Category Archives: Events

corporate entrepreneurship, Events, innovation, startup

Speaking at the pre-opening of the digital HUB Cologne

What Startups Need @ digital HUB Cologne


Recently I was honored to be invited to speak at the members-only pre-opening of the digital HUB Cologne about “What Startups Need”.

Spoiler alert: It isn’t corporate partners and digital hubs.

The digital hubs in the state of NRW in Germany is a political construct part financed with public money. It’s supposed to support and help small and medium companies get onboard with “digitalisation”, whatever that term means.

The ensuing panel debate and Q&A

As you might know, I’m much more of a libertarian than a socialist, so I’m not the biggest fan of this publicly funded hub concept for a number of reasons.

Some are:

  • I don’t believe taxpayers should be subsidising private enterprises
  • If the market had wanted or needed a “digital hub”, it would have created one already by itself
  • The market is Darwinistic and self- correcting – putting public support-wheels or bandaids on failing businesses is wrong
  • Creating publicly funded competition to existing local business offerings is wrong

You get the drift.

In sum, I think it’s a political innovation theatre paid for in part by us the taxpayers.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

These were the slides I used:

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Events, startup

It’s that WebSummit time again

Gary V…

It’s that time of year again! This year the WebSummit moved to beautiful Lisbon, Portugal. Who’s in town? Hit me up on them there social interwebs and let’s have a drink or dinner.

This thing is getting huuuuge… But we all know we come to catch up outside of the talks, having chats and drinks outside of the venue even…

WebSummit is also a Great excuse for me to visit my fiends at Startup Braga and Startup Portugal

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Events, startup

Pitching the state of NRW as a great place for startups in Warsaw, Poland

Evangelist #1 for startups in NRW in action…

Previously, we had been visiting Moscow to spread the good word and recently I was invited back by the city of Düsseldorf (the capital of NRW) and NRW.INVEST to be a part of the delegation with the Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf, Thomas Geisel and others, to spread the gospel about why the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) is a great place for startups in Warsaw, Poland (twin city of Düsseldorf).

We also visited a lot of interesting tech / startup places like here at Google Campus / Techub Warsaw



These were my slides:

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entrepreneurship, Events, speaking, startup

Pitching the state of NRW for Startups in Moscow, Russia

So that’s what my name looks like in Russian

Recently I was invited by the city of Düsseldorf (the capital of NRW) and NRW.INVEST to be a part of a delegation with the Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf, Thomas Geisel and others, to spread the gospel about why the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW – where I have now been living for the 12 last years) is a great place for startups in Moscow, Russia (sister city of Düsseldorf).

Talked a little bit about why NRW is a good place for startups, the biggest exits we’ve seen and which startups who could be having the next big exits here

As you might know, this has been a pet peeve of mine for years and I was delighted to be able to help shed some light on why this region has a lot to offer and why I have been staying on here as a foreign startup founder all these years.

Some impressions:

Yup. That guy again…

Fun fact; Turned out Sigmar Gabriel was also staying at Ritz Carlton Moscow – so we photobombed his press conference

Here are the slides I used:

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