Well, the day is finally here. I’m ready to announce the winners of the Neal’s Running Start program. The decision process was much harder than I ever anticipated, as I had so many good candidates apply.

In fact, I had so many good candidates that I decided to change the rules a bit.  I originally planned to bring three entrepreneurs to San Francisco, but in the end, the applications were so strong, I decided to go with four winners instead.

Congratulations to the following entrepreneurs, in alphabetical order of their company names:

  • Neal Oddens is the CEO of IncreaseOnline, which is based in Amsterdam (Two Neals, so we’re going to have to have a nickname for you, Neal O. http://www.increaseonline.com
  • Antti Rikkien is the Co-Founder of Zero Keyboard, which is also coincidentally based in Helsinki – http://zerokeyboard.com/

All of these winners come from very different companies and backgrounds, which I think will make the whole experience more productive and interesting for everyone.  I chose all of them for specific reasons. In the next few weeks, I will do a blog post on each of them individually so you can all get to know them before they arrive in San Francisco this Spring.

I’d like to send out a big thank you to the White Bull conference in Barcelona who introduced me to some fine European entrepreneurs.  Two of the winners came through their introductions and assistance.  I hope to spend more time with White Bull this summer and Fall talking about the results of this adventure.

Congratulations to the winners, and I look forward to their adventures in San Francisco.  I’ll keep you posted as we get closer to their arrival.

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