Audio series ‘Startup Corner’ recently won silver in the category “Best Corporate podcast” at the RTL Podcast Awards. Hosted by House of Startups CEO Philippe Linster and first launched in 2020, the Luxembourgish language series tracks innovation and entrepreneurship in Luxembourg.
Why start this series?
‘Startup Corner’ is the first podcast in the Luxembourgish language about startups and innovation in Luxembourg, presented by the House of Startups and powered by the Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Education.
The idea is to promote the Luxembourg startup and innovation ecosystem and to raise awareness among young people from national industries and companies about innovation. The stories from entrepreneurs and the proposed themes highlight the opportunities and the interaction among the players of the startup ecosystem.
There were several drivers that led to the launch of this podcast. The first one was at the beginning of the pandemic when listening to podcasts became more and more important, we realised it was one of the few tools available to remain in contact with our community.
Another reason was that we wanted to increase awareness of our startup ecosystem among students in high schools. We acknowledge that a lot of work is already done in education circles to develop entrepreneurial skills and create private companies. A great example is among others the Jonk Entrepreneuren Luxembourg Programme. However, there is still room to trigger more interest in startups.
It’s not easy to find startup founders who can spare time for class visits every week or month. Fortunately, they never declined an invitation to speak in front of a class, but it was not a sustainable model.
This led us to start a podcast series during which we would only talk to Luxembourgish startups, entrepreneurs, or people implicated in this ecosystem. The objective is to show students that it’s not always the Americans who launch successful startups but many promising startups, sometimes with several hundred employees, are launched by Luxembourgish people in Luxembourg!
Why did you choose to Luxembourgish as the podcast language?
Because children at that age are still more comfortable listening to a podcast in their mother tongue. And there is no better way to understand Luxembourg startups than by hearing them tell their stories in Luxembourgish!
Furthermore, we concluded that this podcast series is about quality and not quantity. We prefer directly reaching our target listeners, who are not used to the ecosystem jargon, rather than explaining principles to people who already know everything about our startup ecosystem.
We would also like to extend a big shoutout to SCRIPT, the Government’s Department for the Coordination of Educational and Technological Research and Innovation, and the Ministry of Education. When we approached them with this new concept they were immediately on board. They opened the way for us to access high schools and even helped us finalise the format by adapting it to the school system so most classes and schools could really listen to it.
Tell us about the guests you invite for the podcast
Once a month, we talk to founders, business angels and innovation experts about what they’ve achieved so far and where they want to go next. They are a source of inspiration and reveal the latest trends in the digital world.
Of course, our focus goes to the national startups and their founders. But the startup ecosystem draws many actors together: incubators, business angels, investment funds, public initiatives like f.i. the Luxembourg Space Agency and Luxinnovation, but also big innovative corporations that collaborate with startups. We try to alternate the speakers’ profiles to provide the audience with a better understanding of the various roles of stakeholders in our ecosystem. This is especially valuable for target listeners interested in launching a startup.
What are some highlights from past episodes?
There’s definitely one highlight: when we invited Philippe Osch, CTO of Hitech, to talk about the company, the services, etc. we received tremendous feedback. A few weeks later, Philippe Osch told us that he was contacted by two students who followed the episode and wanted to present him with their new idea. Of course, he met them, shared thoughts, and tried to help and coach them where he could. This perfectly illustrates the main purpose of this podcast series: to give insight and inspiration to young people and motivate them to undertake their innovative entrepreneurial adventure!
It’s fascinating to hear the different stories from the founders’ very personal perspectives, although we already know the guests and their startups very well beforehand. For example, Christophe Folschette, one of the founders of Talkwalker, guided us through his journey of how he succeeded in growing a team of 2 to over 500 people. We also appreciated the honesty of Larissa Best, former president of the Luxembourg Business Angel Network, on how much money she invested in different startups that failed in the end.
It’s also very interesting to collect their feedback on the national and European startup ecosystems. We observe a trend of similar recurrent problems and challenges, revealing room for progress in our own ecosystem and emerging ideas to challenge all stakeholders, including on a political level.
“Once a month, we talk to founders, business angels and innovation experts about what they’ve achieved so far and where they want to go next”
Philippe Linster, House of Startups CEO
What’s next for the Startup Corner podcast series?
There are a lot of guests on our invitation list, and still many episodes to go! The concept is constantly evolving and for the upcoming episodes we intend to include short contests where listeners can win a goodie from the invited startup.
And of course, we keep spreading the word and promoting the podcast with the goal to reach all Luxembourgish schools and to have it widely shared within the ecosystem.
Every episode addresses a new target audience through the network of, and by promotion of, the individual guests. It’s all about bringing awareness to a new audience and hopefully, they’ll stay to listen to the full series.
Another challenge is to get more female founders, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers on our podcast. There is a lot of development being done by the startup ecosystem to promote female entrepreneurship, even if only a few speak Luxembourgish. We have some names on our guestlist soon to be released, but we’re actively looking for more candidates!
To all readers out there: do not hesitate to reach out to [email protected] and to propose inspiring personalities. We are looking for startups, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers involved in the startup and innovation ecosystem who speak Luxembourgish.
The House of Startups places a special emphasis on education in this podcast and its other activities. What are your expectations for digital education?
The podcast is a perfect opportunity to raise awareness and bridge the gap between education and innovation needs in various industries. A collaboration with the SCRIPT department of the Ministry of Education, Children & Youth quickly became obvious. This podcast series is only a part of the common projects. The audio content of each episode is printed on worksheets for schools to address the startup jargon and gain new knowledge (including questions to discuss during classes and startup vocabulary explained).
At the House of Startups, we organise events with a wide range of topics and education is certainly one of them. Concerning trends, we see a shift of focus in education towards a more digitalised collaboration of students and teachers and an increased interest in shaping mindsets and competencies in accordance with the overall digitalisation of enterprises.
Where can people listen to Startup Podcast Corner?
You can find all episodes on Spotify, Apple and Google Podcast and also on our website Startup Corner Podcast: House of Startups (host.lu). Yet, we prefer that you subscribe to one of the major podcast platforms, so you never miss an episode!
