1. Spotlights of the Week

The Startup Genome Compass

Sandboxers Max Marmer and Bjoern Lasse Herrmann launched this week the Startup Genome Compass the first benchmarking application for startups based on the Startup Genome framework. The Startup Genome Report is an in-depth analysis on what makes internet startups successful based on data from over 650 startups.

2. New in the Sandbox

Maria Rocio Paniagua Dispa

Maria Rocio Paniagua Dispa, 24, from Mexico, is a politician by profession, a traveler by vocation and an entrepreneur by accident. Passionate about social causes and about the Middle East, she did her first social project in Benha, Egypt, and was the first Mexican to win the Education Without Borders Conference in Dubai. Her latest project will contribute to solving violence and insecurity issues in Mexico.

Jonathan Kalan

Jonathan Kalan is the founder of ChillaVista – a successful community festival. Jonathan also built the mobile fundraising division for Causecast and founded the BoP project (published in the New York Times and several other media), which awarded him a finalist position in the Diageo Africa Business Reporting Awards 2011. He is currently living in Nairobi.

3. Events this Week

Sandbox event in Beijing

Amazing Sandboxer dinner with Yusen Dai, one of the co-founders  of  聚美优品, a very well-known, fast-growing Chinese online group buying site for cosmetic products. Thanks for making it happen!

4. Weekly Inspiration

A very inspirational film about a group of young boys who against all adversities created a very successful football team.

Meet Sandboxer Ryan Buckley. Ryan, 28, has studied at Berkeley, Harvard and MIT, and has founded several start-ups, among which B2G Media, a political technology consultancy, and Scripped, a popular screenplay crowdsourcing service. Find Ryan on Twitter and Facebook.

1. Tell us the story of your latest project / occupation.

My most successful project has been Scripped.com, a software product with a lively writing community around it where 100,000 screenwriters have come to write scripts and get them read by Hollywood studios. We have found that it’s much easier to work with independent producers than major ones because of restrictions imposed by other interests such as the guilds which basically are film industry’s unions. Now I fashion myself a liberal, but they make my business very difficult and slow to grow. There are people in studios who want to do business with us but can’t because guild rules won’t allow it. And it’s the young writers in Texas, Kansas, and around the world who suffer because of it.

2. What are you doing and how did you get there?

I’ve taken a job at a fast-moving startup in San Francisco called Rapleaf. It is a marketing data technology firm that helps business better understand and cater to their customers. It is interesting work and as a full-time sales guy I have plenty to learn. Wherever I ultimately wind up, I will owe a debt of gratitude to Rapleaf for teaching me these valuable skills.

3. Tell us about the biggest successes and failures in your life. What worked, what didn’t, and what did you learn?

I wrote my Sandbox application about the failures I’ve experienced since college. I’ve started four companies and folded three of them; one I was able to sell to my partner and one is still happily running. However I don’t fault myself for trying. Other failures perhaps are more related to lack of trying. That is why I am excited to join this network. I am a year and a half away from 30 – I hope this network can help me turn small successes into great ones.

4. What do you want to achieve in a) the next year, b) the next 10 years?

This year I hope to help Scripped reach new heights: I’m excited to help the team launch two new products this quarter, grow our product revenue, and start to pay well-deserved dividends to our shareholders. In 10 years I want to be in or running for public office.

5. What was your most inspring moment during the last two weeks?

In the last two weeks I have been inspired by my guitar. My fingertips have hardened again and I feel the wash of relaxation come over me, like a good workout. When I play guitar consistently my stress is lower, I’m happier, I sleep better, and I work harder. I’ve been playing now for over 15 years and it’s a pretty basic part of my life. I’m good at it, so I need to remember that its something important for me to keep up.

6. How could other Sandboxers and the outside world support you and why would that be exciting for them.

I’m looking for inspiration, successes, and more stories that will compel me to keep driving Scripped forward. In exchange I commit to doing the same. And if anyone has aspirations to make it in Hollywood, I can certainly help!

