Accelerating business dreams with Starta Farsta
We believe that collaborating with inspiring entrepreneurs and changemakers is the best way of creating a positive impact in the world. We also believe that supporting and working with local entrepreneurs creates a thriving community and entrepreneurial culture. Impact Hub Stockholm is currently collaborating with the group of dedicated changemakers who run Starta Farsta to make a difference in local communities.
This group is dedicated to providing young entrepreneurs in the southern suburbs of Stockholm with the necessary tools, resources and opportunities to make their business dreams a reality. Meet Martin, Managing Director of Starta Farsta.
Hi Martin, please explain what Starta Farsta is all about.
Starta Farsta offers accelerator programs to young entrepreneurs from Stockholm’s suburbs. The program includes freeoffice space, seed capital, mentorship, practical workshops, business counseling and Impact Hub membership.
Why did you start working with young entrepreneurs?
I discovered a passion for social entrepreneurship a couple of years ago, and around the same time came up with the idea of working with entrepreneurship in the suburbs. Through an Impact Hub internship I got the chance to gather first-hand experience, and realized together with the rest of the team that I was working with at that time that there was too much potential not to take things further.
What makes the Starta Farsta accelerator program different from other accelerator programs?
The target group we are working for makes everything different. A lot of what we do is about building up the entrepreneurs’ self-confidence and helping the suburban communities realize their own potential. There is a lot of campaigning for awareness involved. Instead of people applying to us, we have to apply to them and be convincing about it.
What is your personal story?
I grew up in Belgium and moved to Sweden aged 20. At that time I was studying chemistry but realized towards the end of my degree that a career in the lab wasn’t for me. So after a master’s in Biochemistry I enrolled for a one-year complementary master’s in Entrepreneurship & Innovation management. That was an eye-opener. It is also by that time that I started exploring the Stockholm start-up scene. I realized then how centered it is around the inner city and the major higher learning institutions. Hence the will to bridge that gap and involve the suburbs. After a bit of searching and reflecting, I found the perfect opportunity at Impact Hub and one thing lead to another and I am now part of a highly-motivated team driving the idea forward.
What are the challenges you face?
On an internal level I would say landing on the perfect business model is one issue we are working on. Externally it is rather to create awareness among the potential entrepreneurs, but also other actors in the communities.
What have you learned?
That there is a fine line between too little and too much coffee… Joking aside, the journey since the first Starta Farsta program has been a steep learning curve. We have learned a lot about our users and what their needs are, what is common to most but also how incredibly different backgrounds they can have and how to deal with that. Involving our users in the creation process is very important for us, but we also learned it is easier said than done.
What are your future plans for Starta Farsta?
Our goal is to replicate the STARTA concept in as many suburbs as possible and finding a way to make the program replicable by others. We are right now working on summing up our knowledge and method in a package that is as close as possible to an out-of-the-box concept. We want to help building local entrepreneurship communities outside of town and link them to a central node.
How does being an Impact Hub member help you?
Impact Hub has been supportive in many ways. Of course there are the practical aspects like the office space, but it goes beyond that. The whole community has been very inspiring and the network we created is very helpful when we need mentors, workshop facilitators and the like. In the future, we are contemplating an even deeper collaboration around a coordinated expansion.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
Daring is scary, but it’s worth it.
About Starta Farsta
Read more about Starta Farsta and their current batch of young entrepreneurs.
Meet and celebrate with the Starta Farsta team and the young entrepreneurs at Impact Hub Stockholm on Tuesday 16 December for their Graduation Day!
Join the Impact Hub Stockholm community!
Would you like to follow in Starta Farsta‘s footsteps and become a part of the Impact Hub Stockholm community? More information can be found on our Become a Member page.
Author
Hannah Maxwell distributes information as an Educational Information Officer at Uppsala University with a background in PR, marketing and social media.
