Author Archives: Danny Huang

Diversity is the key.

At the first class on 1/9 Serdar tell me this thought when I was about to form a team with some friends from Asia. Then I join Dreamgineering which is the best group in the class! Our group members are from five different countries: Sweden, Spain, Taiwan, United State and Germany. It’s great to work and discuss with them, and I learned a lot from each of them. Because of the different background, we can always come up with something interesting and creative by brainstorming.

You are not selling. You want them to buy!

It’s important to find a pain, especially the pain, discomfort, or dissatisfaction that you have, and solve it. Not to think about “selling, selling, selling” all day. So don’t focus too much on how to make money and focus instead more on solving their needs and pains.

Networking!

We can’t put too much emphasis on the importance of networking. Personal social network is very valuable to people, especially for entrepreneurs. Sometimes it can do things that money can’t. More, it’s skillful to help others get connection, just like last time what Serdar did to let two acquaintances get connected in the Fika. I thinks it’s goof that this course encourage us to meet other people.

The world is big, go explore!

We were encouraged to attend startup activities in Stockholm For these few months, I have been to 4 activities :

1. ”Entrepreneurship on Campus” held by Stockholm Innovation & Growth (STING)

2. Cultue Festival about startup in Vaxholm – NyföretagarCentrum.

3. Stockholm Startup Weekend Bootcamp

4. Entrepreneur Creation in Royal Coin Cabinet

I met different awesome people, learn to brand new thoughts and listen to many different stories. I didn’t notice that the world is such a big and interesting full with amazing people and beautiful things.

And the last thing I want to mention is that the student-teacher interactions in Sweden is very friendly. That really surprises me. As an international student from Taiwan, I know it’s not easy for students and teacher to have such intimate and good interactions. But in this course, we have a teacher who ask us to have coffee or lunch together, answer our questions patiently after and during class, and voluntarily offer time four discussion. Thank you Serdar, a friend-like teacher!

// Danny Huang

 

#Dreamgineering – we make dreams come true.

Subtraction is one of the four approaches to product ideas. But after listing the essential elements of the product, it’s not so easy to find out which elements should be removed to make a good product.

How about removing almost every key elements of the product?Here comes NoPhone!

It’s common to see friends or family sitting in a fancy restaurant waiting for dinner to be served, but they barely talk to each other. They are too busy swiping their smartphones and sending messages to people in their social network.

Nowadays, many people are addicted to their smartphones and will be very insecure without seeing them; some even have “Nomophobia ” which means they will be in great fear of being out of mobile phone contact. Therefore, probably a non-phone can cure people for their addiction of smartphone and force them to stay connected with the real world.

 

Here are some interesting testimonials on the website that Serdar showed us today:(https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nophone-usa/nophone-0)

“I used to sleep with my phone in my hand, but my night terrors would cause me to hurl it across the room in an unconscious panic. With the NoPhone, I can still enjoy the comfort of holding a phone in my sleep, without waking up to a shattered screen. Thanks, NoPhone.” -David H 

“With the NoPhone, my eye contact skills have improved 73%.” -Whitney R 

“Because of the NoPhone, I haven’t drunk texted my ex boyfriend in one whole week.” -Craig G

 

This phone has no basic phone functions, no camera, no Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connectivity and so on. You don’t need to upgrade it from time to time, and it won’t break your heart when you accidently drop it on the floor. However, it encourages people to pay more attention on their direct environment and forces people to socialize with others. So, it actually has some surprising functions.

Subtraction is one good way for idea generation. But who will come up with the bold move of removing all the key elements to make a useful product?

Think outside the box, imagining the wildest thing. Sometimes you may come up with great ideas!

//Danny Huang     #Dreamgineering

 

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.

“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!

 

//Danny Huang     #Dreamgineering