Seedcamp Observations
After mentoring 8 out of the 22 startups at Seedcamp on Tuesday and Wednesday here are a few observations - and some thoughts about their respective implications:
First of all let me repeat an earlier statement: All in all the teams were/are stronger this year than they were last year. Having said that I think the one observation which stands out for me is the fact that pretty much every single team I mentored was really (and I mean really) weak on the business model. The most common answer when asked about the business model (or to make it dead simple: The question about how to make money) was ads - most of the time combined with the fact that the team had some magic sauce to make ads more effective. None (!) of the teams actually thought about the fact how to sell these ads - they expected that by simply putting out their ad units, they would sell automatically. This is too bad - as it is the number one question a VC will ask these teams and it should be the number one thing on the forefront of their heads anyway. Also there is a ton of great resources out there which help you figure out how to systematically think about this problem (two of my favorites are Guy Kawasaki’s book ‘The Art of the Start‘ and Dave McClure’s deck ‘Startup Metrics for Pirates‘).
Secondly I found the teams rather unprepared for their mentors - there were a ton of amazing mentors, the teams knew beforehand whom they are going to meet and yet they pretty much never had any specific question to their respective mentors. This is too bad as I believe the teams could get even more out of the whole experience by preparing specific questions for their mentors.
Lastly (and here I clearly side with the teams) I have to admit that the amount of information which rained down on the teams is simply overwhelming. I had situations where six mentors met a single founder - and every single mentor had some valuable advice. Which is great - but can be a lot to digest.
Now we are looking forward hearing tomorrow who will win this thing… All the best to each and everyone and especially all the teams I mentored. 
P.S.: The quote of the day is from one of the leading VCs who said the following in one of the mentoring sessions to a founder:
If you don’t have a dog - take the cat hunting.