Sky is NOT the limit

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We had a special guest in  our class– Karin Nilsdotter! She is the CEO of Space Travel Alliance and Spaceport Sweden.

Being a pioneer of commercial human spaceflight and people’s gateway to the mysterious space, Spaceport Sweden has already pushed the limit above the sky!

 

“Why do people want to explore space?” asked by Karin in class.

“Space is a platform for innovation.”

“Because people are curious, they want to find something new.”

“In order to find more resource”

“Our planet is about to fall apart…”

All of them are right. And from astropreneur’s point of view, another important reason to explore the space is that the dreams of space-exploring make all the other business ventures seem very microscopic by comparison. So that’s why many people are obsessed with sky.

There is a lot of development in space but not so much innovation. The thing that Spaceport Sweden is doing right now is quite an innovation. The world does need something new right now. Furthermore, it arised people’s attention in space industry. For example, KTH has just set their space Centre recently for space research and technology.

And because of the inspiring speech, many people stayed in class and asked Karin some questions.

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“Do we need knowledge about the space to be in a part like Spaceport Sweden?”

“No. I think being an astropreneur or entrepreneur is about having the drive of passion about what you do. And it’s about what you ally with. ”

“The most important thing is that being passionate about what you do and to have courage to do it. It’s hard work; if you don’t love what you do, you won’t have the perseverance.”

Done a lot of sports in her life,Karin said that  running a start-up is like running a marathon. You need to practice. You need to get out even though it’s raining. Sometimes you need to race because you have competitors right behind you; but you also need to work together with your competitors because there is a pushing point and you have to support each other.

 

I truly learned many things and be motivated by the speech!

Everything starts with the first little step. So, Don’t be afraid of failure.

Probably our next adventure starts here!

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//Danny Huang     #Dreamgineering

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The Value Mission

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Hey world! Alright, bare with me, long post…my fingers had been itching badly for a good amount of time…This was my only cure 😉

Anyways. Having collected some feedback for my pitch and idea sketch, and gone through the course’s reading list, I feel like if I have immersed myself even more into the world of entrepreneurship. And most importantly, I think I understand what makes a startup successful in the long run: a good, sustainable and solid business model (something I was never too aware of before…)

Having myself done a pitch as well as listened to other very inspirational pitches, I get now that the pitch is really only the first step, which is getting investors. (Money is goooood.) The rest of value must created through a good business plan.

And about the pitch – I learned a few things of what to do and what not to do, and most importantly, how to start your pitch (-with what you should start with). Start with a problem, and state the problem in a way that others can connect and relate to it, even though they might not. Many of the best pitches from Thursday had a story and the story had a problem in it. “One night I did A and B, and I realized that C was missing […] And if I did D, it would solve C!” What was also good about some of the pitches was that they stated the market size, or at least the amount of people experiencing the problem, thus both identiying and quatifying the customer segment.

However, what is easy to forget when telling about your business venture idea is the revenue model. This is probably the one thing that the investors are the most interested about. I never understood this before, but after having some of the course’s articles about business model generation, I finally get that no matter how good or innovative or awesome or glitzy and whatnot your product is, without a good business model or revenue model (i.e. it won’t be profitable), the whole thing is untimately use- and worthless.

The thing is, who doesn’t want to make more money? Creating value for shareholders is all that matters in the universe of good business. That’s what comes after an innovation that makes the world more efficient and changes previous human behaviors. Think of Apple’s iPod and iTunes. Read this article (http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/18/innovation-business-model-leadership-managing-products.html) and you will understand what I am trying to say: Technology improves the world, but the ultimate underlying fuel and driver of the world is after all economic gains. Or does anyone disagree?

To get some post-pitch inspiration (I mean who knows, I might do a REAL pitch one day…) and to prepare myself a little for my third startup event this Monday (The Balderton Pitch Battle), I decided to watch some Dragon’s Den clips.
Here is the chosen one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3jiZXpVBoM

In this video, the pitchers are around my age, with a business idea very typical of college kids. It is therefore quite relatable for me. I also personally feel strongly about CSR. I agree with the lady dragon  that CSR is the future and that the paradigm should now shift towards a world where social responsibility is a necessity and something obvious if we human beings want to sustain ourselves for another century at least. Business Schools should really start teaching these things… Hopefully not just a “fad”.

csr

And to the Business Model importance. The pitchers were mostly asked about the the costs (how much is it gonna cost us to plant a tre for each dollar of sales), the profits and so on, once again proving it to me that hey, here’s a pretty good idea, but it won’t be anything unless we can move forward and spread it and profit from it.

