The Main Course

Of the dozen blog posts on organising Startup Nations Summit in Tallinn, and especially the Policy Hack, this final piece was the hardest to write. I had the urge to leave it unwritten, because the climax is very-very difficult to express in words.

But I'll give it a try. And once I'm done with it, I hope you'll give organising, or participating in a policy hack a try! There is nothing to lose.

As I said, this would be the "main course". But a main course, too, is consumed bite by bite. So I'll walk you through each step the policy hackers experienced in Tallinn during the last day of Startup Nations Summit. It was the 3rd day of SNS and the policymakers had already received a crash course to e-governance, lots of hands-on workshops during the Core Summit, and a good dose of culture and fun.

But on November 22nd, for those policy hackers that came to Kultuurikatel in Tallinn, what they saw and experienced was something like this.

Rules and Pitching.

When idea owners, investors, entrepreneurs, peer policymakers and other curious people arrived at the scene, they already knew in their minds what was about to come. That is because most of them had participated in the pre-hack discussions. This proved to be crucial. Yes, some were newcomers, too, but generally everyone was ready and set. But to take maximum out of the show, some rules needed to be set.

I am very grateful to both Martha Ivanovas from Dell and Alberto Onetti from Mind the Bridge for helping out with the master of ceremony role. Their experience in running similar formats was very well suited to get the day on the right track, and keep it on the right track. The rules were quite simple. For instance, how much time for a pitch, what to include in a pitch, how to make most of the brainstorming time etc.

When the rules were set, the game was on - time to start pitching!

The first "test" for idea owners was to come on stage in front of other policy hackers and quickly explain their idea, why it was important, innovative, and doable. As usual, the variety of the pitches varied and most of the pitches were about to change to a large extent during the hacking that happened thereafter. Then, it was time to hack ...

Hack, hack, hack ...

You could almost hear the sound of ideas springing and cracking and being rephrased and cast out and taken back in again with a twist. The energy during the roughly 2-hour hacking was awesome. The comments I got from a few that took a short break were very encouraging. A few arrived too late and were left out of the hack. If the game is on, there is no space for late arrivals. This is something we tried to be strict about. Latecomers will only fragment the effort and losing time in a competitive atmosphere is not an option.

There was real competition, team playing and sportsmanship even. For a couple of teams, there was also some lack of focus, but the MCs and mentors were quick to help them find a way forward again. For one team, the killer idea came just 5 minutes before the end of the hacking time, but building on their discussions until that time, they threw a great pitch very quickly. That was a really cool example of energetic discussion, but also leadership that kept the team focused on getting to something.

Time, nearly 2 hours of it, ticked away mercilessly. The time to pitch for a place in the final was soon arriving. It must have been a frustrating to most of the hackers. Just as the discussions started to lead to something of relevance, it was time to pull it all together for a good pitch.

But the frustration and the rush was there for a reason. As in a regular hack, and as in the life of an entrepreneur, you do not have time to waste and overthink. Success comes to teams that discuss, quickly try, discuss again, try again ... and all of that in a quite short timespan. This keeps you energised, helps keep the key question in focus (instead of discussing the results very vaguely), and helps carve out the most important elements of the idea in question.

After the event, one of the team members confessed that lacking strict deadlines after the event itself is the most likely deathblow to the implementability of the result. If there is no one to serve you hacker bites and make you move, it is easier to leave the project aside. Given that each idea has just received a good update, that is a pity.

Thinking of it, maybe there is an idea to develop the format further. It may be of value to offer a post-event process for getting things done. Discipline is a clear value of the Startup Nations Policy Hack.

Pitching and Feedback

The pitching went on for roughly 2 hours, and was followed by a break, which many used to finalise the pitch. There were 8 teams hacking, but only 3 would make it to the final. Which is why each of them needed to pitch the results of the hacking to other teams and mentors, who now served as judges. The 5-minute pitches were judged on innovativeness, clarity, impact and implementability.

As always, the quality of the pitches varied greatly. Pitching does not come naturally to everyone, so it is always best to choose a team member that feels naturally well doing it. You will probably have at least one such person in the team.

Pitching can only go well if the team, and especially the idea owner, has been a good leader and manage the time and effort so she/he will get most value for the development of the idea. If you let the discussions fly too far, it will be impossible to come to a good pitch, which is basically a short abstract of what was discussed. If you micromanage the team, you will have wasted the value that was brought in for you.

Another premise is a well prepared idea. If it is too vague, too wide, or too small, it will be difficult to arrive at something of value. Because we had done some previous quality control and idea development, that generally was not an issue.

The previous were just some of the examples of the feedback that each idea got after the pitching session. The brainstorming was a value in itself, but honest feedback from mentors (judges) and other teams within the room was maybe even more important.

The Final Show

Once the judges and other teams had shared insights and support for what had just happened, three teams were chosen as those most likely to have a policy impact for startups. These were, in no particular order:

• an idea from Allied for Startups to provide a startup-friendly checklist for the adoption of the GDPR.
• an idea to design and launch an AI law in Estonia so that companies researching into it and testing AI technology would have legal clarity regarding their actions
• an idea to provide Egyptian agritech startups better market access to EU countries, making use of already existing international cooperation agreements.

Now, the rest had some time to think, process the experience, and enjoy the rest of the show. They had surely won something already - an awesome experience with very specific feedback about what to do next and how to keep their idea live. The top 3, however, were still in competition.

After giving the top 3 teams some time to renew and update their pitch according to feedback from judges and peers, the show was on. Now the audience was bigger, not just fellow hackers, but other participants in the conference, most of them startup entrepreneurs and key stakeholders. Each of them had one vote to be given to the one idea that stood apart from the rest as the most useful and implementable one.

The pitches were good, even better than the pitches given to the judges. There were some very important questions from the audience. Everyone was focused, as must be at a hack finale. There were prizes to be won - post-SNS help in implementation + a nice mural printed by Sprayprinter.

So who won? The idea by Rasha Tantawy from TIEC did! The team had members also from Greece, Taiwan, Estonia (sorry if I missed someone). The concept they came to was a pilot program to be launched between Egypt and Greece to give agritech startups from Egypt better market access to farms that are in need of such innovation. As far as I know, they are under way to run a pilot.

And the key - ! - to success, I am quite sure, was very thorough preparation coupled with strong leadership throughout the hack.

I began the blog series with opportunity and frustration. Knowing that at least one team really did get a policy solution that would stick (and would have not been born without the hack), and that the format itself has been reused at least once - I am very satisfied. Thank you for reading and being a part of this.

Now that you've read about the Startup Nations Summit Policy Hack, go on and create your own!

Or, sign up for Startup Europe comes to Silicon Valley and become a policy hacker.

Or, wait for the next edition of Startup Nations Summit. I am sure GEN will have something impactful cooked up for it.

But this "main course" is now finished.