Startup Day took place again in Tartu. This time it came a little too early for me.
The reason was simple: this time I went there as a startup, not as an investor. And honestly, with Sparkly we weren't technically quite where I wanted to be yet.
But startup life is rarely ideal. You have to go when the opportunity is there. Not when everything is polished to the end.
One month, a lot of input and very fast building
We received very important input for Sparkly in December. It changed quite a lot of how I saw what the platform actually needs to do and how to show that in a way investors and customers can understand.
Time available: about a month.
And then I had a thought: maybe we should essentially rebuild the entire Sparkly platform.
In hindsight that sounds a bit crazy. But the new tools had become usable enough. Even I, who once learned to program assembler with three variables and five commands, understood that it's now possible to build something real, very fast.
I've also been managing IT projects for nearly 30 years. Not as a hands-on technical implementer in recent years, but as a manager — yes. Bugs, structures, infrastructure, databases, user logic, processes — that world isn't unfamiliar to me.
And in that sense the Startup Day preparation was a very interesting experience.
Not only because of Sparkly. But because of how fast today's tools let you build a ready platform that you can actually show.
It wasn't perfect. But it was enough to get the conversations going
Looking back, the pace was a bit unfairly fast.
But we got to show Sparkly. We got to check whether people understand. We got to see what questions come up. We understood what works and what still needs to be sharpened.
And most importantly — it brought together quite a lot of interested people.
You don't always need to show investors and potential customers the perfect final version. In the early stage it's often more important to show that the problem is real, the solution is moving in the right direction, and the team can learn fast.
Startup Day gave us that.
We also got a few small funding injections from our investors to keep moving. That helped us build Sparkly further and make the platform more refined.
Startup Day as a meeting marathon
In other respects Startup Day was as usual: a lot of meetings, a lot of talking, and very many random but important contacts.
This time I wasn't on stage. My focus was on conversations, meetings and introducing Sparkly to people whose feedback could actually help.
Unfortunately I didn't get to listen much to what was said on stage. That's an inevitability of such events — when you're there as a startup, not just as a listener or investor, a big part of your value happens in the corridors, the demo area, and the booked meetings.
And as hindsight wisdom: some person or company you see on stage as a winner might later come knocking as a potential customer.
So you never know which conversation or moment will actually turn out to matter.
Being there as a startup this time changed the perspective
As an investor, such events are easier. You listen, choose, ask and evaluate.
As a startup, you are the one being evaluated. You have to quickly explain what you do. You have to tolerate showing a half-finished thing. You have to listen to criticism. You have to separate noise from real feedback.
It's much more uncomfortable, but also much more useful.
For Sparkly, Startup Day was a good checkpoint. We weren't yet technically ready at the level I would have wanted, but ready enough to get real conversations, real questions and real interest.
It was cold, but the event was strong
It was unpleasantly cold in Tartu. But everything got solved.
Startup Day didn't disappoint. The organisation worked, people were there, conversations were valuable and Sparkly got important momentum for the next step.
Sometimes the most important thing for a startup isn't to go to an event when everything is ready.
Sometimes the most important thing is to go when the thing is alive enough for the world to react to it.
This time Startup Day did exactly that.