During the night from Friday to Saturday (17 to 18 November 2023), 14 teams of together 110 students worked on their startup ideas in Schweinfurt. At 7 in the morning, without getting any sleep, the students had four minutes to persuade the jury of their startups.
Published on 15 December 2023
“We have never had as many teams as today. We started with six teams at the first Campus Startup Night,” says Professor Dr. Volker Bräutigam of the Faculty of Business and Engineering (FWI). This was in 2018. Back then, Professor Dr. Bräutigam started the Campus Startup Night together with Monika Waschik of the THWS EntrepreneurSHIP project. “We wanted to initiate something colourful that pops and creates makes in order to reach as many students as possible”, Professor Dr. Bräutigam says. This year, the event already took place for the fifth time and was organised by the Startup Lab Werk:Raum of the FWI at the THWS Ledward Campus in Schweinfurt. 110 students from international degree programmes, from various faculties and from different countries of origin, came together in 14 teams and worked all night on their startup ideas.
After the welcoming at 6 p.m., 14 students, the so-called idea providers, presented their startup ideas. The about 100 remaining students then assigned themselves to the person whose concept they wanted to support by working on it for the rest of the night.
“For this time, I am still quite fit. When I go partying, I am tired at this time. But here, we are entertained everywhere and filled up with sugar. It can continue like that,” says Natascha Schreyer at a late hour. She is a student of Business Administration at THWS and participated in the Campus Startup Night for the first time this year. Together with her team colleagues, the 22-year-old worked on the start-up idea "Word-Map" - an app that allows users to learn foreign languages in a fun way and compete with other players. The country of which they want to learn the language is portrayed in many small square boxes. Every field represents a level.
Four phases for the successful pitch
The teams were accompanied and supported throughout the night by Sebastian Schäfer and Christian Schieber from Bytabo GmbH - a software development company from Bamberg that advises medium-sized customers and start-ups. Schäfer himself studied Mechanical Engineering at THWS, back then still FHWS: “I think it’s terrific that there still are so many young people with ideas.
In their role as innovation coaches, Schäfer and Schieber divided the 5th Campus Startup Night into four different methodological blocks in order to best prepare the teams for their pitch the next morning. In that four-minute pitch, the students had to present their ideas in front of a jury and the other teams – and to convince them.
In the first phase, the brainstorming phase, from 9 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.,
the teams worked out what they wanted to sell, who could be their potential buyers, and thus created fictive characters, so-called personas. Through this, students could better imagine who they were designing the product for. The second block from 11:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. covered the so-called prototyping. “Get the idea out of your head and onto a piece of paper. Or use a cardboard box or Lego to visualise your idea. When the jury and the audience see it afterwards, they'll know exactly what it's about,” explained Schäfer. From 1:30 to 4:30 a.m., the students focused on the business model of their startup idea. How can we finance our operations? What could our sales figures look like? In the pitch training from 4:30 to 6:30 a.m., the students finally prepared the presentation of their idea, the pitch.
"It is not about whether the button is green or red"
At 0:45 a.m., Natascha and her team got stuck. They discussed how large the individual fields of the corresponding maps in the "Word-Map"-app should be. Schäfer sent the whole group out into the courtyard without further ado and had them walk up and down. “Are you more awake now?” Schäfer asked the students. "It's not about whether the button is green or red. What kind of experience do you want your customers to have when they play Word-Map?" A little later, Professor Dr. Volker Bräutigam handed out muesli bars, pretzel sticks, and bananas. With new food for thought and renewed energy, the team continued their work.
Staying up all night without losing focus - that is the biggest challenge for students during the Campus Startup Night, says Professor Dr. Bräutigam. "Every year I see students who think they still have so much time at the beginning of the night and want to have a cosy coffee first. In the end, it's pretty tight for most of them and their foreheads are beaded with sweat."
Sebastian Schäfer sees the greatest danger for students in falling too much in love with their own ideas. "As an idea provider, it is also difficult to engage with the new ideas of the other team members, who bring a new perspective and may change the original idea. The only thing that matters is what the customers need, otherwise the idea won't be successful." According to Professor Dr. Bräutigam, the uncertain environment adds to this, as the students do not know in advance who they will be working with and thus they are also expected to have intercultural skills.
After being awake for almost 24 hous: final sprint
At 6 a.m., Natascha and her team are finished with the preparations for their pitch. The PowerPoint presentation is prepared and waiting to be used. Now it's time to rest a little, recharge one’s batteries and grab a coffee before giving the presentation to the jury at 7 a.m.
This year, the jury consisted of Anna Meusert (CEO, Planen Wehner), Christian Andersen (Head of Organisation and Planning, ZDI), Christian Trips (Investor 97er Club and CEO, Trips Group), Katharina Mantel (CEO, Unique Studios), Manfred Weth (Consultant Innovation, Sparkasse Schweinfurt), Stefan Nebauer (Group Lead, Fraunhofer IPA), Linus Trips (CEO, Hubster.S GmbH) and Professor Dr. Stephanie Baumgarten (Corporate Finance & EntrepreneurSHIP, THWS). "For students who are really serious about their start-up idea, there are already people from the startup scene with whom they can make contact in order to drive their idea forward," Professor Dr. Bräutigam explains.
In the end, Natascha and her fellow contestants did not manage to win. However, according to Bräutigam, winning was only secondary: “The objective of the Campus Startup Night is to stick together as a team, to learn the methods necessary for starting a business, and to have fun doing so.”
This year’s winning team to receive a prize money of 1,000 euros was the “Kalhai” team. The young men from India impressed the jury and audience with their idea for a smart bracelet. The smart wristband can be attached to analogue wristwatches and thus combines the style of an analogue wristwatch with the technical functions of a smartwatch. The victory came as a great surprise to the team, said Aakash Timmapurkar from the "Kalhai" team. They would use the prize money to further develop their idea and build an actual, physical prototype.