Ryan’s favourite:
-book: Tao Te Ching
-movie: Back to the Future
-place on earth: Pinecrest, CA
-travel destination during last year: Vermont
-food: I love all kinds of Salad
-drink: Old Fashioned (anything with whiskey)
-quote: “Will it not be employment enough to watch the progress of the seasons? ” Henry David Thoreau

Or to be exact: we were Berliner. After two exciting weeks in the German capital city with the whole full-time team, we are now back in Zurich, inspired by what we have seen and energized by the people we met.

Here are some of the coolest businesses, projects, ideas and people we came across:

A start-up: Niiu

Niiu is personalized newspaper, printed and delivered to your home every morning. You can choose the topics you want to read about and the sources from a wide range of traditional media and blogs. Isn’t that cool? We joined their first year anniversary party and enjoyed meeting their founding team. Niiu has international expansion plans but is unfortunately only available in Berlin at the moment.

A social enterprise: x-runner

x-runner is a portable toilet specifically designed for the private households in poor urban areas, where the population does not own the land, lives in small, crowded spaces, and where a sewage system is non-existent. Once full, it can be converted into a rollable device, which will then be brought to a nearby collection point – usually a public toilet – where the feces can be dumped. The collection point will has a bio-digester where the feces will be processed and turned into methane gas. The x-runner user can benefit from the gas by using it for cooking and for lighting.

An incubator: betapitch

Sandboxer Hans Raffauf wants to help entrepreneurs convert their ideas into tangible results. He has started betapitch, a platform that strives to meet the requirements of independent, creative professionals by providing them with a collaborative workspace and the services of an incubator (network of investors, mentors and other services targeted to young companies). betapitch is located at Betahaus, a large coworking space in the center of Berlin, which was also our temporary office during our two-week stay.

A Sandboxer: Sebastian Christ

Sebastian Christ is a journalist, working on a compilation of short stories about the war in Afghanistan. He went to Afghanistan twice and is currently preparing a third expedition. In his words: “if you travel Afghanistan, you won’t witness a scenery that could be described with the words we are used to hear when we talk about ‘war’. [...] Often, the war in Afghanistan has no sound or smell. Even more often there is no frontline. But in some way the enemy is always around you, 24 hours a day. And that is exactly what I am writing about. If you think of Afghanistan, forget the pictures you have seen in Apocalypse Now. It is about the sound of silence and all the things that happen in the short moments when it is getting loud.” We had a great working session – and an amazing brunch – at Sebastian’s tower house in East Berlin and very much enjoyed the good discussions and his communicative laugh.

We hope to be back soon!

Sandboxer Blake Jennelle is raising money for Startup Corps, a remarkable program that brings real entrepreneurs into high schools. It’s not just teaching. These entrepreneurs coach students as they launch real businesses! Blake taught in this program himself, and claims it is one of the best things he has done this year. We really like his cause and we especially LOVE the way he is fund raising, so we figured it was important to get the word out.

Your donations will fund Startup Corps’ expansion into five new schools starting this fall. Without them, the program may have to delay expansion until the following year.

Blake has set up a fund raising page through his new startup, MyDunkTank, to show you how serious he is about raising this money. When you make a donation, you get to dare him to do something crazy. To check out the funny dares he might do, and contribute, take a look at this page.

What does Vincent, owner of New York pizza shop 11B Express, have in common with young entrepreneurs? Both go by the motto “If I don’t eat it, I don’t serve it.” This seemed to be the theme last night when NYC Sandbox Co-Ambassadors Niamh Hughes and Fabian Pfortmuller organized a 30+ guest Sandbox event with one of the leading European technology incubators, Seedcamp. Fired up by garlic jalapeno pizza (yeah, it’s a little potent) and several jugs of wine, NYC Sandboxers and Seedcamp entrepreneurs shared their pitches and passions.

Seedcamp has a group of seriously impressive companies on their US tour (going through NYC and San Francisco). Check out the startups below.  Guests included Reshma Sohoni (Founder of Seedcamp), Evan Cohen (General Manager of Foursquare), entrepreneurs from Columbia University, and many others. As usual, it was a delicious evening filled inspiring ideas.

Advertag – (London, UK) Tag-based search technology for classifieds and image search.

Brainient – (Bucharest, Romania) – Helping video publishers monetize video content by adding interactive elements and affiliate marketing.

Codility – (London, UK; Warsaw, Poland) – Automated testing of programmers via the Web, saving employers and recruiters both time and money.

