Posts (page 2)

Due to non-stop travel I haven't been making the time to blog. I promise I'll get back to regularly posting soon!

Kinda sounds bad when you analyze it this way as Seth does:

Making your customers uncomfortable

Tomorrow is the ridiculous Black Friday ritual, gaining in steam every year, in which large American retailers run big sales that start at 6 am. People line up even earlier to get in first. Kids are stampeded. Muscles are pulled. Friendships frayed. Credit cards exhausted.

Why? In an always-on internet world, why force people to do something they would ordinarily avoid?

Because they like it. It feels special. They are somehow earning the discount. The store creates discomfort and then profits from it. And the customers save money...

Southwest did the same thing to load their planes. By getting rid of boarding passes, they create a small sense of panic. People line up and push and shove to get on the plane in the mistaken belief that somehow they won't get on.

Southwest created discomfort and then got their planes out faster. And the travelers save time...

Better is not always better, at least according to some measures.

Don't you just love your airline or local retailer when you read this?

We had 12 people I believe today at the OpenCoffee event in Hamburg. Hopefully next week it'll be more. To all those who came, thanks for taking the time to stop by and chime in. It was a pleasure to meet you all. To all those who weren't able to make it, you're more than welcome next time. If we manage to get some good word of mouth going, we should easily be able to get 20 or 30 people next time. Keep an eye here for details as well.

Sometimes you hear a word, and it just fits the moment:

Wantrepreneur (as read on Valleywag): describes one who hopes to hop on a bandwagon and ride to glory, instead of carrying one's own ideas to success through actual effort.

Posting will remain non-existant until the 21st of November as I am on vacation. See you then refreshed after a week in South Beach!

OK, old topic. I still am a big fan of Tim and stop by his blog every now and again, but not religiously. I also liked his  book and initially found it a great read. I recommended it to tons of people. Yet, I kind of implemented some of his ideas and moved on. Still, the problem remains that he continues on his self-promotion tour and is getting articles like this in the New York Times (it may drive book sales and speaking arrangements but doesn't do much for the person.....plus some nice name dropping by quoting Andreessen........classic PR article).

There's a point where you simply lose some of the initial message's power and Tim's reached that point. It's obviously clear that he is working tons of hours promoting his book and more importantly himself. I'm convinced he's making big money on speaking engagements and his book sure has kicked back some nice $$$'s. Good for you. He executed perfectly on the PR and has the cash to back up his efforts. Yet, he definately has strayed from what his book initially pitched. He takes time out to go on adventerous trips but in-between, he's logging business travel hours in planes, sleeping in generic hotels and sitting in conference rooms and offices. Kinda back to where he started and not really doing anything out of the ordinary. Sure, he may be reading less e-mail, not carrying around any devices and using assistants in India but where's the big paradigm change? He busts his butt for bucks. I know a bunch of guys who either have their own businesses or are employed in larger companies who regularly take longer, adventerous trips, who are home for dinner with their families and aren't living to work. Yet, they are busting their butts too to make the bucks. Tim claims it's not work if you enjoy it but who are we kidding. If you're doing it to make money (or make money while doing it), it's still work no matter how you package it. Even if you're giving away your money to charity, you've earned it by doing work.

What's the point? Well, Tim still hit a nerve and had some great ideas in his book. Definately a must-read for working stiffs. At the same time, he's only proven that you need to make sure to balance your life. Don't do too much of anything or anything excessively and "work to live instead of live to work". This ain't new folks but if you figure out another way to market it, go nuts. That's business and you could learn a lot from Tim on how to market yourself! Just don't call it work.  

Seth Godin really nails it on the head with three short sentences of advice for the entrepreneur:

Three things you need:
1) the ability to abandon a plan when it doesn't work,
2) the confidence to do the right thing even when it costs you money in the short run, and
3) enough belief in other people that you don't try to do everything yourself.

I see over and over mistakes being made in the start-up world that can easily be traced back to the above three points. All too often, a business strategy or "plan" is pursued for too long. Too much money and energy is spent trying to accomplish something that should be abandoned for something better. Your typical problem of potentially "missing the boat by getting on a train".  (Is that a saying? If not, I want "dibs" on it!) Further, too many times I see entrepreneurs afraid to spend money on the right things. True, you often have the problem of too much money being spent but nowadays when everyone is trying to do it better than last time, I often see spending fear. You sometimes simply have to spend a buck to make a buck. Finally, micromanagement remains an evil problem. This is probably the biggest problem I see. Sure, most super successful entrepreneurs are geniuses (or at least they think they are) but the best of the best always had the right people around to do what they couldn't (or couldn't do as well).

Funny little thing happened here in Germany. The iPhone is coming out tomorrow on the 9th of November, launching on T-Mobile. Apple has been running ads for about a week. Nice little bonus for my investment Emporis. When you watch the video, the user pulls up a site from the magazine Spiegel. The article which is on that page is an article about Emporis. Nice little bit of subversive advertising for us which we didn't even expect. I wish it were much bigger as everyone, I repeat everyone is seeing this add on TV.

Too bad the damn phone doesn't have UMTS. Still a dealbreaker for me!

We're going to give it another go. Tobias Worzyk of Gentleware fame pinged me about getting another date set up for OpenCoffee Hamburg. We're planning the 21st of November at Starbucks across from our offices. We'll be there for a couple hours starting at 9am. More details can be found here. If you're interested in start-ups, entrepreneurial-ism, venture capital, or anything along those lines stop in and meet with some folks or just enjoy some coffee. I'll be there sipping away on my beloved Latte. Kudos to Tobias for reanimating me on this!

Well, only two days after shutting off Voice Mail, it's turned back on. Valerie over at Alarm:Clock pinged me about SpinVox. Well, yesterday it still didn't officially work in Germany and I was frustrated to not be able to find any working solution. Now, a day later, I received a call from one of their folks here in Germany, and bam!, I'm up and running. Voice Mails are being converted to text and sent to me via e-mail.....super easy, super effective. I am in heaven! (Well, you know what I mean!) I think Julie has a winner on her hands here as these guys were super fast to respond (ok, maybe they did see I was a VC), but still, this is what I call customer service and how a new service should work.