Tiburon-TV » leweb

mg // 12.01.2009

Safer internet with MyID.is: Charles Nouyrit @ LeWeb08

Charles Nouyrit, founder and CEO of MyID.is, says he is „happy because he is doing serious business“. His company MyID.is has been founded in March 2007 and is privately held with Charles acting as a business angel. MyID is offering a digital identification platform where users can certify their ID worldwide and thus improve their trustability online. Charles points out: „It might sound naive, but we want to make the internet a better and safer place.“
Users pay only once between €2-5 in order to get access to MyId’s platform. With some thousand users today, MyID.is is still in the alpha version. According to Charles, the platform will be launched at the end of January.
Unlike MyId’s American competitor BeenVerified.com, where your ID is certified with your social security number, MyID’s verification process is based on your credit card and your bank as well as your personal address.
Charles has been working with the internet since 1983 – MyID is his sixth venture, with two companies in the telecoms and three in the internet business. Not all of his ventures have been successful, but Charles points out: „That’s part of the game. As an entrepreneur you take risks, so sometimes you fail. These are actually your best lessons since you only start analyzing when you failed. You will never learn from your success.“

» more

mg // 09.01.2009

Jan-Joost Rueb – eBuddy: The cards to win the game @ LeWeb08

Jan-Joost Rueb, co-founded eBuddy.com 4 ½ years ago and is now its CEO. eBuddy aggregates chat between Amazon, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook and others on the web and on mobiles offering a unified interface. As an added service to chats, eBuddy started offering ICQ in Germany. 41 people are working in eBuddy’s office in Amsterdam and the company now has over 100.000 new users every day and around 8 million users per month. With 1.5 billion banners ads on the web, worldwide advertising is crucial for eBuddy's business. According to Jan-Joost, mobile advertising will be launched in Q1 or Q2 this year. Furthermore, eBuddy has secured €5 million in its series A financing by Lowland Capital Partners and had a financing round with €6.5 million by Prime Technology Ventures. They will be reaching the last funding round in January. Jan-Joost points out: „In the beginning we were really focussed on making money, so much so that the VCs were laughing at us. Now we’re really happy we did it, since we have a healthy business.“ Jan-Joost wants to be „the biggest messenger on mobile phones worldwide“ and plans to grow by having big deals with carriers. He is positive that „in a few years every single phone will have IM on it – hopefully it’s going to be eBuddy. We have the cards to win that game, we just have to play it right!“

» more

mg // 08.01.2009

Igor Smirnoff – Pressdisplay.com: Successful migration @ LeWeb08

Igor Smirnoff from Newspaperdirect.com explains how traditional businesses like newspapers and magazines migrate their products successfully into the digital realm. Newspaperdirect’s online resource is called PressDisplay.com and offers more than 850 newspaper and magazine titles. Publications have been optimized so that you’ll be able to access your favorite paper using a smartphone, an iPhone, an iPod Touch or a BlackBerry device and browse it at your convenience. Besides the above mentioned devices, Igor introduces two other units with a smaller and a larger format: An E-Reader, the first foldable paper device which is also a phone and the new iRex DR1000 - a sleek and lightweight portable digital reader with a10-inch screen. Unlike the Amazon Kindle which offers only limited editions of papers, the iRex device presents full editions as they were published. Being a technology evangelist, Igor believes „you need to be passionate about what you do and believe in it. Things that five years ago sounded outrageous are standard today. Know your stuff, know your market and opportunities and dream in a huge way!“ Last but not least Igor advices: „Attend events like Le Web. These are phantastic networking opportunities.“ ...

» more

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.

» more

mg // 05.01.2009

Scott Rafer – Lookery = High volume, low cost @ LeWeb08

Scott Rafer, U.S. serial entrepreneur since 1992, founded Lookery.com in July 2007 after his former company MyBlogLog.com has been sold to Yahoo. Lookery.com started off as a Facebook advertising network right after the Facebook platform was launched. According to Scott „Facebook was great for start-ups at the beginning. Then, after a year it was a great place for big companies and not so good for start-ups.“ Having understood that, Scott took Lookery out of the Facebook platform. He now finds it important to use Facebook Connect and its free distribution and to have an extra strategy, since he expects Facebook Connect to be dead next fall. Lookery.com sells user targeting data - mostly small, privacy-friendly profiles including age, gender and a keyword - to the top 20-30 big advertising networks in the world. Scott says: „We’re the high volume/low cost people. There is no one in the business who sells a huge number of profiles really cheap.“ Scott believes in simple business models: „Anything complex is terrible. The older I get and the more experienced I am, the less I attempt. I try not to get any venture capital – business angels are the only people I deal with if I have to take any investment at all.“ Scott’s advice for starting a company is to „do the simplest thing you can, take small amounts of money and get profitable very quickly!“

