Gulleggið: A Jumping-Off Point for Entrepreneurs

Photo: gulleggid.is

Translation: Sindri Snær Jónsson og Þórunn Halldórsdóttir

Gulleggið is a startup competition held by Icelandic Startup and is the largest of its kind in Iceland, with over 200 business ideas submitted each year. Gulleggið has now shifted from its normal autumn-spot to January and subsequently, some changes are being made to the competition

There will still be a strong emphasis on this being a competition of ideas and startups, ensuring that participants should not have received funding over 2 million krona or started taking in revenue from the idea. Additionally the demand that participants must have ties to the university has been dropped, so for the first time, Gulleggið is open to anyone.

Registering a team and/or sending in an idea is free, and registration is open until January 13th. Workshops for all participants will be during the weekend of January 15th-16th. Various individuals lead the workshops, each of whom are very proficient in their field, including entrepreneurs, investors and other specialists who guide and support the young entrepreneurs in taking their first steps. This includes the making of a so-called “pitch deck”, which is a short PowerPoint presentation that includes all aspects of the idea. 

After the workshops, competitors will send in their presentations and a panel of judges will choose the top 10 presentations. This group will then be invited back to a second-round high octane workshop over the weekend of 29-30 of January. After this second workshop, it is expected that competitors are  ready to stand on a stage and sell their idea with confidence. The final competition will be open to all and takes place in Gróska on the 4th of February. The prizes are both prestigious and generous, Landsbankinn hands out the  prize for 1st place which is 1 million kronas, in addition to many other prizes.

Gulleggið was started in 2008 and has received more than 3.000 business ideas since then. Out of those, 140 have made the top 10 and competed in the finals. Gulleggið assists entrepreneurs in evolving their ideas, and the objective of the competition is to get the ideas into production. It is also possible to apply without having an idea ready, as those who applied with ideas receive a list of the names who did not, so the teams have the option to network during the first workshop. 

Every year, the project management at Gulleggið chooses twelve students from the University of Iceland, Reykjavík University, University of Akureyri and Iceland University of the Arts to join the Innovation and Entrepreneurship committee for the coming year . The students participate in various projects with Icelandic Startup throughout the school year and are involved in setting up the competition with guidance from Icelandic Startup's project manager. 

Many ideas have been developed a great deal since competing in Gulleggið, including Meniga, Controlant, Videntifier and GeoSilica, to name a few. 

The winning idea of 2020 was the HEIMA app. HEIMA is a management app for the family that aims to manage the household's day-to-day responsibilities, as it gives its users an easy way to delegate chores. The HEIMA app is still in development and will soon be available to the public. In second place was the startup company Hemp Pack that produces biodegradable tree resin, which can be used as a substitute for plastic. A freeze-dried and lactose-free skyr called Frosti Skyr, made by mixing flakes of skyr with water, took third places . It has the same consistency as regular skyr but lasts longer, even though it includes no preservatives. All these projects have developed further in one way or another; in October, the HEIMA app participated in the Nordic Female Investor Meetup pitching event, Pinc Capital in Malmö, Sweden. Hemp Pack introduced its idea at Hringiða's Investor Day, where seven startups in the field of the circular economy introduced their projects. Frosti Skyr will be available in stores in Europe next year, and recently the founders of the company started a partnership with Nestlé to develop the product further.