Today  (Tuesday 3/10) I went, together with Cecilia, to an inspiration event for female entrepreneurs. First it was a mingle to meet new people and possible new partners for your startup (and also really good sandwiches and wine!) . After the mingle there were three inspirational, successful women talking about their career and what they are doing now. These were:

Anna Lagerborg, CTO, Hemnet
Johanna Wollert Mellin, Founder Trice Imaging
Helene Barnekow, CEO, Telia

The event was really fun, with a good atmosphere and a lot of power women to be inspired of. I could really recommend joining #FemTech that is a side business at #Sup46, to get inspiration to your idea or maybe joining a startup that you believe in!

When doing the marketplace simulation, one of the hardest things for me has been to estimate how many units that will be sold. This is a very cruicial part in the management of a company and something that I have not considered becoming a challenge before.

When I started with the simulation, me and my group felt that it was a good idea to to be careful with the production. The problem was that the projected demand was very off and therefore we missed alot of sales. The next quarter we got the brilliant idea to produce alot more than we expected to sell. This seemed to be a fail as well because the sales were not that good but the production cost became very high. Therefore we felt like it was a good idea to make a large inventory of overproduced products. Even this was a fail due to that when developing the product to a newer version, the old one laying on the shelves became old electronics that was hard to sell.

I have read alot of different articles about how to forecast the sales and have found out that there is no easy way to predict the demand of your product! The main thing that most of the articles pointed out was to make use of all histoirical data of your sales. You need to use your own experience and be prepared to change the forecast continuously, because it will be almost impossible to do accurate predictions!

Simon

I just wanted to share an article with you. You can access it here: How to be Startup CEO.

The author, Ryan Allis, started his own company at the age of 18 in 2003 and it is still running. The thing about the article, which kept me reading was, that he just wrote about everything he experienced. From how the internal equity split looks like over holding a board meeting to what to do in which quarter of your first year in business. Also admitting that you should always hire people which are better than you made him a very likable person. While reading you really feel that it is possible to build up your own venture. Tough, but possible.

Just take some time when you want to read it, because it is a pretty long article 😉

I have found this article (“Tai Lopez Shares 7 Steps to Launch a Business With No Money or Experience”) very interesting. First because I think almost everyone (if not everyone) taking this course is in a moment where money and experience are not abundant. You can get some tips that, as a potential entrepreneur you should remember before starting a new venture. I am also glad to see that many of the ideas match with what we have heard throughout these weeks of course. By the end of the article you can also find a link to Tai Lopez’s personal website where he shares a video about how to start a business in one to eight weeks and many posts and tips for entrepreneurs.

From the article I have mentioned, I would highlight the first step – “Find an idea that works for you” – as I have not found yet an idea that works for me. We all have heard this tip: “Do what you love and you will succeed”. As I do not agree completely with that statement, I like how the article explains the difference between hobbies and a business. It is true that you must like your job -it is necessary but not enough- if you want to succeed you need to focus on what you are good at and build the business around your strengths. It is also true that you can find a partner that is good at what you love, that way he could collaborate with the skills and you could put the passion. I strongly recommend you read the article and take a look at Tai’s personal website. Moreover, you can find a great variety of entrepreneurial articles in the website I found the article mentioned.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/298645

Estanis

Monday the 25th of September Josefien and I attended the start-up event: GDPR & Software Quality. So what is GDPR? And what is the link with start-ups?

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation and is designed by the European Commission in 2016. GDPR aims to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe, protect and empower all EU citizens data privacy and it reshapes the way about how companies use and approach personal data. The GDPR replaces the old Data Protection Directive out of 1995. The GDPR enters into force in May 2018. By then all companies, which process or use data from European citizens for their business should comply to this rule.
So it is about the protection of personal data, what actually is personal data? To name some examples: photos, email addresses, bank details, computer IP addresses, etc… All in all, data that can directly or indirectly identify a person.

Nowadays we live in a world where data becomes more and more important. More and more companies rely on the use of data for their businesses. It is easy to understand that the GDPR rule has a dramatic impact on the business world today. All companies need to adapt to make sure that they comply with the GDPR rule. For example, personal data such as a phone number, cannot be transferred from one company to another without informing the owner. Have you ever wondered how recruiting bureau’s get to know your phone number?

So, this brings me to start-ups. A lot of start-ups, especially technical start-ups which use big data for their business, need to know what is allowed within the GDPR rule. On the one hand, when start-ups know what they can do within this new piece of legislation it can give them a competitive advantage among others. On the other hand, due to this GDPR rule new niche businesses emerge. Start-ups can use this niche to specialize in data protection and provide advice to clients.

I learned that the use of data under the GDPR rule will change. Remarkably their is not much media attention for this topic, but I expect that this will increase as soon as the deadline of May 2018 is coming closer. The majority of companies is simply not ready for the GDPR rule. So start-ups that specialize in data protection should use this opportunity to provide consultancy to boost their business.

Thank for reading,

Menno

I got inspired by a friend to try out Matsmart and I really like it! It feels good to buy groceries that otherwise would be considered as waste. Their idea is to buy products from producers that normally would have been thrown out due to some minor error, for example that the expiry date is short.

It is really easy to buy from matsmart, you just go into their webpage and click on whatever you want to buy. When you then go to pay you can see how much you have saved compared to if you had bought it in a normal store.

I definitely recomend others to try out Matsmart!