Monthly Archives: October 2016

Yesterday I went to an event called FemTech hosted by SUP46. It was an event created by women for women. During the evening we got to hear the stories of some successful women in tech:
– Frida Emilsson, Co-founder & CMO at Worldfavor
– Victoria Bastide, CTO at Lifesum
– Jane Walerud, Founder & Investor at Walerud Ventures. (Jane is a Business Angle, some of the companies she has helped become successful are Klarna, Tobii, Lensway)

These three women told us about their journey within the tech startup world. We also got to listen to 3 startup pitches by: SEVN, Simply Events and BlueCall.

I really appreciated the event. It was great to mingle with women only and to hear the stories of three successful women in tech. One interesting thing that I reflected about was when the panel discussed if they had ever experienced difficulties in the industry because of their sex and while Frida Emilsson and Victoria Bastide had not face any challenges in terms of equality Jane Walerud had. She told us about when she was younger and she had been offered a lot of short cuts to the top by older men and what they wanted in return was often sexual services. I think that Jane was the only one to experience this because she is a bit older than the other ladies in the panel and that men back in the days were less feminist than today. It makes me really glad that the other two women (Frida & Victoria) have never been faced with any kind of issue concerning sex equality, maybe it means that the younger generation of men are becoming more and more feminist compared to the older generation of men.

It was truly amazing to see so many women on the event (I think we were at least 150 women there), knowing that they are all interested in tech and startups. I hope to see many more women in the tech industry in the future and I hope to be one of them!

Picture: Jane Walerud (Business Angle) talking about why Sweden is a good place to be an entrepreneur: there is much to gain and not much to loose (your childrens education is free, pension you’ll get anyhow, healthcare is free etc).

Today I finally met Lana (I hope it’s the right spellingJ) and she is very nice. Safia and I volunteered to help in an event we were going to: FemTech event.

We wanted to see how the events were planned at SUP46 since there were a lot of them recently. So we helped fixing food and with the registration. In fact, 170 people signed for this event and we had to check if they were registered to ensure them a sitting position.

What was this event about?

During the FemTech event we had the pleasure to hear 3 women working in tech with different backgrounds. Having different backgrounds gave us different perspectives of working in the tech business. In the panel we had:

• Frida Emillson, Co-founder and CMO at worflavor
• Victoria Bastide, CTO at Lifesum
• Jane Walerud, Founder & Investor at Warelud Ventures.

In this event there were also engineers, start ups and students and it was a great opportunity to exchange with them about what they are doing, how they got there…

I like these kinds of event were you can go and talk with everyone. Usually you don’t have to go and talk to people; they came to to you and talk.

The particularity of the Femtech event is that there were just womens –except 2 boys :P-. Two women were talking to me and they told me that they were glad to be only between women because sometimes in mixed event men are sometimes unprofessional…I think it’s because they are pretty and when you look at them you don’t want to talk about “work” (joke :P).

It’s not the last event at SUP46, so if you never went there, go there J I am sure you will like it.

As this course has (almost) come to an end, I feel like it’s time for me to look backwards and come up with a kind of “best of” of what I’ll be remembering from it, what it taught me, what I liked about it, what I disliked… A sort of personnal feedback about this Entrepreneurship course.

Like I’ve said in some of my previous blogposts, I wasn’t exactly thrilled by what I discovered about this course during the very first lecture. Back then, I remember thinking that it was not what I expected at all, that I would probably not gain anything from this course, that I didn’t have the right state of mind, in short, that I didn’t belong this class. Needless to say that when I learnt that I was going to sell coffee on the street (?!) almost alone, and that Nicolo and I were going to have to deal with a 6 person sized work, just the two of us for six weeks, it didn’t really get better!

However, I must admit that this course actually turned out to be something a bit different from the terrible picture I had in mind, and that’s because of three main points that I would like to highlight.

First, the simulation game. Like I said in one of my previous posts, I’ve been pretty surprised by the overall quality, interest, and, above all, usefulness of this serious game. I was worried that I wouldn’t get any real knowledge out of this course: well, that game proved me wrong! Making strategic decision, working with a team, compromising, analyzing data, studying customers reactions, learning from competitors, working on long term plans… If we add the fact that all these skills were perfectly in line with the two other courses I’m taking here, I must say that this game has been really profitable to my general knowledge and experience. I don’t know what will happen with this course in the coming years (based on what Serdar said during the last lecture…), but I strongly recommand to keep using it as much as possible (maybe add some extra quarters…)!

