I don’t exactly remember what I expected to learn at the beginning of this course, but what I do remember is that I was initially very enthusiastic. It was great how we were forced into a different mindset right away, by the assignment of having to sell coffee on the street. I was very ambitious and was trying to think of as effective as possible ways to get people to buy our coffee. That however went wrong when I didn’t undertake action early. We didn’t sell at the firework event because we were indecisive and postponed our group meeting on how we were going to sell the coffee. Our loss. In the end I think we made the second most money, after another team which actually performed awesome because they were thinking out of the box. That’s the way to go.

Pitching your ideas:

The pitching for me was very interesting as well. I knew how to do it, I had done it before. I had even started writing on my pitch the same day we got the assignment. Where I went wrong however was the fact that I only started practising the pitch I had in my mind (an idea in which I still believe but for which I hadn’t had the motivation to figure out what I really wanted to do with it) the evening before the actual pitch was supposed to be held. I’ve been there before, I know that it requires more practice to tell a convincing story and I know that you sometimes are lucky when the mood is right and the pitch goes well anyway, even without the proper preparation. This was however not one of those days; I forgot my story and didn’t manage to bring up my arguments for why this idea should become a success. My loss, this pitching is still a work in progress.

Doing a business sim:

The business simulation for me was not that interesting. It is intriguing to see how a business flows and grows within a bigger market context, but I feel that the application of what we saw that happened in this simulation is not applicable to the level of start-up I am currently in.

Talking about your ideas:

The going to events was by far the most inspiring thing that I have done in this course. This has showed me how talking to other entrepreneurs will get you great feedback, motivation and connections that can be very helpful later on in the process of your work. On multiple occasions I ended up unexpectedly having connections that caused and helped me in taking next steps for my business ideas (see my previous posts, links provided at the bottom of this one). Some sort of natural workflow and progress arises when you keep meeting up with other (actually) interested partners, a flow that would be difficult to sustain on your own.

Developing a business plan and a startup:

Of course, it is motivating and educative to see what others are doing, but the most important thing that I’ve learned is how going out and talking to people gets you the best possible feedback and insight on your pitching skills and idea in the most direct and instantaneous way possible. I’m aware though that the strength here is in quantity, for as people are still people: they are emotional beings and the opinion they display on your storytelling and idea are as subjective as can be. Therefor, the only way to get valuable feedback is to get as much as possible. Soon enough you’ll start seeing the patterns. There is however more to it. Also very important is to keep focussing on the people you are developing for. They’ll be very happy to see the progress in your project and to give feedback in order to make sure that the product you are developing fits their needs best. Be aware however not to merely listen to their demands but keep your brain involved or you might miss out on the best possible out-of-the-box solutions.

On the progress of my idea:

I started of this course with an idea of producing 3D printed lampshades. It felt like a hobby project with potential for growing and I was interested in looking further into that. I was already aware of that this could be a very lean start-up, as I have all the required tools at my disposal in my home universities working space and in the worst case scenario I would have to buy a €300,- 3d-printer myself and start from there. Because of that I have not been looking for that much information on Venture Capital and other investment options yet. That might however be very useful soon and will hopefully also be covered in the courses I am taking next period. By talking to more experienced entrepreneurs I got a better idea on in what directions I could take this product and make it more scalable, by for example building a platform that would allow people to order their own designs. We ultimately decided to even look further into this idea for our Final Venture Project, which has provided me with valuable information on the scale at which customers might be interested in these products. Both through these entrepreneurial feedback sessions and the user research done for the Final Venture Project I now know what my different options are and have a better grasp on where I could take the idea. However, I do not like the idea of working on this product for the next few years; I believe the market is not big and interesting enough for that. Instead, based on the great advice of one of my team members, it might be a very good idea to just stick with the designs that I have now, develop those a little bit further and sell the products online as if they were a side project; it’s easy for me to produce them and earn some extra money with it, without having to put in my entire body and soul.

To sum up my lessons learned:

What this course has taught me is the basics of what Entrepreneurship entails and the main topics concerned with it. I have a better notion on how to go through developing a project, getting funding for it and bringing it to the market. I see the value of going to start-up events and meeting and talking to experts on the subject, as it empowers you to take steps in your personal and professional development and I am still doing that right now (and will keep doing that in the future, also when I’m back home in the Netherlands.) I learned by both doing and watching on many occasions what good elements are for using in pitching an idea and I have learned the immense value of talking about your plans with others, because they might have valuable experience or a different point of view. An especially valuable insight on this aspect is the value of practicing storytelling and pitching realtime to others. Also, I am more aware now on how to get proper feedback from both professionals as potential users and plan to use this a lot in the future. I tested and looked into my personal Venture Idea and ultimately figured that there is a potential, albeit not that big and that I’m not actually that interested in fully developing this. Instead my plan is to keep this project going as a side project and instead focus more intently on the development of several software ideas that I have been very eager to start working on.

