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mg // 07.01.2009

David Hornik – August Capital: Relationships matter @ LeWeb08

David Hornik has an eclectic educational background: He holds an B.A. in Computer Music from Stanford University, an M.Phil in Criminology from Cambridge University and a Law Degree from Harvard Law School. But as soon as David started working with startup companies he found it „completely addictive“ and figured out that this was what he loved. When he got to know people from August Capital in 2000, they asked him to consider to come on their side of the table. He decided to join them and still finds it was the right decision: „I’m very grateful and couldn’t be happier.“ Having no particular expertise David calls himself „a collectic“ and finds that a lot of successful investors are generalists. With August Capital, David funded a broad set of companies, amongst others  a blogging company called Six Apart, the media ad platform VideoEgg, the U.S. payroll company Paycycle and the search engine Splunk. Furthermore, he seed-funded Technorati. With regard to the economic downturn, David finds that „entrepreneurs that endure tough times and make their businesses work despite the economy end up building valuable businesses.“ According to David, August Capital will be raising a new fund and „is always looking for smart teams that are developing interesting technology .“ In order to get funded by August Capital David advises: „It’s best to get introduced to me by someone trust. Then feel free to write an e-mail to hornik --@-- augustcap --.-- com.“ David stresses the importance of relationships: „You have to be engaged in the community and build relationships. I honestly think business is a very personal thing. For starting up a company find the right people first. We’re at August Capital are much more likely to fund a team than a technology. Who you have joined forces with to build a startup will mean a lot more than what you are up to.“ David Hornik is also a lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and the Harvard Law School as well as the author of VentureBlog and VentureCast.
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vt // 23.12.2008

Peter Vesterbacka: Tough times generate great opportunities @ LeWeb

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Peter Vesterbacka is a serial entrepreneur from Finland who left HP two years ago with the intent to build further start-ups. Peter had already founded MobileMonday in 2000, a grass roots community for people in the mobile business that has grown into the world’s leading mobile community present in 70 cities around the globe. Peter is also the founder of ConnectedDay, a community site aimed at enriching the dialogue between professional daycare centres, parents and children. Furthermore, Peter co-founded Star Wreck Studios, that has been hugely successful with its first feature film production „Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning“, a film in Finish language with 8 million downloads. Peter has now created WreckAMovie.Com, a new service around fim production. Another new service is Zipiko – described by Peter as „a cool business model all around intention“. Zipiko works well on high-end mobiles and lets your friends know what you would like or are planning to do. Peter started working with Zipiko a while ago and finds „they have a great team and are definitely going to go places. If you know people’s intent, it’s hugely valuable for marketing purposes.“ Although there’s a lot of doom and gloom out there, Peter is positive that „this is the best time to start a company. It’s cheap and people will have lots of time to participate“. As an advice for start-ups, Peter points out: „I’m a big believer in ecosystem. Stand up, look around the ecosystem, ask yourself who your competitors are and with who you could partner with. That’s the best way to understand the big picture.“

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vt // 19.12.2008

Simplify your money management with SCRED: Kristoffer Lawson @ LeWeb

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The Finish start-up Scred.com, founded by Kristoffer Lawson, focusses on banking for the 2.0 generation. Its version 1 has been successfully launched with around 1000 users already using this basic version. Version 2 with more exciting content will come out before christmas. Lawson tries to revolutionize the banking system by offering easy and fun-to-use tools to handle money. As the creative director of Alternative party - an art event in Helsinki he finds that money has always been a real headache. Users of Scred.com can simplify their money management among friends or on a trip by using Screds calculation, currency conversion and distribution tools and services. They can track debts between people and use Scred on their mobile even without connection!
Lawson, who already designed computer programs at age 7, just loves technology. He wants to make Scred extremely big and has no interest in focussing on the Finish market even if 50% of Screds users are from Finland right now. With regard to the financial crisis Lawson finds that time has worked in our favor since money is becoming more important. He adds: If you fail, its a stupid excuse, that its because of the recession.
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vt // 19.11.2008

“The Next Web” is only for tough guys: Patrick de Laive @ AWS Amsterdam

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The Next Web is a great web conference based in Amsterdam and also a blog "that reports on everything that influences the future of the Web, in any way". So that can be a little tough sometimes, as you see in the video co-founder Patrick de Laive just got knocked out... But draw your own opinion by listening to what he has to say about the web business and the Dutch startup scene. One hint, the end might be a little special highlight....http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2130/2493748321_ce917eebce_s.jpg ;-) cause starting up... eeehmm getting up from the ground can sometimes be tough, that's maybe some sort of a forecast for the coming year? Let's hope that the startups will do better than Patrick does....

P.S. Special thanks to Patrick for that humorous approach...

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vt // 18.11.2008

Mathys van Abbe – startpix: online desktop visualized @ AWS Amsterdam

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This is the second interview with Mathys van Abbe. The first time he presented his startup mobypicture.com, a mobile photo distributer. His second startup called startpix.com is a online desktop application which visualizes all the links you collect. You can place that links wherever you want and you can change colors and sizes. So try it out and discover the Internet in a new visual and playful way! The interview was shot at the AWS Start-Up Event in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Touring around Europe Amazon Web Services illustrates how startups can use their services and offers a stage for presenting ideas and sharing experiences.
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vt // 22.10.2008

endemol goes for platform independence and cross media – Rocco van den Berg and Frank Geusebroek @ PICNIC

At the picnic conference are also delegates of established mediahouses, to see where the market goes and what could be the next big thing. Rocco van den Berg and Frank Geusebroek from the business development department are stating their experiences at picnic and what is going to be hot for endemol. Watch the video to learn more.
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vt // 21.10.2008