Second, the start up event experience. Once again, the perspective of going to that kind of events was not very attractive to me, but I did learn something extremely important out of it: networking is actually not something complicated! I always thought that, in order to create professional connections, you’d have to suit up and go to fancy hypocritical events: and sure enough, once again, I was wrong! There are actually a lot of nice people ready to help you, or at least hear you out. You just have to go out there and let the magic happen: it sounds weird and childish, but that’s actually what happened to several people in that class. Right now, I don’t think I really need that kind of network (maybe I’m wrong again…), but knowing that this kind of events exists is, somehow, comforting for the future: if I ever have a million dollar idea, now I know where to go and what to do!

Third, and probably the most important, the team experience. Even if, a few weeks ago, it looked like Nicolo and I were going ahead of an insanely huge amount of work all by ourseleves, it turned out that we were after all joined by Marcus first, and then Oscar. And I have to say that these three guys actually made this amount of work (still insanely huge however) pretty interesting to handle! Not only this has been useful to learn how to compromise, to discuss about our choices and to all work towards the same goal, but this actually made our meetings fun and enjoyable, and never boring or annoying!

So, in the end, I would say that this was a pretty good experience after all. I still think that I’m not the “perfect customer” for this kind of course, and I’m probably not launching any start up in the coming years, but at least I feel like I learnt useful skills for future and, most important, I actually had a good time!

So thank you all, Serdar, Impetus team and all of the class for these valuable moments! See you again  soon?

When I chose which start-ups I wanted to try, I focused on two things: 1. One physical and one digital product. 2. Products addressing the same type of customers. At last, I chose Pandy Protein and Fitocracy.

Pandy Protein

Pandy Protein is protein candy developed in 2016, by student from KTH. Protein products are appearing like never before. Whether it is protein snacks, extra protein milk, protein sodas, and so on. A popular trend, which one should always ride on. In just a couple of month, their Facebook page has over five thousand likers. I ordered my Pandy from Gymgrossisten.se. Here we see their first smart move. Where should they sell their product? Of course on a platform where their type of customer often visit. Your local Hemköp probably a smaller presentage of gym freaks than sites like Gymgrossisten and Svensk kosttillskott, where Pandy is also available. A smart and probably cheaper move by the Pandy crew.

Furthermore, in this industry the nutrition facts are very important to display in a clear and honest way, which I think that Pandys does, both on the bags and on their Facebook page, where they also have been answering questions regarding their nutrition facts in a good way.

So what did I think of the actual product? The candy actually tasted great. The value here is very clear. Eating candy without actually feeling unhealthy, but the opposite. Just like several other new products, like ProPub, these products become very popular very quick. So how could they improve? Perhaps by introducing new flavours.

You can buy the product here:

http://www.gymgrossisten.com/1/sv/artiklar/pandy-protein-candy-80-g

http://www.svensktkosttillskott.se/tillverkare/pandy_protein

Fitocracy

Fitocracy is a fitness app, as the name reveals. What differ Fitocracy from other all the other fitness apps is that it is formed in a way that it is a game, and a social network at the same time. By completing quests, you earn points to level up. Make friends, give them some motivation.

I must say that this app was better than most fitness app that I have tried during the years. The interface is always important in these cases, and Fitocracy is a winner here among its competitors. The page for creating exercise routines and the social platform is easily navigated and the gamification is indeed an interesting approach.

The app seems to contain some bugs and tend to be slow sometimes, if one should complain on anything. I guess some users would complain about number of functions (too many in that case), but with the intention of being both a social platform and game at the same time, I think it is unavoidable.

This Wednesday the magical story on CityLights continued: I had the follow-up meeting with Zaid and Lisa, about which I talked in a previous post (you can read that here).  After I had reached out to them on Facebook they proposed to meet at a beautiful place called Mosebacke in Södermalm. Apart from the gorgeous view we had a more in depth conversation on their past as retailers, on our ambitions for the future and on the options for bringing CityLights* to the market.

1. Outsource the retail to parties like them, the benefit being that we don’t have to worry about marketing and finding the right target groups, as well as benefiting from their years of experience.
2. Do the retail all by ourself, the benefit being that all the profit stays within our own reach, the downside being that we don’t have any experience in marketing.
3. Or doing a bit of both.

