A Perspective on Entrepreneurship, Technology & Locative Dynamics

I already wrote in my last posts that I am working on a startup project. Over the last months we developed silently a big part of the application and set up Tagcrumbs Limited. I co-founded the company with Sascha (IT) and Ben (Business). A cool team with all core competencies on board so we can exactly design and build the product we love and that is framed in our minds. So far working on this project was fun and I am looking forward to the next months.

From now on you can read more about Tagcrumbs, the startup experience or our mobile lifestyle under blog.tagcrumbs.com. Feel free to contact us if there are any questions related to Tagcrumbs.

OK, shame on me, I haven’t written a blog entry for a long time. The break started with some long days and weeks of intense studying and writing exams. Fortunately, after enjoying Christmas with my family and meeting a lot old friends from school in my hometown, I had 6 weeks to do something exciting before my next term would start. With a Delta Airlines voucher from a canceled flight in my pocket, I decided to fly back to New Jersey for 3 weeks to visit some friends from my time as an intern at Siemens Corporate Research in Princeton. The friend I was staying at approached me for a startup project in the fitness and health sector while I have been at the University of Waterloo in Canada in August 2007. This is already a long time ago but we used the time to think more about it and how much sense it makes to create a web application for an area that is very competitive but also very traditional and less innovative.

Sounds all complicated and confusing? I know, but it makes the situation also very interesting and it is a good chance to develop a product I really want to use. We will continue developing a prototype and experiment a little in all directions to see how everything can get organized and managed. The next weeks will definitely be the most important for making progress and analyzing the chances for a real startup. I make the process as transparent as possible and questions are always welcome, so maybe this blog turns out to become a founder blog with some insights.

After returning from the US I attended the amazing LIFT conference in Geneva, Switzerland. It is a conference about the challenges and opportunities of technology in our society. It is one of the major European web conferences and I got one of the student tickets sponsored by the Gebert Rüf Stiftung. A big thanks for this great opportunity to attend a conference that covers such a broad range of interesting topics, from user experience to sustainability. This makes it very special and unique. There will be a recap in the next post.

My last regular term with exams will begin next week and lasts until June. Hopefully there won’t be an overlap with the European championship in soccer which takes parts in Austria and Switzerland. After that I will write a six-month lasting diploma thesis which I want to write in a foreign country.

So far my future plans and the reasons for not blogging. I will try to blog more regularly from now on and if anyone is interested in specific topics just send me an e-mail and give me some ideas and questions.

P.S. The Thinc team, the student initiative for entrepreneurship at the University of Mannheim, is organizing a business plan competition called Thinc!Cup for May 2008. It is targeted for over 20 schools and universities around Mannheim. There will also be interesting speakers this term. Just visit the Thinc homepage for more information.