Image via Wikipedia

Exactly a year ago, Andraz and I were sitting in a cafe by the river, pondering whether we dare to test the limits of our imagination and apply for this unknown but strangely familiar beauty contest we found online. They were looking for the next Google they said, but didn’t mind if it had very rough edges. Perhaps most importantly, they were offering a lot of help and asked only the most important questions.

So we took it. Spent the next two weeks polishing the application and couldn’t sleep the night before first selection. We had no idea what was waiting for us out there, but it felt right. At that particular moment, all we had was our imagination, a prototype and courage, to close our eyes and make the first step. It turned out to be a firm one, and on the next one we were not alone anymore.

Seedcamp has helped us to focus, to steer, to experience this new world and most important, it validated our ideas. This year, we are proud to be part of Seedcamp week again, this time on the other side, encouraging new generation of killer startups in London.

So as a message to all entrepreneurs who are considering boosting their business efforts, YES, you should apply and give your best effort to stand for your ideas. Everything else will be easier.

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Image via WikipediaExactly one year ago was Zemanta’s first public presentation. That took place in Kiberpipa, the topic was an announcement of our project Strip mine, and Andraz had that famous slideshow, where his email in footer changed from previous academic one, to new @zemanta adress.

This marked an important change in lifestyles for all of us, and after a year, I am sure, that I don’t regret it. It’s been a very interesting ride so far.
We started in a garage of course. Ok, to be honest, it was actually a room in my appartenment, with a desk made of a closet sides and the first server humming in the storage room. We moved from there in September, directly to ‘luxurious’ house in Kensal Green and at the same time expanding team to 7 people. We had to multithread the team at that point, having Gasper managing Ljubljana office, while we were hacking London.

Looking back I mainly find good memories of crazy adventures, like building the final prototype that got us to Seedcamp in two nights of six guys hacking. Or squating in Gherkin offices. Or assembling the second server on the floor of a local shop in Kensal Green. Or smuggling the server and the chef’s knife wearing top hats from London via Paris back to Ljubljana in December. Or using team work on California parties to secure precious minutes from journalists in the middle of the night.
There were some frustrations, like the ‘no internet’ crisis, and also, the last morning of Seedcamp, when we were sure we blew it, was probably the worst feeling ever. We survived and with each new experience we grew stronger.

We evolved from an enterprise, tailor-made product to generalized web service, from a two-men band to a 15 people venture-funded company, from Slovenia to the World. It’s not anything near final success yet, but it’s a nice start.

I’d like to thank everyone who was part of this process. Friends, families, patient girlfriends, co-workers, TFL, Seedcamp mentors, Hellerehrman, Eden Ventures, T.A.G., Saul, Scott, Eric, Erica, and everybody else we’ve met in this time.

Source: WikipediaYesterday we had a splendid launch party at Zemanta HQ (with salsa dancing), now we awake into a new morning where we are excitingly waiting for reviews from around the blogosphere.

Yeah, we got it to TechCrunch!
But others are also important from Marko Mrdjenovič, Had (in Slovenian), and some more and more.

Well dear reader, where’s your review?

Oh, among other news, tomorrow (friday the 28th), we will also be present on Minibar in London, talk to us! Oh, and we would not mind people digging us up.

We are wrapping up our London experience and going to Le Web 3 in Paris next week! If you would like to meet us there, please drop me a mail!

We are quite excited about Le Web since everyone is saying how good it was last year. We are presenting there also.

In other news after countless issues we finally moved our private beta service to a hosted server, out of our living room. Hopefully we’ll open up our web page a little bit more later today.

See you at LeWeb3!

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As you might know, Zemanta is taking part in a Seedcamp process. Which means some initial funding and three months of work in London. Yesterday Seedcamp semi-officially ended in an event called “investors day” where all 6 teams/companies presented what we have done in last months and how we plan to take over the world in the future (starting with our respective markets).

It was quite astonishing how far all of us got since the beginning of September. Presentations were naturally all polished up, but more importantly we knew much better what we are actually talking about. At this point I’d really like to thank Reshma, Saul, all the mentors, investors and rest of the Seedcamp crowd for providing us with this great opportunity to learn, develop and progress.

With new gained experience we are now far better equipped to explore what lies ahead of us.

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Time flies like an arrow they say; an arrow with German wings flies higher we might add. So it is high time for us to pack those laptops and fuel our brains again.
Zemanta is going on the road again this week: me and Jure will be attending Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin, the hottest event for Web startups on the Continent. We are eager to learn from some of the best experts on the web like Kathy Sierra and Sean Park and meet friends from all over Europe, who will gather there to mingle. On Monday I will be also speaking about our experience with Seedcamp and I am hoping to inspire other young entrepreneurs to join the exciting venture of changing the world.
If somebody feels like going for a drink with us, don’t hesitate and send us an email. As they say around here: “don’t be british about it”.

Update: zemifyed!

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