*A prototype for CityLights was already produced and tested. Currently we’re reviewing what the best business strategy would be.

To round up, a little shout-out to all of you: it is just plain awesome to have a group of likeminded individuals like this. It is refreshing, it is empowering and it motivates you to take the next steps in your business. I would love to have an active network like this surrounding me, to talk about our ideas and projects, motivate each other, share information and valuable knowledge. Maybe I’ll find that at SUP46 – I don’t know, I haven’t really experienced that place yet. But if I don’t find it there, I am really looking forward to creating that network myself and if you feel like you want to continue the kind of lifestyle being promoted during this course, let me know! You can reach me via Facebook, LinkedIn, or email. To be continued…

There are many start-ups from Stockholm. I decided to try the Instabridge app, a app that allows the users to join and connect to Wifi communities and hotspots without having to use a password. The app is connected to millions of Wifi spots and is available on both Android and Apple platforms.

The reason that I wanted to try the service provided by Instabridge was because I had not heard about the app before but liked the description when I read about it in a list of different Swedish start-up companies. I thought, why have I not heard about this before.

I went to App Store to download Instabridge. It was interesting because when I was going to download the app I saw that there were not any reviews or ratings shown. Normally that makes me question the app and think it is a bad one since the more used apps always have reviews and ratings visible. It made me think that it can’t be that popular yet. Anyway, I downloaded the app and tried it out.

The Instabridge service was really easy to use and I was surprised that it worked. I am glad someone has come up with this app and that it was so well done. It even had functions that I did not expect or that I would think of. One could click on different Wifi spots for example and then see how far away the hotspot is in minutes of walking. The speed of the Wifi spot is also specified. There was also a way to filter the Wifi spots that are shown on your map by choosing between different options as shown in the picture. Such as choosing only open ones, that are fast and in a restaurant.

As I was so surprised by the quality and the userfriendliness of the app I decided to send them some positive feedback in App Store. The only downside was that one had to go out of the app to “settings” and then manually choose the Wifi found in the Instabridge app. But I will definitely keep this app on my phone and use when traveling outside of Sweden to save some money on my mobile phone bill.

Continue surfing!

Sometimes you find yourself unexpectedly at places where you never imagined yourself to be. But it feels right. It is exactly where you need to be. Right now.

This happened to me last Tuesday when classmate Niels Weggeman asked me to join to start-up bar SUP46 in Östermalm. Initially I had no idea what I could expect. On the way I found out that STHLM Music City organized an event for start-ups in music technology. For a music passionate like me, the exact right place to be.The first speaker was a woman Eva from Spotify. How to market music using the user’s listening behavior data? With over 100 million active Spotify users there is a lot of data to analyse and use to better understand the listener: your customer. Music from the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark) is increasingly popular around the world. Eva guided us through a story how relatively unknown artists can score enormous hits by analyzing the data, adding the song to popular playlists and coordinate releases with major record labels. The Swede Mikael Persson aka Mike Perry is the living example with his hit ‘Ocean’: his only release on Spotify has over 260 million plays in half year. SHLMN Music City sketched the future of the music industry as more decentralized, where the role of publishers, music labels and agencies will shift towards a more supportive role around the artist.

Hereafter I have seen several presentations of breakthrough technology and ideas for music technology. Slush is a non-profit organization that organizes a large tech conference firstly in Helsinki, followed by editions in Tokyo, Beijing and Singapore. What do they do differently? They combine the entertainment of a music festival: loud music, lasers and pyro shows with the interesting technology from a tech fair. Big players as Google and Tesla have found their way to the event.

The Pacemaker app developers came with a new idea of creating mixtapes. Where they previously developed an iPad app for DJs to live mix music using Spotify they now bring an app to iPhone and Apple Watch for the big audience. Instead of making playlists for yourself, you can now create personalized mixtapes to share with your friends. You choose the songs; the app mixes them for you automatically. In addition you can personalize your mix by changing the transitions or adding effects such as hi-lo pass filters, white noise and reverb.

Finally, I want to highlight the impact of going out of your comfort zone. Going to places where you have never been before makes you meet people you have never met before. This can result in you having new ideas, which you otherwise not have been able to come up with. Never let go of an opportunity to find out new things. Follow your curiosity.