Monthly Archives: September 2015

@Michiel posted a text before about Scrive on the subject short versus long term ideas. His main question was if you should launch a short term idea even though it eventually loses it’s customers. I agree with Michiel and would like share my thoughts to bring the discussion further.

I enjoyed the post and it got me thinking of short-term solutions myself. First of all, in some way, aren’t all business solutions somewhat temporary? The market isn’t constant and we live in a changing business environment. When thinking of it more closely, I couldn’t think of any company who haven’t changed their product even a bit. Telephone companies catches up with technical progress, service companies as taxi-drivers like uber update their offer to match the need of their customers. So, is there really a permanent offer and business idea? What do you think?

My second thought was how this affected the example with Scrive. Even though a customer solution might me temporary, they can still make it a successful business. The problem is probably more about the strategy of the startup since the investment costs and the development time has to be minimized for the company to be profitable even in the short run.

And the last thought about the question “should they still launch their idea?”. There’s other aspects to it when starting a business based on a short term solution. If you create an agile company with the possibility of changing their product, they can get long term use out of their short term business idea. First of all, they can build up an installed base of users that represent a customer network that can be used for future business. They can also build up structure capital that can be utilized when changing their business.

What’s your thoughts on this? Can you come up with a company that hasn’t changed their product/service at all?

Yesterday the Global Innovation Index for 2015 was published. This ranking shows that Sweden is one of the top countries regarding innovation which is always nice to hear. You can read more about this in the link below and there are also som nice graphics in the article.

http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2015/article_0010.html

In Sweden we recently had an increase of the general payroll tax for adolescences, with the main reason to stimulate unemployment rates. As an example, employers earlier were obliged a payroll tax of 15,49% if employees were  born later than 1990, this number today is corresponding to 25,46% – a rise in over 60%.

My question/thought is regarding how this is affects the Swedish startup-climate. Can we consider this an advantage, in terms of seeing a rise in new startups due to fewer employers hiring youngsters- forcing them to try business on their own? Or is this negative –  in the aspect that it’s becoming more expensive for employers to hire.  I’ve been involved with a few smaller organizations that was solely employing people under the age of 26. This I think, not based on any statistics, is the case of a lot of younger employers. Thoughts?

//Isac

Stutterheim is a Swedish non-tech start-up that I have been following for the last couple of years. For around 5 years ago Alexander Stutterheim started the company were the idea was to make high quality raincoats with inspiration from his grandfathers’ old raincoat that he had found in the attic. I have been fascinated with the product since the beginning and I actually have a coat my own.

https://stutterheim.com/se/

This is no billion-dollar company but it has had an amazing growth and has become recognized all over the world for its product design and high quality products. Alexander Stutterheim started out selling from his own apartment investing everything he owned and even pawning his apartment to get his dream started. And now, in 2015, Stutterheim has an expected total turnover of 55 M$.

If you are interested to read more about this Swedish fashion brand you can read an article about the company and their branding strategy in the link below:

http://www.fastcocreate.com/3045685/behind-the-brand/how-a-swedish-rainwear-brand-turned-melancholy-into-a-marketing-masterstrok

I would really recommend you all to take a look at this TED-talk. After going through some TED-talks regarding entrepreneurship this is the one I want to highlight because it is relevant in an early phase of a start up when a business model is crafted.

Bill Gross states his first hypothesis that five specific parameters affect the success of startups more than others. He therefore decided to look into them by studying data from hundreds of companies. The parameters he studied was

• Ideas
• Team
• Business model
• Funding
• Timing

The result of his study shows that timing was the number one most important factor for success.

The number one thing was timing. Timing accounted for 42 percent of the difference between success and failure. Team and execution came in second, and the idea, the differentiability of the idea, the uniqueness of the idea, that actually came in third.

Gross means that if this can increase the ratio of success for new companies, it can make the world a better place. I wouldn’t take it that far, but hopefully this can affect the way we treat market timing when marketing our ideas.

What came to my mind was how to find the perfect market timing if that really mathers. After spending time thinking about this and doing some research, I can break down my first thoughts on what aspects to investigate further

1. How to prioritize timing? If timing is vital, maybe a market entry is preferable even if the business model isn’t finished or the funding isn’t in place.
2. When to entry? The final decision on when the timing is right. What factors do you look at to know when to entry? Is it a specific time of the year, level of inflation, good offers on delivery or supply etc.
3.  Investigation of timing options? Observe the market in real time to know when the market is ready.

I’ll be glad to hear your thoughts on the subject!

See related links below.

Read More →

We have talked a lot about small and medium sized entrepreneurs. Here is a very interesting article about the big ones. The article depicts the story of Jack Ma, Elon Musk amongst others on their road to success.

https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/09/how-do-leading-entrepreneurs-spot-opportunities/?utm_content=bufferf48d0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

It is interesting to see their path as it is quite a bit longer than smaller and medium sized entrepreneurs.

There was actually so much to write about in the weekend that I ended up writing about nothing.

As a Tech person who’ve previously underestimated the importance of marketing, I’m not repeating same mistake.

A poster we put up in a high-school along with a happy student

So www.StudiePortalen.nu is a site where college students helps high-school students by simply sharing their experience of their study and college.
If contributing with your experiences/thoughts of your study is something for you, hit me up!

Also started an online profile for future online marketing.
https://twitter.com/fragaenstudent
(Facebook coming soon)

—

And for the virtual network project:

I put a lot of these in the computer departments of the E- and D-house  yesterday. I got an answer today and interviewed rightaway. The programmer hunt seems to be under control.

HERE’S WHAT I HAVE TO PREPARE FOR THE MEETING WITH KTH INNOVATION:
Need- What are the problem(s) and important needs you are solving. Who is your customer? What do you know about the market?

Approach- What do you offer? (Tech / solution, business idea)

Benefits- Whats the benefit for your customer with your offer/solution?

Competition- Which are your competitors/alternatives? What makes your offer unique comparing to those?

So to follow up on what I previously posted

Step 1: Tell the world

Step 2: Think out you N-ABC

Next steps coming soon

Hey everyone,

In the lecture we talked about the lean startup concept. I wanted to know some more about this concept so I searched a little bit on the internet. Then I found this book which describes it really good and the author is seen as one of the developers of this method for developing business. The book is called, ‘The Lean Startup’ and is written by Eric Ries.

In his book he divides the process in to three major parts:

1. Vision
2. Steer
3. Accelarate

In the Vision part Eric Ries defines what in his opion is an entrepreneur and what a start-up is. He also describes the validated learning process and why scientific experimentation is important for that process.

In the Steer part the Lean Startup method is described in detail. He talkes about the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop, how to build a a minimum viable product to test, a new accounting system to mesure your progress and a method to decide whether to pivot or preserve.

The last part, Accelarate, describes techniques how Lean start-ups can speed through the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop.

I haven’t read the whole book myself jet, but I would definitely recommend this book to everyone which wants to know more about Lean-Startups.

Regards,

Tim Buzink