My posts throughout this course:

And likely more will follow ;)!

Procrastinate no more

KTH innovation: a potential road to success

Spontaneous nights out are the best ones.

To start-up your week

A Sequel and a Shout-Out:

 

Here is some thought that I have had true the course.

I chose to take the course because I wanted to have more knowledge and confidence about starting my own business one day but it ended up with so much more.  The way the course was structured is different than many other courses at KTH and that made me first skeptical but now afterwards I am really surprised how much I learned.

The areas I learned most in:

True the years at KTH I thought that I was good at pitching my ideas and a lot of times in group works my ideas was the once that the group continued working with. But pitching an idea for investors is something else and you need to see it from the investor’s side and say what they want to hear. And sometimes the idea is not the most important thing but your presentation and commitment will make the investors interested. One detail I learned is that you present your idea/company as soon as you enter the room and it’s important to act profession all the way.
Marketplace thought me how to it is to start and run a company. How all the acts are affecting the outcome and you always need to think one step ahead. Personally I been thinking about starting a smaller company and not establish worldwide as in Marketplace but I it probably works the same way to run a smaller company.

Go to the startup events made me a better on mingle and open up my eyes for a whole new scene that I didn’t know existed in Stockholm. I got great inspiration to listen to start up projects that mad it and to see that when they started they were student just like me.
To sum everything up we had make the group project where we got to use all the knowledge we learned from the course.  I great way to see what’s needed for a startup and how it is to work in a group. Also interesting to work with students from other programs at KTH and exchange students to see how they solve problems.

I did not have any expectations at the beginning of the course. I was merely interested in what the basics of entrepreneurship were, and to know what tools entrepreneurs use today.

The course did answers my questions, but in a different way than I expected. Instead of reading books, we improved our skills together in the classroom, helping each other out and discussing interesting topics, which was a good way of learning. We always got back to topics we had discussed earlier, which in my opinion is very important, as one understands the importance of every single aspect.

One thing in particular was the importance of listening to your customer. Even more important is first to identify who your customers are, and then listen and understand what their demands are. This is vital for becoming successful.

Everybody embraced Serdar’s approach very good, and therefore the lectures were interesting to follow. The guest lecturers were good too, as their topics were heavily connected to other themes in the course. Also, I believe that the simulation game is a good tool to quickly see the bigger picture when it comes to entrepreneurship.

I want to thank Serdar for this time and wish him good luck in his future courses, and at the same time I would like to thank everybody else – let’s rule the world!

Start up bar Clarion

I consider myself being somewhat of a professional “mingler”. Put me in a room full of people and I will most likely end up talking to a bunch of them, be it superficially or actually with somewhat of a deeper connection. What´s cool about this is that you can allow yourself to be interested in what other people have to say and thereby learn, not only about them but also about yourself.

So with this personal trait I was prepared to go to the startup bar at Clarion hotel to broaden my horizon and perhaps have some interesting accouters. I was not disappointed. Stepping out of the elevator I gave a trained nod to a guy with a sticker on his chest which read “I´m looking for new partners”, an encounter was made. Being Swedish we needed alcohol in order to become friends so we headed to the bar. His name was Carl and he told me that he recently started a media bureau called “Fast Forward Media” and how being an entrepreneur was fun, rewarding and scary. I told him about my dreams of going into business for myself and what ideas I had.

A couple of minutes into the conversation a guy came up to us in a suit holding a bucket. He introduced himself and said that he was in the “health food business”. My instincts said straight away “WARNING MLM, WARNING MLM” and sure enough he was one of the, oh so many gullible people being dragged into this pyramid scheme in disguise. After having listened to his “pitch” and eventually getting rid of him we both commented the encounter as both of us had been approached by these kind of companies before. It didn’t take more than a second after mentioning “Multi Level Marketing” out loud before the next one was upon us. This time it was a fat lady with funky looking glasses trying to get us into her travel company and letting us know how her company was different and definitively not a pyramid scheme. So maybe not all encounters were rewarding, but at least they were interesting.

