City Of Gdansk: A Guide To Tricity’s Startup Community

Tricity – which is a Polish agglomeration consisting of three cities – Gdynia, Sopot and Gdansk (the biggest one) is a truly good place to develop one’s own startup, as well as a more expanded company. Many good startups which later evolved into big companies or have been bought by big international corporations have been founded in Tricity. One of the biggest web groups in Poland, called Grupa Wirtualna Polska, had its beginning in Gdansk. Gdynia has become famous in the world of startups after a big success of IVONA Software, a text to speech startup which has won plenty of prestigious industry awards around the world. Finally, IVONA has become so popular that it has found an unforeseen buyer. Amazon decided to buy this Polish startup in 2013 as a very suitable element to their new project Amazon Echo. Another example, one of the biggest software development companies in Poland – Prokom Software, was founded in Gdynia. After merger with Asseco Poland, another important software company, they are growing rapidly and expanding to international markets.

One Place, Three Cities: Gdansk, Sopot, Gdynia

What makes this places even more interesting, is the attention paid by local authorities to its recent developments. The city of Gdansk is one of the pioneers in Poland when it comes to open data initiatives. Thereby citizens and companies have easy access to the city data to use it for new local and business initiatives. A very interesting and unique initiative developed in Gdansk is Clipster. It is a place combining co-working with the residential part, where interested start-uppers can live at lower costs and develop their ideas with the support of experienced mentors. By the way, if you wonder how can you get around these three cities easily, you shouldn’t be worried. Rapid City Railway provides great services connecting all three cities. There are also many cycling paths if you’re a bike enthusiast. If you still prefer a car, you can always use the Tricity Ring expressway to get from Gdynia to Gdansk quickly.

Growing a three city startup ecosystem needs a lot of skilled workers, especially programmers.  Local universities are not training enough to cover the markets’ demand, which makes it an unique opportunity for people looking for a job here from abroad, especially considering the overall quality of life. But this gap of programmers may be soon filled, with courses and dedicated schools for people who desire to be programmers. There are such projects as: infoShare Academy, CODE:ME and Software Development Academy, just to name few. The growing involvement of programmers led to the creation of the first Hackerspace in 3City by CODE:ME, which is based at Incubator Starter.

#1 Introduce Yourself To Tricity

If you want to give these places a try, then you should definitely start with networking and connecting with the local community. Not only because it’s a smart move considering you plan to build a startup, but also it is a lot of fun if you take a look on what’s on the agenda. You’ll find pretty much all of them in this guide, but if you want even more you can always check the media list below.

Media:

• my3miasto.pl – One of the main online portals with local news. It covers not only business related topics, but also culture, sport and possible activities.
• 3hack.pl is a website which gathers local news specifically about Tricity’s startup ecosystem.
• biznes.trojmiasto.pl – Big local portal, with its own sub-category about business.
• tricity crossweb.pl – Another great domain, where everyone can find interesting events. This page contains events from all over Poland.
• Startup3miasto is a local Facebook group, where you can connect with the most committed people from Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot and read news about the local ecosystem.

Regular Events And Meetups:

• Creative Mornings are a set of meetings held once a month at Starter Incubator in Gdansk. You can listen to inspiring lectures and enjoy your breakfast in a nice atmosphere. It’s also a great chance to network with other startups. Several startup meetings, like workshops and public lectures, are also held every month in Startup Zone Gdynia which is located in the Pomeranian Science and Technology Park.
• Fuckup Nights 3City – A very young but very fast growing is the community of the Tricity Fuckup Night meeting, which main topics discusses business failures. It has been founded in 2015 and right now is also one of the biggest, monthly events.
• Geek Girls Carrots Tricity has got a long meeting tradition, which is also a monthly event organized across Poland and it is focused on connecting and inspiring women in IT and technology.
• Talking about Tricity’s startup ecosystem you cannot forget to mention 3Camp, which is one of the first Barcamps in Poland. Once per quarter there is an additional meeting which is much more focused on technology – Tech.3Camp.
• People from marketing and PR also cannot complain about a lack of events addressing them. Almost every month there are 3City Social Media Thursdays which is another meeting organized in several towns in Poland. This event is not only about social media, but usually the topics are much more extended on main marketing.
• Meetings of Code for Poland are regularly organized in many Polish cities, including Gdansk, where the solutions for society are discussed and sought.

