In early summer 2018 started The Creative Tour a trip in Skåne in search of people who want to develop and build their creative ideas. At the stops, the team invited the entrepreneurs to coffee and opportunities for casual conversations. The goal was to bring down all the thresholds to create good meetings and thus make it easy to build ideas and businesses and perhaps also find funding. Attending the stops was a strong team of local and international investors as well as business coaches. This meant that some of the ideas were helped by investors already after the pitch.

- One of our main goals was to break the barrier between entrepreneurs and investors and to bring about a real discussion around a business idea instead of a pure pitch in 3 minutes. With this in hand, I can see that we succeeded. Several investments were made across seated tables and consequential investments are in the pipeline. The amazing thing is that the interest in following the companies from the investor side is very big,” says Lars Mattiasson, project manager for The Creative Tour.

The first landing site was at Skånemotor in Lund on 2 May. Skånemotor is an initiative to bring together actors who want to solve complex societal challenges.

- It fits like hand in glove and it is perfect that we can work together to create exciting meetings and new energy. We all want to make Skåne lift,” says Johan Wester, founder of Skånemotor and a well-known entrepreneur.

Second stop was The Yes Way during Yes Day, which is a commitment to female entrepreneurship and new ways of being an entrepreneur. Subsequently, landing sites at two other localities followed through The Greenhouse Malmö, which helps entrepreneurs develop their ideas and business and Village development in Veberöd, which is a local network aimed at stimulating growth in Romele. Finally, the entrepreneurs were also offered coffee talks at Academic Society and in Future by Lund's pop-up office on Skomakaregatan.

The concept proved alluring to many. Over ten days, 53 new ideas were presented. Ten of the participants were given the opportunity to be part of a mentoring program, The Creative Bootcamp, with individual help to accelerate ideas with the support of experienced business developers and investors.

The ambition is that the people behind the other 43 ideas will be contacted by the team in order to still provide the opportunity to help develop the ideas and to be connected to entrepreneurs supporting actors and incubators.

During The Creative Bootcamp, entrepreneurs' ideas are taken forward by experts, investors and guest lecturers in an accelerator program. The entrepreneurs are offered a bespoke job with a mentor with face-to-face meetings and digital workshops. One topic that entrepreneurs get to know more about is value-driven entrepreneurship, which involves putting the business idea in line with the values of the entrepreneur and the team to create a lasting commitment to the company. The work also includes a “Demolition day” where the contractors receive expert help to look critically at their idea and build it in an even better way, as well as work on storytelling to help the contractors find their own voice and story. Finally, it becomes a sales and marketing program in which the entrepreneurs are given the tools and knowledge necessary to be able to deepen the idea so that it generates growth.

Of the 53 ideas presented, women were in the group behind in almost half. In the surveys that have been carried out on where the investments made in Skåne are ports, often a very low proportion goes to women, writes Southern Swedish.

- To a large extent, this is due to the fact that we bet on the personal meeting. Our entire communication is based on getting to the simple meeting over a cup of coffee. We want to hear the entrepreneur's story about the business idea and why their particular idea is important. It is more about storytelling than a perfect pitch and therefore the conversation also comes down to a soft human level, which I think attracts more people,” says Lars Mattiasson.

The Creative Tour has a strong international focus, connections to international networks and collaborates with Businessinlund.se which is a new English-language marketing web for Lund Municipality. This year's tour is carried out with the support of Lund Municipality and Vinnova by Future by Lund and SOM (Smart Public Environments). The work is also carried out in collaboration with entrepreneurial supporting actors, local and international investors and with accompanying researchers from Lund University and Stone K Johnson's Centre for Entrepreneurship.

The ten ideas that went to The Creative Bootcamp

Jenny Lee, Edit, a marketplace that connects brands with consumers.

Nina Westlund, More Palette, a customizable and reusable makeup palette.

Adam Jonasson, Adflow connects consumers with businesses based on mentions in social media.

Julia Bristulf, Paper vs Leather, makes bags from vegan and eco-friendly materials.

Malin Lundmark, Tordyvel makes functional and environmentally friendly clothing in wool.

Mandie Lynn, Social Impact Revolution, a training program and tool in sustainability for educators.

Jeanette Persson, Sprakom, provides speech training for children with functional disabilities via a platform.

Michael Carlstein, BOOLI, a new platform and trading platform for sellers and buyers in the housing market.

Emelie Svensson MLì by Svensson, designs and produces clothing made of polyester for the circular economy.

Charlotte Rodenstedt, Historical city app, an app that shows what cities looked like 150-300 years ago.

The Creative Tour is based on Barcamper which was conducted in 2016 in Skåne. Then a camper was used to visit several resorts and thus give more people the opportunity to present their business ideas in an unpretentious environment. Over the course of just over a week, 82 entrepreneurs were given the chance to talk to business coaches and international investors. 55 percent of the participants were women. Barcamper was originally started in Italy by Gianluca Dettori at Venture capital company dPixel in Milan. Since its inception in 2012, the Barcamper team has visited over 200 locations, met 3400 entrepreneurs and evaluated more than 2000 business ideas.

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