One of the most interesting encounters however was not with a person, but instead with a piece of paper I found on the ground. I was talking to a friend and enjoying the view from the hotel balcony, when I saw what looked suspiciously like a 500-euro bill on the ground. I reached down in excitement, but to my disappointment it was not money, but a business card with part of a bill printed on the back. I saw a guy holding a similar card and asked him about it. His name was Nils and worked at the crowdfunding site Funded By Me. He told me that the 500-euro business cards was an idea from the founder of the company. He thought that it would be a good idea to make the business cards look like money. So that if his employees didn’t meet any interesting people to give them to, or were too shy to introduce themselves, they should just wrap a few ones up and throw them on the ground in the hope that greedy people like me pick them up. I found it hilarious and a super cool way of marketing the company. I will definitely contact founded by me if I ever get to that point in my life as an entrepreneur.

 

Taking the Entrepreneurship course ME2603 of Serdar Temiz at the KTH University in Stockholm was one of the most influential decisions in my life so far. I am incredibly thankful to Serdar for forcing us to step outside our comfort zone and explore new territory. In this post, I will summarize the many things I have learned since the course started and I will mark the tasks actually given to us in class, to clarify how awesome this course is, but also, how much work is expected of you. Many of the lessons learned have already been covered more extensively in some of my other blog posts, so I will link to them in case you want to take a closer look at a specific topic.

Lessons Learned

First of all, I learned that hands-on experience beats everything else. This was impressively demonstrated in the coffee sale, one of our first assignments, where I also learned the importance of customer awareness, which eventually made its way into my first, yet most popular post on “the importance of beeing present“. (Also the 3rd most read article on the whole blog 😉 )
The Marketplace Simulation Game only reinforced that exact lesson: You can have the best product on the market, if you don’t advertise enough or not in the right way, you will not sell.

Next, I learned the immense power of networking, which we were primed to experience through the assignments to attend startup events and to collect feedback on our business ideas. Just exposing yourself to the environment of the startup scene will get you in a different headspace. Talking to a lot of people will force you to express yourself and will also improve your pitch and sharpen your business idea. What I found the most amazing was the fact that everyone whom I talked with immediately started thinking of who they could connect me with to help me with my project.

Furthermore, the elevator pitch, which we had to prepare for our second lecture proved to me that anyone can come up with a business idea. Not having a good idea is really not an excuse to not start your own business. Honestly, the idea is the easiest step of the journey. Just write down a list of problems you encounter in your everyday life, then find a solution for any of those problems, there’s your business idea. That’s how I came up with the Sound Hub project that I’m currently working on.
Also while testing the two startups, I realized, that a service really does not have to tremendously complicated, as long as it solves a specific need in the market.

Serdar’s prototype lecture and the guest lecturers speeches taught me that the first step in starting a startup is to get an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) going. This is supposed to prove that there is actually a demand for the thing you are planning to sell.

The assignment to use Twitter, LinkedIn and this blog to communicate our experiences made me realize the importance of social media for promoting your brand. Also, it helped me getting feedback and practice, which further improved my writing skills.

The presentations of our venture ideas made me realize how important it is to precisely specify what exactly your service or product is supposed to do and which value the customer will get out of it. Also, it taught me to present big shiny visions and not to talk about the nitty gritty prototyping work when talking to investors.

Final Note

Now, I didn’t talk much about what has been covered in the actual lecture itself, because that can be looked up on Serdar’s Slideshare. What I found much more interesting are the things that make this course extraordinary. At some point we heard this quote in class:

I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.

Well, this course makes you do stuff. It forces you to go out and get your hands dirty and I am very grateful for that because it made me realize how much enthusiasm is in me for the whole entrepreneurship subject. So much so, that I am now taking two more courses in the same direction: “Entrepreneurial Leadership in practice” and “From Idea to service Business”, which are both promising to be very interesting. So thank you Serdar for opening this path for me!

PS:   I will most likely keep writing these blog posts, because I found it to be very useful to structure my thoughts and the lessons I learn during my time here, so stay tuned for more posts 😉

Yesterday SUP46 arrganged a startups recruitment meeting aimed to introduce several startups and try to find people that were interested in their product.

The participating start-ups introduced themselves and what type of people they for the moment needed.

For me I got kind of confused, because I didn’t realize that there was going to be a mingle were diffrent startup apporached and asked about qualifications and such. But it was alot of fun to discuss different ideas and see what problem startup had, besides the obvious staffing issues. I also want to give a cheer to SUP 46 way to invite, both startup and people intetested in the business. A very nice way for people to meet up and enjoy an evening in each others presence. I really hope some of the startups find the people they are looking for, and the hired person’s expectations are met.

Cheers to SUP46!