Yearly Or Major Events, Conferences, Festivals:

• More and more national conferences are held in Tricity every year. One of the biggest ones not only in Poland, but in the whole CEE area is infoShare. In 2016 the organizers predict more than 5000 participants to take part in the panels, lectures, workshops and networking parties. There will also be a startup competition whit the main award of 20,000 Euro in cash. The event will take place from May 18th to 20th in Gdansk.
• Venture Day – The next nationwide conference is Venture Day which is organized in November by 3Camp and Gdansk Science and Technology Park. This conference is focused on connecting the business with the scientific community. Meetings about product development and User Experience are equally popular in Tricity.
• International meetings like Product Camp and WUD Tricity (World Usability Day) are organized once per year.
• Social Media Convent – Every year, Social Media Convent which is one of the biggest conference about social media in Poland takes place. This conference contains two days of lectures and networking with top Polish specialists in social media and marketing.
• Another interesting event is 3City Game Jam – a global event which takes place in many different places in the world at the same weekend. Programmers, developers and graphic designers are coding a game. Gdansk’s edition of this event is one of the biggest, not only in Poland but in Europe.
• There is also a ‘CodeWeek in Starter’ in October when over a whole week plenty of meetings are organized, such as workshops and hackathons. It all takes place at Incubator Starter.

#2 Choose A Place To Start Working In Tricity

Both Gdynia and Gdansk have found out how important technology and innovative companies are. Thanks to that you can find a lot of interesting places to work around Tricity. Many of them have been established with the help from local authorities. If you feel more comfortable in a private co-working space, you will find it interesting what Tricity has to offer.

Institutions And Places:

• Gdansk Science and Technology Park – One of the oldest institutions in Tricity, with big office and conference space.
• Pomeranian Science and Technology Park – Is a big space for startups and bigger companies with modern conferences infrastructure, where the last Startup Weekend  was held. It’s located in Gdynia.
• Entrepreneurship Support Center in Gdynia – This is the special place in Gdynia, where you can do all formal work to set up a new company. The Entrepreneurship Support Center is also organizing plenty of activities like workshops and special programs to promote idea of entrepreneurship in the local community.
• Pomerania Development Agency – This is the Pomeranian district development agency; its main duty is to coordinate EU’s development programs and other activities.
• O TU – Creative Co-working space created by companies for the creativity sector.
• O4 is also one of the newest startup places in Tricity with modern style offices and spacious conference rooms.
• Interizon Polish ICT Cluster – Interizon is one of the biggest ICT clusters in Poland.
• Business Link offers a co-working space with many additional services. It is available in a very good location in the Olivia Business Centre – the biggest business and office cluster in the whole Tricity region.

#3 Secure Your Budget In Tricity

Tricity has fast growing funds, but like everywhere else it’s not so easy to get investment if the project is not good enough. A big plus for Tricity is that we have plenty of startups institutions where it is easy to find support with validation about almost every project.

Incubators, Accelerators, Seed Capital:

• Incubator Starter, established by Gdansk Entrepreneurship Foundation and set up by the Mayor of Gdansk, is a place offering office space, knowledge and networking for startup companies. It has become the most well know startup institution in this area.
• Business Incubator in Gdynia – A new place on the map of startups in Tricity with the modern space for startups and entrepreneurs.
• Business Link Gdańsk – Series of space in all over Poland, where everybody can rent a desk or office.
• Clipster is a completely new thing, a unique live-in community in Gdansk, where you will develop your project or startup during a 3-month pre-acceleration program. You can not only co-work there, but also co-live!
• Worth nothing is what the nationwide startup networks are doing in Tricity, for instance AIP  (Academic Entrepreneurship Incubators), which is an organization where you can register your company temporarily without great cost. They have many branches all over the country, the closest ones are in Sopot and Gdansk.

Startups Venture Funds:

• Black Pearls VC
• Platinum Seed
• Amber Invest
• Ferber Venture Capital
• Capital Fund Pomerania Development Agency
• Aligo Capital
• Online Venture

Accelerators:

• Starter Rocket – Incubator Starter acceleration program
• Alfabeat – acceleration program

#4 Keep It Going In Tricity!

If you want to find out more about the possibilities that Tricity has to offer, you can check these startup initiatives:

• Startup Weekend Tricity
• Space Startup Weekend Gdansk
• Startup Sprint organized in Gdansk by Business Incubator Starter
• CodeWeek in Starter
• Startup Your Weekend organized by Pomeranian Science Technology Park
• Tricity Java User Group
• meet.js
• Code for Poland 3City
• infoShare Academy
• CODE:ME
• Software Development Academy

Tricity’s startup ecosystem is pretty well developed but there are still many things to improve. Like almost everywhere in Poland, Pomeranian cities are still learning how to support local innovators and entrepreneurs, but from one year to another they do it in a better way. For sure our ecosystem is the one to watch if you are considering to set up a startup or to start your adventure with entrepreneurship in Poland.

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Last updated: August 25th, 2016

The guides are like startup communities – they constantly change and grow. Make sure to check for updates and if you have something to add or want to publish one for your city, get in touch right away! And don’t forget to enrich the startup ecosystem by creating your company profile at StartUs!

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