocate.

Q: What effect, if any, do you think this year's market volition might have on the startups seen at HIT this year?

A: Before Lehman Brothers, we had a lot of money available and very few amazing projects. Now it’s completely the opposite. We now have a lot of companies with good ideas that are struggling to get funding. 

Nevertheless, it seems than things are getting better and technology investment is becoming the core of many portfolios. Examples to look at are InBloon and Teambox, two absolutely superb projects.

What are you most looking forward to hearing at HIT? 

Beside the interesting topics that we are going to see in the panels and keynotes, for me there is only one target: networking.

We are working very hard here in Barcelona to have the best matching between investors and entrepreneurs with activities such as elevator pitches, a Venture Capital corner, and speed dating. We’re planning to hold hundreds of meetings between outstanding companies and smart investors.

What do you think prospective entrepreneurs can get out of a conference focused on international innovation like HIT?

Many things: market trends, disruptive business models, new industries, crazy ideas, funding. And as I said, huge networking.

What would you add to current business school curriculum that current students might be missing in preparing to launch a company in the next year?

Usually business plans are very optimistic for the first two years. My advice is to ask whether you are going to get the results that you forecast in month 12 on month 24. Also, do you have enough funding to resist?

Hit Barcelona - World Innovation Summit 2010 is taking place in Barcelona in June 16th and 17th.

The Opinno team will be in Spain thorough June: at Hit Barcelona, among other conferences, for their Venture Exchange Program. Come join us!