Official statement regarding the next Startup Grind Barcelona events

For well over 18 months now, we have been doing online-only events to respect the safety measures imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure that we didn't bring further complications where it could be avoided.

Back in March 2020, we decided to shut down all of our offline events due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. We moved fast to the online world and started hosting not one event per month, but two per week. This way, we kept our community company and we consistently delivered quality content and valuable advice on a regular basis to the entrepreneurs of our community - and beyond - who, for the most part, had never been in a situation like this before, and whatever advice was welcomed with open arms.

We started off with two sessions about how to do remote work the right way, one in English with Sergio Gago (EVP Technology @ Naviga Global) and one in Spanish with Jordi Vendrell (COO & Co-founder at MarsBased) because literally everyone was forced to adopt remote work overnight. That is, those lucky enough to preserve their jobs, or those who hadn't been furloughed.

Gradually, we tuned down the number of events per month as we were released of the strictest lockdowns and confinements - at least in Barcelona - as we saw a tendency in the number of attendance of events, going down as the months went by. As people were given more options to do outside of their homes, they stopped attending online events.

All in all, we have hosted over 30 events since February 2020, on top of having launched our own podcast, Life on Mars! It's been a couple of busy years, you see.

Not the first, not the last

When it was clear to all of us that we would have to live with this pandemic for a good while, we decided on a strategy for our community.

Our approach was to entertain our community by consistently hosting virtual events to keep the community alive until it was safe enough to return to go back to the offline events. In fact, some offline events from other communities have been happening for a year now, but we had decided that we wouldn't be the first, but we wouldn't be the last.

In fact, one of our mottos is people over business. Always.

After well over 18 months of pandemic, we have decided to go back to hosting offline events for small crowds.

Starting in September, we will be hosting small events, almost invite-only, following the strictest safety measures for everyone, in smaller venues than our usual ones.

We are at present ironing out the last details, but you can expect more intimate events limited to 20 or 30 attendees, with socially-distanced networking outdoors (on rooftops, for the win!) and limited options for drinks and catering.

August event

In the meantime, we're hosting a very fun online event tomorrow, Tuesday August 31st at 7pm (CET) to wrap up this period of online-only events. We're doing an open mic party, where each attendee will get 30 seconds to ask for help from the community.

We will then crowdsource possible solutions, advice and contacts to help all the attendees, to ensure we can take their projects to the next level.

Join us tomorrow and stay tuned for further updates regarding our next Startup Grind Barcelona events!