Recently I was invited to moderate the “Climate Hack #5” event by Markus Sudhoff‘s “Climate Founders” startup incubator program.
Author Archives: Vidar Andersen
Lean Innovation Educators Summit 2022
Recently I was honored and excited to attend my fifth “Lean Innovation Educators Summit” and exchange best-practices and catch up with fellow educators from around the world.
The Lean Innovation Educators Summit is designed to model the methodologies we teach, as we conduct beneficiary discovery with our fellow Lean LaunchPad educators to improve our courses. A key aspect of teaching the Lean LaunchPad methodology is encouraging students to “get out of the classroom” and talk to others. That’s exactly what we as Lean educators strive to do ourselves at the Summit.
The LEan INNOVATION EDUCATORS SUMMIT
“At our fifth Lean Innovation Educators Summit, we discussed the role of the university and other important organizations in supporting the critical mission of preparing the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators. Attendees gleaned insights from keynote speaker Rich Lyons, the Chief Innovation and Entrepreneurship Officer of the University of California at Berkeley, about the opportunities and challenges faced by the Lean Innovation Educators community.”
NFT: Vintage Pixels Collection
TL;DR
- An NFT Advent Calendar featuring collectible vintage icons
- Every day a new drop until xmas morning
- Web 1 classics seen and used by billions – yes that’s Billions with a B
- Created by Vidar “blacktar” Andersen (aka me)
- Some 20 plus years ago
- I’m the only one who can legally sell these & give you authentic ownership
- Auction running on OpenSea until Xmas morning – it’s the season!
- Stay tuned for surprise giveaways in between
- More information below
Pay peanuts, get monkeys they say. Well, these are not the apes you’re looking for. In fact, these are the iconic Web1 vintage pixels exactly nobody was looking for - until now.
NFTs at this stage of maturity are mostly the equivalent of factory prints on pre-signed blank Salvador Dali sheets; Sweat-shopped assets ground out by anonymous hired hands, mass-produced by - and artificially inflated to fill the coffers of - the industrial crypto overbros.
This, on the other hand, is the real-Susan-Kare-like deal; It is now possible to own a true artisanal vintage artefact - a literal icon of Web 1, a perfect preserve of the zeitgeist of an era set for all posterity in pixels, offered directly to you to own for yourself - from the artist himself, complete with the well-travelled essence, the patina, the pedigree - that no boilerplate apes, stonks memes, or 3D amateur fests will ever appreciate to.
Here is your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a unique piece of Internet history, crafted by hand, pixel by pixel, just as the sun was setting on the wild wild west, at the very moment the frontier period of the Internet was coming to an end and the heydays of Web 1 as it were to be know would be gone forever.
These classic icons serve as a unique vehicle, an instant connection, to a bygone era where success on the Internet was still measured in Super Bowl ad spend, and amount of Miller Aeron Chairs and Spark Stations amassed.
The limited Vintage Pixels collection features three vintage icons up for auction today, representing the most infamous three out of a set of over 40.
Continue readingKeynote: DECENTRALISED EVERYTHING (is Blockchain and Crypto eating the world?)
Excited to be doing keynotes again at real on-premise events despite the ongoing global pandemic!
Today I’m in Unter den Linden 1 at Bertelsmann Berlin, speaking about Blockchain, Crypto and Web3 at the Bertelsmann Tech & Data Week 2021. Humbled and honored to be on the same roster of keynote speakers as the excellent Hannah Fry (read her books, check out her socmed)!
It’s a company internal event, so I won’t be able to share the whole nine yards.
On a personal note, I suspect having travelled straight from the clinic where I’d just witnessed our second child being born and not having slept for over 24 hours to deliver the keynote live on stage I might have come off a little disheveled. ;) Zero regrets, though.
