This post is from the present me in response to the recent automated message in a bottle from last year. Thank you for the heartwarming responses, and remember – that message was FROM LAST YEAR. This one is from the present.
Hello world,
I’m doing surprisingly well.
Today is July 2014, and I find myself at the end of my regular free open office hours at Startplatz in Cologne, reflecting on what happened in the year since I wrote a message to my future self from Silicon Valley.
There is a discussion going on in Germany at the moment on startups vs Samwer brothers’ Rocket Internet and I have only two things to say about that.
1. I have the utmost respect for the efficiency of the Samwers. Copycat or not is not a point in business. They might be vulgar to your tastes, but there is no denying that they are exceptionally good at doing business. Period.
2. What the Samwers’ Rocket Internet is doing is not founding startups – and I think an uneducated public being repeatedly fed a misconception from an uninformed media is to blame for this wrong association of concepts.
To wit:
Rocket Internet is creating new businesses based on already working, proven business models, so let’s stop associating the word “startup” with what they are doing, right now.
Startups are temporary organizations in search of a repeatable and scalable business model.
What the Samwers are doing, is executing known business models, not searching for, nor validating new ones.
Ergo, Rocket Internet is not founding startups.
In fact I heard it from Oliver Samwer himself at IdeaLab at WHU in 2013 (below) that he’s only interested in owning (e)commerce on the Internet.
That’s a well-know business model with a foreseeable, albeit huge total available market.
That means they are still playing the old Industrial Age game of growth of market cap through command, conquer and defend. Which is OK if you know which game you are playing.
They are not searching for new business models nor creating new markets.
This, however, doesn’t detract my respect for their successes in the least.
What I wish is, that we can achieve a more informed public that knows and understands what a startup is and how it differs from a new company.
I think that is extremely important, because they are indeed not the same thing. The processes to run one successfully is in most parts diametrically opposite of the other.
If we continue to confuse the one with the other, we’re deliberately creating less competent founders that will keep on doing the same basic mistakes, fail because of the same old misconceptions.
Because today, we actually know better than to conflate the two.
And if you want to get up to speed too on what we know now, I suggest starting today with the (FREE) excellent introduction course by the father of the Lean Startup, Steve Blank taught at over 100 elite universities (like Stanford, Berkeley, Colombia, University of Cologne, et al) and a growing list of +30 accelerators and incubators worldwide. https://www.udacity.com/course/ep245
This is a message to my future self. I’ve set this post to automatically publish one year from now in the hope it will find us both in better times.
Hello world,
I’m not doing so well.
Today is June 19th 2013 and I’m sitting poolside in a fancy neighborhood in Atherton, Silicon Valley. It’s 7am and I’m about to pedal down to Stanford University for another day of lectures with Steve Blank and Jerry Engel.
I should be happy. And in some ways I am.
This is where I’m staying: The Blackbox Mansion in Atherton, Silicon Valley. I’m writing this from the table center left.
UPDATE: You can now book your free in-person office hours with me here: ohours.youcanbook.me.
This article was originally posted at STARTPLATZ by Inga Höglund in German. Reposted here for my English speaking friends. TL;DR – I’m now available for free advice every Wednesday 10am – 1pm 1100 hrs – 1400 hrs (BER time) at STARTPLATZ in Cologne Dusseldorf (check availability and book up front).
The Norwegian entrepreneur and startup founder Vidar Andersen has since over a year become one of the important members of the STARTPLATZ family.
Vidar supports the regional startup scene coaching applicants to the monthly Rheinland-Pitch event how to pitch their startup and moderating also the event itself. He organizes the Startup Weekend Cologne, Startup Next Cologne and he also lectures and holds seminars around the topics lean startup and corporate innovation here, and now every week he’ll be here for his open office hours.
Whatever startups need help with, he is able to advise and assist. Sometimes, they need help securing more funding to set up their operations and he is able to show them different ways to secure the money they need.
This is an interview with Vidar about his open office hours and why he’s so actively supporting the Cologne startup scene. Many thanks to Vidar for taking the time to speak with us. We hope you enjoy the interview.
Q: How did you get the idea to offer free open office hours?
I was recently honored and delighted to be invited as a speaker at #UXCGN, the regular UX meetup in Cologne. It’s a little know fact that I started out in this tech business doing UX before it was even called UX, but HCI (also known under the more derogatory term, Web Designer in the 90s) and I’m still a product guy at heart.
I thought the brilliant Cindy Alvarez‘ presentation about how to do UX the lean way could use some more love in the German speaking world, so I decided to just blatantly steal and recycle it. I know I learned so many actionable things from it that helped me when I was building my last startup.
