Enthusiasm

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Entrepreneurship fascinates me. Not specifically because I have certain entrepreneurial ambitions. I have the feeling that I am better fitted for the position of “second man”, I’m not prone taking too many risks and I’ve never really felt the urge to start my own business. But I enjoy reading everything that has to do with the subject and I am very interested in the process of starting up a company.

One of the aspects that attracts me to entrepreneurship is the overwhelming enthusiasm that every entrepreneur seems to possess. As I do with all interests I normally have, I started googling. I started with search topics such as entrepreneurship enthusiasm, enthusiastic entrepreneurs and so on. Among the results were a lot of a lot of blogs, sites and even scientific proof that enthusiasm is a necessary ingredient for entrepreneurs. Sites about how you can share it with your team, your investors and even how you can make sure it lasts as long as possible.

Interestingly, besides those kind of positive articles, I also found a lot of sites stating that enthusiasm is a pitfall for start-ups and entrepreneurs. There is even a syndrome named after it: Enthusiasticus Founder syndrome. For me personally I don’t think the syndrome is an issue, therefore I will focus here on the positive side. I just looked up the definition of it to see whether I didn’t know what enthusiasm is or that I had the wrong picture of entrepreneurship. The Cambridge dictionary told me this:

Enthusiasm
Noun /ɪnˈθjuː.zi.æz.əm/
A feeling of energetic interest in a particular subject or activity and an eagerness to be involved in it.

If we take into account this explanation you would definitely agree that I describe the people at STHLM TECH FEST as enthusiastic. The people pitching on stage were of course very enthusiastic about their own idea. Standing in front of a big audience and a panel of important and influential people from well established companies. But especially the companies at the fair I found ultimately enthusiastic. Most of them were so fond of the idea that they conceived and so willing to share it with the crowd that they really tried to draw their attention. It was almost un-Swedish how they took the initiative to make contact with people who passed by. As a new student in town it felt really welcoming and very inspiring to see what’s going on in Stockholm.

I hope to see you all tomorrow for another enthusiastic (and very early) lecture entrepreneurship!

Michiel

If you are interested here is some more on the syndrome:
http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/20/startups-how-to-avoid-death-by-enthusiasm/

My idea for business

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Help Older People

My idea is to create a laundry network in Poland which help elderly person. After 60’s many of us can’t do some actions. One of this actions is doing laundry. We can help them one way. Human arrive to house of elderly person a take dirty clothes and provide clean. This business don’t need large capital on the beginning. Society will get older in Poland and this a path in developing this idea.

Celebrate the wins

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In tough competition and a 24/7 world it is easy to set your focus on the next task at hand and forget what has been achieved. So here I give you three good reasons to make a pause and celebrate the win!

  1. Everybody wants to work for winners – To highlight the wins will make the company/startup feel more successful and forces the team to focus on the positive instead of the negative.
  2. Give time to reflect about the vision – It is easy to forget why a goal was important in the first place. When people remember why the work they do will help grow the business, it inspires them to work harder.
  3. Breaks the everyday routine – Even brief celebration breaks the monotone workday and gives the team renewed, positive energy. It also improves relationships within the team.

 

/Erica

Get to know your customers!

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Hi all,

When I went back home from our last Entrepreneurship lecture on Tuesday, I bump into an advertisement in the metro showing a picture of ‘random guys’ (i.e. not model- bodies guys lol) wearing branded underwear. The motto was ” the underwear for PERFECT men”.

 

It first made me smile a bit but after thinking about it, it is actually quite a smart marketing strategy! People can identify themselves to those ‘normal guys’ and do not feel ashamed not to have a “perfect body” in the meaning that we all have in mind according to today’s society dictates (beach body/skinny/muscled)

To link it to our lectures, I would say that getting to know who you are addressing your advert i.e. who is your customer is a key step in the marketing strategy of a company!

IMG_4571

image1

 

An other company who has tried to follow the same trend marketing wise is Dove with their whole campaign putting forward everyday women. They have put a video as well showing how make-up and softwares like Photoshop could massively change the image given in the spot!

dove-skin-firming-range-bigger-bums-small-36914

Big Data in five years?

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Last week we were asked to discuss where some of todays technologies are going to be in five years. My group and I were given “Big Data” as subject.

What we came up with was that in five years, Big Data is likely to have increased to an even larger amount than what we have today.  This would probably lead to a greater need of storage systems, thus new research concerning this. It could also imply new job opportunities as well as new user platforms. What was discussed was that in health care, where Big Data is used more and more, it could lead to better tracking of patient, doctors and diseases. However, an increase in Big Data, and the use of it, will most probably come with some or several problems, especially concerning personal data.

The task however, was not to give the right answer to where Big Data will be in five years (who could really?), but it was to guess and anticipate. If you are an entrepreneur, this is one of the basics to have a chance to success. To have an idea of what the market will look like in five years, and to base your product (or idea o product) on this, is what can make you competitive.

Bigdata

Networkr – How big should you think?

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You want to hear a secret?
Last week, KTH innovation sent me a ticket to Stockholm Tech fest.
What they didn’t know was that they accidentally also sent me a ticket to the super-VIP hangout BEFORE the Tech fest.
(I’m not talking about the VIP dinner, but the VIP hangout that took place before that!)