Erply – (Tallinn, Estonia) – ERP on the web. Comprehensive CRM, accounting, billing and inventory management for SMEs.

Kukunu – (London UK) – A social travel planning platform to build and organize your holiday, because travel is better when you plan it yourself

Kwaga – (Paris, France) – Makes your inbox easier to manage by intelligently screening and organising your emails.

Patients Know Best – (Cambridge, UK) – Patient-controlled medical records. First customers include the UK’s largest private health care provider, and the UK’s largest children’s hospital.

Platago – (Vienna, Austria) – Helping game developers to publish their games on social networks.

Shoutem – (Zagreb, Croatia) – Enables you to create your own microblogging community for your business or brand.

Wondergraphs – (Leuven, Belgium) Social business analysis that saves organizations time and money with easy to use exploration, sharing and context aware search

YubiTech – (Ramat Gan, Israel) Enabling mobilization of Desktop application to cross-mobile platform, in a fraction of cost and time, bringing best user experience to the mobile users.

12 potential and current Sandbox members joined us for our inaugural dinner at San Francisco’s Bissap Baobab restaurant, which features the cuisine of Senegal. Over couscous, kebabs, and ginger juice, dinner guests shared their startup experiences from a host of diverse backgrounds. Participants present were from Germany, Mexico, Russia, Switzerland, and the United States.

Some concepts and companies featured:

• Inviko: A social graph startup
• Startup School: An invite-only platform for outstanding and upcoming entrepreneurs
• Sparkseed: A nonprofit organization that invests in top college student social entrepreneurs through guidance, funding, and tools.

Adrian Locher, Sandbox Ambassador to Berlin and co-founder of Smaboo, organised the first Dinner in the German capital last week in order to kick off the local community. We met at the Café am neuen See, a place known for its good beer and for its delicious oversized pizzas.

Many entrepreneurs attended the dinner, and we had the occasion to discover several very promising German startups, among which the following ones:

• quillp, a website letting people discover new books and new authors, as well as publish their own work without the traditional limitations of the publishing industry
• sportme, community for athletes and sports fans who are looking to connect with others who share a love for a particular sport or team
• FW&P, a comparison tool for insurance and financial products
• Imedo, a platform for exchanging information and tips on health related issues
• Spendino, a service company for non-profit organizations

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We are very proud to announce that Sandbox AG has been incorporated yesterday as a Swiss limited company, with the help of angel investors!

This investment allows us to professionally manage the Sandbox network in the long term and to further develop services to members, as well as to external clients. We work closely with a range of partner companies to develop mutual benefits, providing Sandboxers with unique opportunities to build global connections, to access top-level jobs and to participate in exclusive events.

We are now more motivated than ever to make new things happen and to reinforce our position as the leading global network for young achievers!

Thus, it was clear that the Sandbox team would be back in lovely Geneva for the LIFT 09 conference. But this time, we wanted to contribute something. Together with the LIFT team, we decided to throw a small dinner to bring together some young attendees of the conference as well as people from the Sandbox network.

Photo by Dominik Grolimund / Wuala

On Wednesday evening, after the first day of conference, a group of 30 hand-selected people met at the beautiful Restaurant La Broche. Despite some initial resistance, we managed to mix up the people so that everyone would meet new people. As usual at Sandbox dinners, the crowd was a diverse one, ranging from entrepreneurs to NGO people and researchers.

Equally broad were topics that were covered in the discussions at the five tables: One group immediately dived into the big debate of money vs. freedom and why being a poor entrepreneur might make you happier than being a rich employee. Another table discussed intensively the business model of Poken, the very successful Swiss startup, with its founders.

As the evening went on and the wine bottles were slowly emptying, the debates moved on to the advantages of Islamic banking, the future of journalism – and medieval propaganda. Over coffee and dessert, some people discussed how innovation can actually flow from less developed countries to the developed ones, as it happened with the concept of microcredits, while others got into a heated argument on the Swiss banking secret. And before we even realised, it was 1am in the morning… Time, at least for some, to start discovering the bars of Geneva

The dinner was, in our view, a great success – it allowed us to spread the word about Sandbox and, more importantly, meet some of the smartest and most interesting people at the conference. Thanks to everyone for attending – and see you at the next conference!