It’s not that the latter is more important than the former, just that, both can’t really survive without the other. A good business model can prevent competitors from eating you alive through for example imitating your idea. A good business model will also make your business strong enough to stand on its feet and spread further. And, just as stated in Osterwalder’s business model canvas, key resources and channels are a key part too: the pitchers’ own tree farm, the lady dragon’s nisched marketing company, relevant ofshore contacts in Hong Kong etc..

Hmm, wonder how profitable this tree-t-shirt business got in the end..

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An entrepreneurial idea straight from the mushroom forest

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The mushroom forest provided todays break from studying. The trip yielded apart from two full baskets an idea.

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The idea is quite simple: To move the classical mushroom guides into your phone as an app. The app would perform the following tasks

  • View mushrooms, very similar to the traditional book
  • Identify mushroom, a tool for identifying an unknown mushroom. Is the mushroom agalic (skivling) or bolete (sopp)?
  • Save your location, the ability to save your location together with the time and mushroom you’ve found.

The mobile format has several advantages to a book:

  • Easier search
  • Possible to update
  • The possibility to provide several alternative pictures of the same object without the cost of printing.
  • No need to bring the book with you to the forest, just your smartphone which most people would bring anyway.

How would be our target customer for this app? I think it is families living in cities with several adults ages 20-50 that owns a country house.

How would we generate revenue? We could make it a paid app but this will probably make many users think twice before downloading. Instead I propose that mushrooms are added to collections which can be brought as an in app purchase (with the basic collection free).

The venture would except for design and programming skills require extensive Mycology knowledge. Knowledge which I do not possess…. And how will create the actual content? To write texts and take good pictures of the 50-200 mushrooms is a daunting task. A partnership seems needed.

How has access to this kind of material? The authors of the classical mushroom guides of course!

How does the classical mushroom guides fit in? I propose that we collaborate with, initially, one author currently writing a new book in the field. We offer him/her to bundle the app along with the book. When a customer buys a book they also get a code unlocking the contents of the book as a collection inside the app. We provide extra value to the book and take a royalty each time a code is used. If the collection is brought inside the app without the book we pay royalties to the author.

The author would not only provide us with content but also provide domain knowledge during development. Once released we could offer other authors to create their own collections.

What about competition? Coming home from the forest I was of course curious to see if this has already been done. A search on Google Play and the appstore reviled one Swedish app with the same basic offering but a simpler business model and not quite as feature rich as I envision.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Svampguiden

What do you think? Is the idea worth further thought? … or is the competition to strong? … or is the market to small?

 

//Sverker

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For all hackers, designers and creatives in Stockholm

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We have recently visited the official start-up event and after party of Nordic.js. Nordic.js is a two-day conference all about Javascript. The aim is to bring the Java community closer together. It’s an event where people get the chance to inspire others and get to be inspired as well. In addition, the conference take place at the beautiful archipelago of Stockholm – idyllic. The after party “Festen – A party for all hackers, designers and creatives in Stockholm” was held at “Trädgården” in Stockholm City. The atmosphere was on top!

However, an interesting and frankly disturbing fact is that out of the 1000 participants of the start-up event, only 6 were women! How can the industry be so unequal in this rather equal society? Is this industry still so unattractive for women?

Anyhow, the after party was really inspiring and exiting and we got to mingle with loads of fascinating entrepreneurs!

/Martin, Sofia, Emma, Katarina and Marina

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Test and funding of Pressy, a kickstarter product

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We have pledged and tested a kickstarter product! Pressy

The product is the one in the picture, you can the the video for a quick understanding of what the product is.

In a few words it is an aditional physical button for smartphone which can be customized to make diferent actions according to the sequence the user press the button.

As you might know in kickstarter you can pledge the idea woth different amount of money (5$ to support, 17$ to have the product…). We chose the 17$ pledge to have the product so we could test it!

This button idea is really interesting and useful. We’ve tested it and we all think it could be useful for everybody who owns an Android phone.  It is really easy to use and customize. In the beginning the sequence that have to be performed to use distinct functionnality is a bit dificult to make but after a few minutes it becomes natural. Of course it is a gadget we don’t need it, but once you have it it is quite pleasant to use.  Many people miss physical butons this one is all buttons in only one.