» more

mg // 02.01.2009

Ibrahim Evsan und Thomas Bachem: Neues von Sevenload (German) @ LeWeb

Click to Play

Ibrahim Evsan und Thomas Bachem gründeten 2006 Sevenload.com, Deutschlands führende Social Media Plattform für Fotos, Videos, interaktives WebTV und User Generated Content. Inzwischen sind T-Online Venture Fund, Burda Cross Media, Media Ventures GmbH und dw capital GmbH an der sevenload GmbH beteiligt. Auf seiner Plattform zeigt sevenload über 600 interaktive Sendungen in thematisch sortierten Kanälen: „Das ist ein Kraftakt, auf den wir ziemlich stolz sind und der eine unglaubliche Herausforderung bedeutet“, meint sevenload-Geschäftsführer Ibrahim Evsan, kurz „Ibo“. Als Europas grösster WebTV-Anbieter will sevenload im nächsten Jahr mit WebTV-Shows möglichst bald die 1000er Grenze erreicht haben. „Unser Ziel ist, dass Leute mit WebTV-Wissen ohne Ahnung von Technik sich bei sevenload eine Präsenz aufbauen können. Wir sind vor allem ein Dienstleister und wollen den Leuten einfach die Instrumente an die Hand geben, um sich selber zu vermarkten.“ „Sevenload will erwachsen werden, mit aller Macht und Kraft“. Deswegen hat Ibo im Rahmen der Unternehmensvergrösserung seinen CEO-Posten an den sevenload-Seed Investor Axel Schmiegelow weitergegeben. Chief Operating Officer ist seit Oktober 2007 Andreas Heyden. Angesprochen auf die Finanzkrise betont Ibo, dass „der Markt Druck macht. Sevenload hält dennoch an seinem Geschäftsmodell fest“. Thomas Bachem rät jungen Startups: „Nicht aufgeben!“ Einig sind sich die beiden sevenload-Repräsentanten auch darüber: „Die schönsten Momente sind immer die, wenn die Mitarbeiter sich freuen – egal worüber.“

» more

vt // 23.12.2008

Peter Vesterbacka: Tough times generate great opportunities @ LeWeb

Click to Play

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.“

» more

vt // 22.12.2008

Generating most effective online ads – Mathys van Abbe @ LeWeb

Click to Play

Serial entrepreneur Mathys van Abbe now introduces his fourth start-up Toading.com , the company that funds his hobby projects like startpix, mobypicture and Spot2be. Toading is an advertising technology tool for organizations in the e-Commerce or e-Recruitment business helping them to save time and money. It enables those companies to link their website offers to online advertising campaigns, i.e. for Google and Yahoo. Toading generates ads for every specific product and service including important features like the exact price and the availability. According to Mathys van Abbe, Toading is quick to implement and reduces ad spending with 25% while increasing conversion rates of online advertising campaigns with up to 300%. While Toadings technology development is based in Budapest, Hungary, most of Toadings clients are currently in the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Spain and Germany. With one or two competitors in the field, van Abbe is still very optimistic since there are lots of clients out there. Mathys also presented his other startups to Tiburon-TV, check them at http://www.tiburon-tv.com/tag/mathys-van-abbe/. BTW, the guy jumping through the video promoting Toading is Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.com.

» more

vt // 19.12.2008

Simplify your money management with SCRED: Kristoffer Lawson @ LeWeb

Click to Play

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.

» more

vt // 18.12.2008

Perfect match with Sense2love: Anju Rupal @ LeWeb

Click to Play

Sense2Love.com is a social networking platform of bringing people together for love purposes. Launched in August 2008 by London-born Indian Anju Rupal, Sense2Love sets up a new paradigm of matchmaking by combining ancient traditions of matchmaking with new trends in social networking: Statistically, 57% of your partners are found through your network, while 10% are found online makes Sense2Loves success rate of up to 67%. Using an invitation only network, Sense2Love helps you not only to find the partner that really matches you but to build sustainable relationships by using Sense2Loves communication styles. In workshops and roadshows Sense2Love teaches on how to keep heartaches low and the so called cup of love full. Sense2Love thereby takes a concept online that has already been proven in the U.S. Sense2Love has an interesting way of making money: Before going on a blind date, you have the option to buy a present perfectly matched to the interest of the person youre about to meet, i.e. chocolate, a massage or even a week-end in a spa. Furthermore, they charge for the dinners they arrange. Rupal and her co-founder and Business Angel Bill Liao, who is also co-founder of xing.com, are themselves looking for business partners to take Sense2Love global. Rupal, who co-founded her first business Finaxis AG seven years ago, believes its all about execution. You really have to believe in what you do, be passionate about it and then go for it, full power especially in the economic climate we have right now.

» more

Posts Tagged ‘leweb’

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta

Related articles by Zemanta