This half a century old fart is out of office, visiting the original Doge. Back when school starts!
Category Archives: Little Known Fact
A Blast from the past – An internal memo from my last startup
After pitching Steve Blank at SxSW 2012, co-founder Kit left, Arne right
This morning, I accidentally stumbled on an internal memo from me to my co-founders and advisors from my last all-in startup venture, getGauss.com, from almost exactly four years ago.
“Gauss – The People Magnet” was one of the very first social discovery apps for the iPhone. For the more technical inclined, it was also a freaky cool cloud backend to mine people’s interests and networks to combine new insights with proximity and context. It took us through a roller coaster ride, from the front pages of The New York Times, CNN and TechCrunch to almost personal bankruptcy in the course of about two and a half years.
In the name of radical transparency, I thought I’d share it without comment with the public. I’ll let it be a testament – for good or for worse – of my startup CEO communications skills. I’ll let you be the judge. Anyways, it’s an interesting time capsule from a startup in the midst of the exploratory phase. At this point, we were three months in and already had an MVP and constantly experimenting with new features and learning what users were doing and wanted to be doing and all the while trying to keep up with Facebook, Twitter, Google and Foursquare API changes that where rampant back then.
Here it goes:
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Where do we go from here? A message in a bottle.
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.
On Startup Weekend NEXT Cologne
Startup Weekend NEXT is an intensive three week educational program to help more startups survive by having the startup teams getting out of the building and into the real world applying the knowledge we now have about what makes startups succeed or fail.
There are two personal stories behind my involvement in Startup Weekend NEXT Cologne that I want to take a moment to share.
The Times They Are A-Changin’ – Repentance and Apologies
It’s no secret that I’ve been out of the online and offline loop for over three months.
I’ll eventually tell you why, but the theories and rumors surrounding the absence are probably more interesting and entertaining than the actual truth.
No, I was not hired for the Obama Campaign. I did not help establish the future political platform 2.0 to turn America around. Barack should still feel free to call, though.
No, I did not lose it all in the great Crunch. Credit Crunch or Tech Crunch 50, I never get invited. I don’t discriminate.
No, Pownce did not hire me. That fail train already left for euthanasia station without me.
The actual factual truth is that I was busy keeping a company afloat, thinking forward and expanding at a time where time and resources were getting record scarce, saving and securing workplaces and business for the future.
It paid off, though. We’re solid. Golden. Sorted. Awsun, akshully.
However, I’ll drink that glass of champagne with you later.
It’s hard to be enthusiastic left with a head stuck through several brick walls, wondering what the hell life is all about, desperately in need of a timeout.
I do honestly and sincerely apologize to anyone who tried to mail or call me in the last months. I feel like human manure. I’m finally getting around to you. I am so sorry that I did not tend to you earlier.
I am getting back to you. You mean a lot to me. No, seriously. You do. Hold on to that little speck of trust that you may still have in me.
If anything, I’m proof positive that information do indeed flow back out of black holes.
Update: I’ve posted some of the lessons I learned from the experience.