A Perspective on Entrepreneurship, Technology & Locative Dynamics

Simplicity

The KISS principle. “Keep it simple, stupid.” or “Less is More” point out the importance of simplicity. Over-engineering and complexity have often no advantages and shall be avoided, especially in startups. Ignore features that are unimportant for most of your users and create a slick and simple designed interface.

The Dalai Lama once said that simplicity is the key to all happiness.

“Say No by Default”

Steve Jobs gave a small private presentation about the iTunes Music Store to some independent record label people. My favorite line of the day was when people kept raising their hand saying, “Does it do [x]?”, “Do you plan to add [y]?”. Finally Jobs said, “Wait wait — put your hands down. Listen: I know you have a thousand ideas for all the cool features iTunes could have. So do we. But we don’t want a thousand features. That would be ugly. Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It’s about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.” — by Derek Sivers “Say NO by default”, president and programmer, CD Baby

Conversation

“Feedback is a Gift.” Try to get as much feedback as you can, it will shape your product to something with higher value and makes it unique, the two ultimate goals.

“Good Science is Conversation.” This citation goes in the same direction as the one mentioned before, try to have a conversation about your startup or your product to bring up new ideas and to get valuable feedback. In science you want to create something valuable out of many ideas, so there are some parallels to entrepreneurship.

Strategy

“Think Big, Start Small and Scale Fast is a Winning Approach.” An advice by Accenture for successful E-Government initiatives, see slide 9 of the presentation eGovernment - Lessons For Leaders and Followers. Starting small is often a good idea if you want to see progress quickly but to succeed you have to scale fast and think global at one point. It is also known of the strategy of the “Small Steps”.

I think I will use this style of posting more often to keep track of smaller things that are not worth a full blog post. What do you think, interesting or not?

Last Wednesday the Swedish founder of dotCom startup letsbuyit.com, Johan Stael von Holstein, held an exciting and inspiring presentation about his life and his experiences at the University of Mannheim. This great event was organized by the entrepreneurial student initiative, Thinc!.

Many of you will still remember the many advertising spots on TV with the red ants convincing you to buy in groups with LetsBuyIt.com. The European company headquartered in London, registered in Amsterdam, failed as many others after the dotCom bubble burst, after receiving dozens of millions of venture capital and not making any profits or reaching break-even. Despite that, with the co-buying revenue model, the company was one of the more innovative ones during the New Economy times.

“We all get things cheaper when we buy in a group.”

“All together better value.”

“Together means more.”

Mr. von Holstein is still a believer in this model that buying in groups to get a better price is a valuable approach and he wondered why not more companies picked up this idea.

He is a great speaker and likes to share his knowledge to support entrepreneurship and aspiring entrepreneurs. This is also highlighted through his various investments in early stage companies and his work in the IQube incubator in Sweden. Let’s take a look at the many points he talked about:

Money is not all. He is a strong believer in entrepreneurship with all its freedom and responsibilities. Just focusing on making money makes you fail. Having owned multiple millions in stock options which have been priced by the short term thinking of stock markets and the New Economy bubble, he went through all ups and downs from a financial perspective.

Successful entrepreneurship is the 2nd best feeling in life. Love is number one. Mr. von Holstein was born in a small village and many were struggling around him and had no perspectives for their future. He was lousy in school but found his passion in skiing, what he followed professionally for 4 happy years until an accident destroyed his career. He did not know about entrepreneurship until age 26 when he went to university to study business. During this time he recognized his desire for achievement and the desire to win and to become an entrepreneur.

Work hard! Working always two hours more than everyone else makes you succeed, you don’t have to be too smart. He pointed out that the smartest will never win, but they can work for him, one of the many polarizing comments which made the presentation worth attending.

Everything works. You don’t need to have the best idea but you need the courage, the willingness and the passion to execute it.

Diversity is important. Mr. von Holstein lived in several countries for many years and always was surrounded by diversity, creativity and a multi-cultural environment. You have to be open-minded as an entrepreneur to succeed. The more diverse the team, the better.

Entrepreneurs make irrational decisions. These decisions drive innovation but also lead to many situations you are not expecting beforehand and are difficult to solve afterwards.

Nothing sells itself, ever! Thinking about the sales process, the distribution and the marketing in an early stage with a high priority is very important to create revenue. No one should ignore this fundamental business aspect.

Quality is a matter of recognition and thus over-engineering is more a burden than a success factor.

Avoid the help of VCs. They add overhead on top of the 100% work you already put into the product. Just the financial investment is highly appreciated. If you need an investment you have to reduce the risk levels.

A company needs time to grow. To be sustainable a company needs more than a couple of years to establish efficient structures and to expand. Ikea needed 40 years for its second shop, for example. The growth of letsbuyit.com was incredibly fast and led to the collapse.

Mr. von Holstein concluded with pointing out that the entrepreneur is the biggest hero in society because he or she creates jobs and supports the growth of the whole economy. A country that wants a long-term growth and a sustainable wealth has to support entrepreneurship in all areas of society.

Just a quick announcement about an upcoming event that a friend and me just initiated. On Monday, November 5th 2007, there will be a Web Monday in Mannheim.

A Web Monday is an informal participation-oriented gathering where everyone is invited. From the entrepreneur, the developer, the designer, the investor, the journalist, the business person, the researcher, until the blogger and the podcaster and everyone else who has an interest in the web and startup community. The only requirements are openness for new ideas and the willingness to learn, to participate and to share your knowledge. The idea, initiated by Tim Bonnemann to bring together various groups who have an interest in Web2.0 in the broad sense, is to create networks and to enable information exchange between Germany and the Silicon Valley.

More general information about a Web Monday on the official wiki page. To find out more detailed information for this specific event in Mannheim just go to the wiki page from the Web Monday Mannheim. If you want to participate just add your name to the wiki page, so we know how many attendees will be expected.

The first event is mainly for networking purposes and to discuss how other events like Barcamps can be initiated and how to establish a local community.