You must be crazy if you want to startup in Portugal: 9idiots and stream19.com – Sergio Veiga @ shift08

If you want to get an impression about the Portuguese startup scene and why it is just for idiots, you should watch the following interview with Sergio Veiga who works on a extreme sports portal called stream19.com. Stay tuned the next days for not missing the other interviews focusing Portuguese startups and interesting speakers of shift08.
    The upcoming interviews will cover the following people and ideas:
  • Eddie Correia and Moses Mehraban - chamainc.com: conquering the Portuguese market
  • Leonardo Xavier - thestartracker.com: how to get the Portuguese president involved
  • Celso Pinto and Vitor Domingos - handivi.com: the new global mobile application network is coming from Portugal
  • Bruno Pedro - tarpipe.com: being a role model for Portuguese startups
  • André Ribeirinho - adegga.com: how to discover wine
  • Pedro Custódio - shift: All what you need to know about the Portuguese startup scene and the next shift conference
  • Tara Hunt - The Whuffie Factor: Social Capital for everybody
  • David Orban - OpenSpime.com: saving the environment by connecting things
  • Henriette Weber - toothlesstiger.net: startups should become more like rock bands
  • Delphine Ménard - notafish.org: inter-cultural communication for startups
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vt // 20.10.2008

put out your own talent contest: talentsplanet – Dick Rempt @ PICNIC

At the PICNIC conference in Amsterdam, there have been lots of business ideas flowing around. Dick Rempt is a venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur, he calls himself a company builder. But just investing is not enough for him. Than he got in touch with the idea of talentsplanet, he could not resist and set up the startup himself. Watch the video to discover what talentsplanet is about and what Dick thinks about learning and failing.
Dick Rempt is driven by an approach of partnering and sharing so he is always looking for cooperations and new ideas. You have a service or product which would enrich or promote the idea of talentsplanet? Do not hesitate to contact Dick! picnic conference amsterdam From 24th to 26th of September 2008, hundreds of creative minds from all over the world came together in Amsterdam for the third PICNIC. More information and pictures shot at the event you will find on the eventsite picnicnetwork.org
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vt // 16.10.2008

the whole presentation: wikinomics – Don Tapscott @ talk the future

Let's look back again to the talk the future conference, there so many interesting theories like the wikinomics by Don Tapscott, the exaflood by Bret Swanson or enterprise 2.0 by Andrew McAfee had been discussed, providing us profound insights about the changes happening around us and inspiring us on how to use them for business success. What is the theory of wikinomics by Don Tapscott about? The subtitle of his book with the same name is 'how mass collaboration changes everything'. Don refers to the power of the masses and illustrates it with examples like the open source movement around wikipedia or linux. But he also shows how commercial businesses can take advantage of the genius of the masses. Watch the video and listen to his story of a gold digging company which through opening and sharing its knowledge and Geo-data could not only prevent its bankruptcy but even more realize tremendous assets through finding new gold resources.
The presentation is too long for you? Go to the video-interview, we published a few weeks ago with Don Tapscott, providing a short overview about wikinomics. Don is not the only one observing the changes in our culture taking directions to mass collaboration. Look at the idea of James Surowiecki with his book 'The Wisdom of Crowds: : Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations'. Or Clay Shirky, a successful author and speaker with a colourful background of work experiences, who wrote a book with the title 'Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations'. As he says, it is about "what happens when people are given the tools to do things together, without needing traditional organizational structures." Great example for Shirky's idea is OpenAd.net by Katarina Skoberne. It's an online marketplace for buying and selling advertising, marketing and design ideas with more than 11,000 creatives from over 125 countries. Learn more about the idea of OpenAd and Katarina Skoberne through the video-interview taken at the PICNIC conference. talkthefuture08 The presentation of Don Tapscott was held at the talk the future conference 'the future of work and business', in Krems, Austria on September 5th, 2008.
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vt // 14.10.2008

crowd funded music – sellaband.com – Pim Betist @ PICNIC

While the big labels get afraid of the fundamental changes the Internet and the general technological development causes them, there are some fresh ideas upcoming to revolutionize the music business enabling promising artists to get enough money to release their own album. Pim Betist, co-founder of sellaband.com, explains how anybody can become a micro-investor and fund new talents. Very frankly, Pim provides us with insights about the business model behind, which also entailed some criticisms.
The idea sounds simple, find 5.000 believers who buy one or more shares for $10 each. Once you reached $50.000 you will be the lucky one to get you album produced. The success of sellaband is impressing, 14 artists already reached the required $50.000 and have their albums produced, 12 more artists are funded and are on the way of album production. As sellaband takes an transaction fee for any money purchased and gets the interests of the stored money which is waiting to hit the $50.000 you can get an idea about the profitability of that business model. That also caught the attention of investors and that is maybe why sellabend got its $5 Million funding by Prime Technology Ventures for expanding in the US. So it is no surprise, that there are lots of competitors on the market which also want to have a peace of the cake: forMyBand is a German variation of the same idea, at slicethepie the single investments start at $5. Justaloud.com and talentarena.de have a different approach but also enable independent music and artists to fame, both are based in Germany. A similar concept but for independent films offers indie maverick. Also established bands use their fans to receive a pre-financing. The veteran U.K. progressive rock band Marillion could raise $725.000 by selling deluxe versions and gifts related to their new album like going to the studio with them and participating in the recording. That might also be a very cost-effective sales channel for the musicians because as their audience pays in advance they will save a lot of money for marketing and distribution. picnic conference amsterdam The interview with Pim Betist, co-foounder of sellaband.com, was realized at PICNIC08, where creative minds from all over the world came together to share ideas and thoughts. It took place in Amsterdam, Netherlands from September 24th to 26th 2008.
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