Pressy is already a year old project anddevelopers still working and negociating with manufacturers to mass produce it. As 28,818 backers we think that the Presy has a great future.

What about you, will you buy it in a few months?

 

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Elevator pitch seminar – Feedback

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Today we had the elevator pitch seminar; it was a great experience with many interesting pitches and ideas.

In real life, opportunities can show up as surprises, and when you least expect it you are required to perform under time pressure and without any aids.  The great learning from this seminar was that you have to know your idea and be proud of it, and you have to be able to explain it in a very simple way.

Even though feedback is not a luxury that we can expect in real life, we believe that it could have been a good idea to have on the seminar. Just some quick words on what was good/bad about the performance and how to improve it. An option would be to let one person in the audience explain why they would not invest in the product.

Did you know: The expression elevator pitch comes from when you meet someone powerful in an elevator and want to make a quick pitch about your idea. The time you have is between the ground floor and his/her’s floor when the stake holder walks out.

 

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Raising angel capital

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Today was the day of Elevator Pitches, and 30 students or so had the chance to present their idea to “potential investors”. Inspiring!

As you all would know, a short pitch format is typical when trying to get first attention from an angel investor- and a small discussion was raised regarding how much to prepare for these 60 seconds. Personally, I would have wished not to trust my freestyle skills as much- you  need to know the timing and use your time well. On the other hand, you should not trust the audience to be as passive and nice to you as they were this time. It is easy to get lost in your script, knowing it too well, when being interrupted by an impatient/ interested investor. A 60 second pitch is good to memorize if recording a video for a start-up contest, aiming for perfection, (see some examples at http://www.svd.se/naringsliv/framtidens-entreprenor/), but in reality- no pitches are the same!

Most of you have probably seen some international version of the Dragons’ Den, which is a reality serie of entrepreneurs pitching their ideas in front of actual investors. If not, I would highly recommend you to benchmark your personal performance of today with the videos to be found on youtube. Would you be ready for follow-up questions? How well do you actually know your business?

During my studies at KTH I have worked for the venture capital firm of one of the Swedish dragons/investors, Mats Gabrielsson (Draknästet). He is being known as a strong capitalist, and his voice echoed in my head during the presentations today “Why don’t you give me a business plan? What are your budget? Forecast? How will the money be realized, and when?”. The most common mistake, I have learned, is too much focus on the actual product or service. The company would surely exist thanks to what you sell, and investors need to be sure it functions as it should, but the greatest interest will most always be on the actual outcome (also in line with the neoclassical economics of maximization). This may be obvious, but is sometimes easy to forget as an entrepreneur- being proud of what you have developed for many years.

However, to get those non-capitalists out there in a better night mode- you can of course get investments playing on other strings than the “Greed inducing” one (inducing expectation of high business success). Here is an example of philanthropy, from the same serie and with Mats as one of the investors. English subtitles, 2 parts. I was actually very lucky meeting this young girl with cerebral palsy, seen in the video, in the office about two years after- walking all by herself thanks to the elektrodess. Happy watching!

And let me know if you have any comments or questions 🙂

// Benjamin Wahlberg

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Amazing Speaking Workshop Tonight

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By accident I attended a workshop meeting tonight held by a meetup group ‘Toastmaster’. I’m still confused what exactly is this group about but did have a great time then. The main purpose is to offer people who want to improve their speaking skills the chance and guidance they need. 10-20 people meet together, each give a short speech on arbitrary topics and evaluate each other’s performance.

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I was like a dog sneaking into cats’ get-together but still enjoyed it a lot. For me it’s not like a speaking training class but more of listening to others’s thoughts and experiences. I could just focus on what they talked about rather than how they performed the speech.

There are 3 speaker tonight to give a short speech.First one is Elena Vernigora, a Swedish lady with a likeness of Princess Kate. Her title is ‘Where Buda and Pest meet…’ , and she talked about her experience of a week in Budapest and around. She was planning to spend one-week holiday in Milan for shopping, but by accident she ran into Budapest, a city not that famous for tourism. But instead of complaining and desperation,she had a great time exploring this mysterious city and fell in love with it. That’s her story where Buda and Pest meet, life is like that, full of surprise for you to find out.