I wasn’t even aware of it myself, even though they’d ask me
– Are you a speaker or an investor?
– (Me:) umm, I’m just a student…

—

Being in a room with only investors felt kind of alienating, but at the same time, of course I felt like I should take advantage of the situation. I didn’t know how, but I just made sure to talk as much as I could.

The last conversation of the day happened to be with a student of Handelshögskolan who started J12Ventures, a company that invests in Startups. He told me

“I’ve had so many ideas the last 6 months, and all I’ve been wanting to do is to network with KTH (technical-) students. But I’m isolated at handels and there isn’t really an event
between KTH and Handels…”

Having trained my ear to listen to “pains”, of course I saved that sentence in my brain-RAM as we continued the conversation. I later thought of arranging an event between Handels and KTH. Then I applied the concept of always “thinking bigger” as Micael told us at his talk.
Should we really be limited by events in our possibilities to network?
Why not make an app where you combine LinkedIn with WhatsApp?

I call it Virtual Networking…

The main concept being that you can “Create a room” (representing an event), and in there you can chat everyone else in the room. You can also see every other conversation in the room, and jump into conversations. You can of course chose to chat privately, Skype and exchange contact information (kind of like you exchange business card).

I went on to pitch the idea to a friend who works at STING (the best Startup incubator in Sweden if I remember correctly), who thought it was an interesting idea and supported it.

—

Michael (our last speaker) told us to “Think big”. Well, I already know that, right? I originally learned it from Tai Lopez, a wealth mentor. That’s why I want to make an app instead of an event…

But why not take a step further and make the app not just for business networking, but for everything. Like reddit! The difference being that Networkr is in real-time and more
interactive.

So what do you think. Should I go with niched or not?

Remember: “If you try to satisfy everyone, you won’t make anyone happy” – Serdar Temiz
PS. Can I use Networkr as my idea for the cource?

Me <3 The startup world

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I guess everything started when I came to KTH, only to discover that innovation is possible, and people like you are doing it!…

I’ve lived in the suburbs of Stockholm my whole life. And not the good kind. The kind where drug dealing is common and theft/shooting happens every once in a while.
But I was a good boy. I was smart they said. I got good grades and my future would be bright.

That was the view of everyone except my Father. Not because of something personal to me, but because he was not a (business-)optimist. So I grew up thinking that it is
hard for everybody except the wealthy 1 % who controlles everything. I would become a doctor, get a job/house/kids and that would be the best I could do.

Then I started at KTH and I couldn’t help but to get fascinated by the innovation that is done by “regular people” and youths. People just like you and me! Being exposed to talks and events at school, I felt that the more experienced were very encouraging. I guess I was so fascinated because I had so low  expectations.

I happily dwelved into the startup world by going to events where I found out that it is a rather small community, and everyone knows each other. Even though I was busy with studies and web design, I took the position of being a Brand ambassador for two startups. I am now the Brand ambassador at KTH for Venture Cup.

The whole time has been like a 1-year-journey in a flow state. Novelty, new challenges to overcome & room for personal development are always found in the  Startup world!

Next year, I am the project manager of Entrepreneurial Days here at KTH which you are invited to. But even earlier than that

Join me at SUP46 today
https://www.facebook.com/events/581650585306870/
(I was planning to post sooner but I was busy recruiting)

PS. You must know about Venture Cup! Far too many students have an idea but think that they are too young/inexperienced/incompetent to execute. That is most likely not the case.

Venture Cup is Swedens biggest competition for ideas and Startups where you can win 260 000 SEK. Talk to me if you have an idea, there’s tons of free support to get 🙂

My experience with Ecommerce

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Micael Widell made sure that everyone brought something home from his arsenal of experiences.
For me was the pointer that

“> 50% of your funding should go to marketing”

I’ve actually built an ecommerce myself. www.inEar.nu
I did it last summer, and a big component why was to learn to make websites. I was mind-boggled by the amount of people who are self-learned web-designers. The programmer at one of the Startups I was an intern for said that he sold his first website before being able to make websites, later going home and learning to do it. Indeed even Daniel Ek (founder of Spotify) did the same thing as he reported at the interview at Tech fest.

However the main purpose of making the site was of course to make a profit. But I wouldn’t regret making it if it didn’t. The outcome?
When I had the cheapest prices on the market, I usually got around 3 orders per day. I did this even though profits where non-existent to create an awareness of the brand. When I later increased the prices, I got nearly zero visitors.

inear Statistiv

Everything Micael said made sense to me and just hammered home the belief structure I’ve gotten through the experience! An ecommerce is a place where you want real
people to spend their real money. You can’t expect them to do so without good branding and marketing.

—

Over the past year, a big reason of being an incomplete online-entreprenour was the lack of knowledge regarding the importance of marketing.

inEar.nu was one example, I have another example (which I’ll share later perhaps). Now I won’t make the same mistake with
Studieportalen.nu and StartupJournals.eu ! (not yet launched)

—

Something I remember from a recent seminar by JT Foxx (Worlds #1 wealth coach) on branding.

“Prada can buy a bag for 50 dollars, put their name on it and sell it for 5 000 dollars.
Would that work if you write your name on it instead? Most probably not.
Why? Because of branding!”

And not even a great product saves you the effort of marketing/branding! E.g Elon Musk gave 20 $ to the first users of Paypal. Up to an amount of some billions! (If I remember
correctly)

So always expect to put a lot of effort in marketing and branding and make place for it in your budget!