Daily Archives: October 14, 2015

Most of the time when startups are making any product they often focus on doing something new, something innovative. And that is for sure a good thing. But if we just take a step back and analyse the successful companies and what they have done, maby we can use their experience.

Apple, big company. Very popular. Not the best phones, but still making the biggest profit of their cellphones compared to their competitors. There are many reasons why apple have succeeded, but the most important thing they have put a lot of focus on accordingly to me, is that they have created an unnecessary need.

The need of having an iPhone. Totally unnecessary. But still they have put a lot of effort to make it feel like a need for you. They don’t just try to make the best cellphones in the world, they even don’t try to make it the most innovative phone either. Its 2015 and the iPhone is not even waterproof. But they put a lot of energy to make it feel like a need for you, which actually is totally unnecessary.

Right now they have released their apple watch. Very basic watch. If you use it all the time, the battery will die after 4 hours.  Still, people are buying it like smart watches never have been bought before. Because when you have your entire life in your iPhone, many people feel like they need the apple watch for making life easier. Still, totally unnecessary.

That strategy, is something every startup should think about at times. When people feel like they need something, even if its not necessary, they will be a loyal to that product/service. The tricky part is how to make them feel that need.

Two days until the exam, and I’m still a bit confused on what material we should emphasis on while studying. I know Serdar has said we should answer the question handed out a couple of weeks ago and focus on the guest lectures. But as you all know there are only a few guest-lecture-slides up online. Does anyone have any good notes from the guest lectures or any other tips on what to study on? And did anyone take any notes during the class-discussions?

Hi everyone,

Last night Stockholm tech had a meetup with top investors from Dubai, Istanbul and China. They also discussed how Sthlmtech can challenge themselves to come up with innovative solutions to the refugee crisis. There was both open discussions and startup pitches for new ideas on the subject.

I think this is a top initiative of huge importance. I wrote a post earlier on social entrepreneurship and when talking about initiatives to support social problems in the society this is a great one.

I did some research to see what innovations that has been made to support this kind of crisis. Also saw that Fredrik wrote a post on the refugee problem with employment so this can follow up on that discussion. I found this startup who does what Sophie purposed on the elevator pitch but in Switzerland. They connect refugees with employers in the country. Here’s the link: http://capacityzurich.ch/

I also found two other cool initiatives I would like to share.

Three Netherlands-based entrepreneurs have set up an “Airbnb for refugees.”
Link: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/berlin-group-behind-airbnb-for-refugees-overwhelmed-by-offers-of-help

This got me thinking of the opportunity of turning successful concepts into entrepreneurial initiatives to solve social problems. One example that can be related to this is LinkedIn but other forums like facebook, Snapshat, Twitter, uber etc. could possibly be used to support the crisis by creating awareness and supporting refugees to channels of help.

The third example I want to lift is this. Lots of people also gathers to create a startup boat.
Link to an article about it: http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/14/european-entrepreneurs-launch-startupboat-to-address-refugee-crisis/
Link to the startup’s webpage: http://startupboat.eu/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/14/european-entrepreneurs-launch-startupboat-to-address-refugee-crisis/

Do you know any other startups or projects to support?

Great to see you all there yesterday! Tickets and info was found through this link:  http://www.industrifonden.se/aid

/Linda

In my previous post I wrote about refugees are in dire need of a platform to connect them with employment. What I was saying indirectly was that LinkedIn is not the suitable platform for such solution. Here is another interesting perspective.

LinkedIn’s key offering to its customers is a way of professionally presenting yourself to a professional network. Problem? Limiting factor? Right, the word professional. LinkedIn is extremely suitable for people following a career path pre-defined by big companies. It truly is excellent at condensing experiences and competences into a presentable profile. However where this somewhat has some flaws is for people who aren’t so corporate and career path driven. One main category that falls under this are entrepreneurs. This hit me, and I googled “Top social networks for entrepreneurs” just to see if I was right. And I was. Check out the link.

http://mashable.com/2009/03/12/entrepreneur-networks/#RWT._TrTCaqG

 

LinkedIn is number 4 on the list. Sure 4 is good. However the way that LinkedIn is being used, according to the list, is through groups and LinkedIn Answers. Neither are key functionality in LinkedIn’s concept.

 

To summarise. LinkedIn certainly attract the larger market and do it very well. However in the case of entrepreneurs and temporary workers (refugees), they have failed to capture these niche markets.

Thoughts?