The second speaker is Elena Fadeeva, she talks about water–the BLUE GOLD. She put emphasis on the importance of water and worldwide use of it. She points out that water is the base of agriculture and without water there’s not food, no life at all. So shouldn’t we treat water the same way as gold? I think it’s quite old stuff and well-know fact, so didn’t pay much attention.

The last and most amazing speech is given by the president of Toastmaster, Antoinette Olander. She is a passionate and friendly woman. Her title is ‘What Have We Done?’ She enumerates the historical events happened in her generation( the boomers, as she puts it).15 years from high school graduation, some become entrepreneurs and bosses, some are employers and some are employees, some went to Vietnam and some become widows. Some marched with Martin Luther King and some died with the twin building in NY… but all these just make her stronger and give her tools to make it in this world: respect to others, self-discipline and not to be judgmental. In the end, she quoted the lyrics of the famous song ‘Forever Young’ to end the speech and we all felt passionate and confident.

Here is what I want to share with you 🙂

 

May God bless and keep you always 
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others 
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars 
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young 
May you stay forever young.May you grow up to be righteous 
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth 
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous 
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young 
May you stay forever young.

May your hands always be busy 
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation 
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful 
And may your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young 
May you stay forever young.

 

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Key partnerships and dependencies – how do you know if it is a trap or not?

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We came across an interesting subject the other day in class; the importance of partnerships when forming a business model vs. not being dependent on one single actor.

The issue presented and that has been vividly studied in media is the massive enterprise Amazon that has disrupted the sales of book sales for firms like Barnes & Noble. This has been an enormous opportunity for smaller writers to put their product in stock on the shelf of the e-commerce giant. What has happened now is that these writers are dependent on Amazon in order to sell their products; the huge retailer has a very strong bargaining power and can easily drop prices to directly compete with the smaller writers – loosing a couple of hundred thousand dollar won’t matter much if you are the biggest player.

This is a position that you do not want to find yourself and your business in. So in order to reduce the risk of dependency, is it enough to just increase the number of partnerships?

Another interesting, and very contemporary, subject is the music distribution industry. Spotify, one of the largest actors in the industry has somewhat reincarnated the idea of music distribution – but it has been around for several decades. Despite the, excuse my objectivity, louse pay-checks that has been paid out to record labels and musicians, somehow Spotify has lured big players in the music industry and millions of active users have followed their value proposition.

Now, I have had a couple of friends that have worked for Spotify here in Sweden. When asked about the future and their business model the response is this:

‘There will be a dominant player in the music distribution industry within the next 5 years. The focus of Spotify is not profitability, but “users, users, users”. Spotify must come out on top and then we can make money.’

It will be interesting to see how the dynamics between Spotify and the labels/musicians will develop, but it seems like they will be dependent on one large actor in the end and that their music won’t get a long reach without that actor. According to the history and how other markets have developed (read the book industry, mentioned above), then this is a bad sign for the musicians. Just as the consumers brought this down upon the book-wholesalers, so it will be brought down on the musicians.

I would like to discuss how musicians could work against the dominant player and, in the end, save their industry. Any thoughts anyone? 🙂

BR Ludwig Widén

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Canvas example

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Hi everyone!

Talking about business model canvas I would like to share with you a work done by me and my friends in Italy this year.
We had to write a business plan for a Californian startup (with Italian origins): this firm wanted to launch in europe (our investigation regards only Italy) a diet product already approved by FDA in  U.S.A.
The first step was indeed to draw a first version of the business model canvas.

Canvas version 1

At the beginning we didn’t have so much knowledge  about the product (it was not an our idea…), so it was difficult to undestand the possible value proposition and the other parts.

After few weeks and some researches we change the canvas

Canvas version 2

We change the customer segments: the previous two segments (Middle age and Health conscious people) became only one single segment, and a new one was added (customer with age & weight diseases).

The changes occured also in other parts in the third version of the canvas.

Canvas version 3

Pay attention only to the channel part, you can notice that we added pharmacy like a possible channel, that’s because our research showed us that in Italy similar products use this channel.

The final version went under a deep change!
Our interviews pointed out that in Italy the people trust only in dieticians advices, if a physician say them that they have to purchase a certain product they will buy, and through the pharmacy.
So also our customer segment completely changed.

Canvas version 4

You can notice other changes, but my example want only to show you how many changes in the canvas occur during the time,especially in the important areas; and this was only a student work in 6 months.

Thanks, I hope that you like this simple example!

P.S. I’m sorry for the small pictures 🙁

 

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