Here’s a teaser:
Web 1 – Remember? (1990s – ca.2005)
- Semantics all over the place
- Protocols coming and going
- Things breaking
- Things not scaling
- Crowded place, many new unproven players
- Pump & Dump IPOs
- Scams rampant
- Slow mainstream adoption (e.g. e-commerce)
- dotcom crash 2000
- “This online web thing will never work…”
Web2 is the internet today, dominated by tech giants. It’s built on client-server architecture where users are the client and companies control the servers. These companies extract value from creators and users by sitting in the middle.
Web 3 – Sounds familiar? (today)
- Semantics all over the place
- Protocols coming and going
- Things breaking
- Things not scaling
- Crowded place, many new unproven players
- Pump & Dump ICOs
- Scams rampant
- Slow mainstream adoption
- ICO winter 2018
- “This blockchain crypto thing will never work…”
Web3 is the internet that’s being pioneered by crypto;peer-to-peer networks of computers that talk to each other without middlemen using blockchain tech. It’s the new Wild Wild West, the new frontier of the Internet.
As we now know, this Web 1 (and Web 2) thing worked out insanely well for some.
For those who made themselves dependant on these centralised platforms – and then the platforms changed – it turned out not so great:
TL;DR
- Web1 was about creating value at/for the edges; the developers and users
- Web2 is about creating value for the centralised platforms, the middlemen, the rentseekers, the gatekeepers
- Web3 is a return to creating value at/for the edges; the developers and users – reclaiming independence from centralised platforms (at best)
- Web3 is about trust, ownership, and decentralisation (grifters paradise at worst)
- Crypto & Blockchain enables and empowers trust, ownership, and decentralisation (and scams)
- Web3 is where the Internet wants to go at the moment (subject to change)
- Yes, there’s an energy consumption issue with crypto relying on “proof of work”, but alternatives exist, Etherium is supposed to switch to “proof of stake”, and pow miners are “going green” at a fast rate, it’s getting better
- Yes, there are problems still with the concept of “decentralised”, e.g. a lot of tech being built on crypto rely on centralised platforms, and crypto platforms have been known to freeze assets and reverse transactions (which arguably should not be possible – that’s the whole crypto decentralised schtick), we’re not quite there yet today
Also check out Peter Yang’s great beginners guide on crypto. It’s my go-to resource when trying to explain to the uninitiated. It’s the best first step guide I have read so far.
Conclusion & Recommendations
- It’s 1999 all over again, and the train has left the station, this may also be a boom and a bust – so don’t bet the barn 1999-style, but do dive in and participate, ask yourself if you can afford to miss the value creation in a pioneer age (again), worst case you’ll learn something
- You cannot disrupt the disruptors, don’t try to compete with startups because you’ll lose – acquire or create own initiatives
- Look over your shoulder and around you, who’s [startups] making blockchain / crypto waves near you, reach out and start a relationship – worst case they’ll ignore you, best case you’ll develop new biz opportunities
- Leverage your existing IP and its fan base, it’s something no startup will ever have, think of new ways of monetizing and including fans in new ways of participating
- DON’T BLOCKCHAIN EVERYTHING, use trust and ownership as heuristics; if neither is involved, skip – also think about internal or b2b processes that could be more efficient or cheaper using blockchain tech
- Look at internal work, internal processes that could possibly be automated using e.g. smart contracts – there’s probably a lot of smart people doing a lot of stupid work that could be freed up by automation (also see above)
- Think really hard about how you are going to attract the next superstar artists, offering newer generations more tools to monetize their art and let their fans better participate will naturally be a competitive advantage – crypto could be a part of that toolset mix
- Now is the time to get onboard, destination unknown: it may go nowhere – so don’t bet the barn – but now is the time to get onboard to eff around & find out, get positioned in time
Keynote: Why exits matter @ DEEP Startup Ecosystem Conference 2021
Today I spoke a bit about why exits matter in startup communities at the DEEP Startup Ecosystem Conference 2021.
My main points were to refresh the audience on the Boulder Thesis, and press the importance of successfully exited entrepreneurs reinvesting their knowledge and money (and also not successfully exited founders reinvesting their knowledge) in the local ecosystem for it to thrive.