beginning

In the beginning of 2011 Startup Pirates was taking the first steps. By then the project didn’t have a name or a structure, it was just a very persistent idea in the founders’ minds. We had three main reasons to create Startup Pirates:
  1. We felt that the University was not preparing the students to create their own companies;
  2. We felt the different existing programs/events were more suitable for the reality of the American market, but not for the rest of the world.
  3. We wanted to show that entrepreneurship is really possible and has the power to change people’s lives and contribute to the growth of the economy.

Pirate conquering the Business Model Canvas

Lots of people ask us how we came up with the name…

We can tell you that after several hours of brainstorming sessions, lots of good ideas and some bad ones, we had a list of 5 names to choose from. Then we remembered Steve Jobs’ quote:

Why join the navy… if you can be a Pirate?

And we realized that this was the right name for us. We felt like Pirates, sailing in the unknown seas and trying to do things differently. To successfully launch a company is one of the most difficult things one can do. It’s demanding, stressful, difficult and most of the times you’ll feel distressed. Only someone willing to fight, hustle, and work really, really hard will be able to succeed. And who is more fearless than Pirates?

Startup Pirates Launch Party

It took 4 long months to go from an idea to a project…

Lots of changes, lots of learnings, discussions and new ideas, but on July 5 we were able to launch Startup Pirates. We gathered a group of about 50 friends & family and we celebrated the beginning of this big adventure. Right after our launch party, we started organizing our first program in Porto. This was the chance to finally test everything we had been working on, measure the impact of our program and see if we could replicate the model in other cities and countries. Luckily enough, even before the start of our first program we were approached by a team in Lisbon interested in taking Startup Pirates there. The first event was a success and since then we’ve been working hard to take Startup Pirates to other cities and countries and support as many entrepreneurs as possible.

Every day we add a few more lines in this story and we are having lots of fun!