space-sunrise

http://phandroid.com/2014/05/10/android-wallpaper-space/

At first glance, Spaceport Sweden, a company that organizes commercial human spaceflights, seems to target the filthy rich who have so much money that they wouldn’t mind spending a couple of millions to go to space. It is a pretty cool adventure after all.

The problem is that Spaceport Sweden also has to make nice with politicians to get permits for their operations and play well with other space entrepreneurs to be able to reap the benefits of possible collaborations.

Should Spaceport Sweden refocus their branding to include a greater emphasis on research and education? This would definitely appeal to politicians and research facilities, and would benefit the collaborations.

Would this rebranding scare off the cash cows? There might be a risk that the adrenaline-addicted billionaires are discouraged by the focus on science, since it could reduce the feeling of exclusivity.

Is this a valid concern? Is it possible to combine the branding to include both of these target groups?

These are our spaced-out thoughts – what are yours?

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Yesterday, I (and Danny) got to attend the Stockholm Startup Weekend Bootcamp hosted by Stockholm Startup Weekend at the venue for Young Innovation HUB. It was basically a workshop held to prepare all participants of the coming Startup Weekend. The theme of the bootcamp this time was focus on Product Design, or design in particular.

After having a lecture about the importance of a good business model for the success of your business idea, I found it very useful to (6 hours later) learn that a good product design and the way you want to convey your idea/product/service to others is very important as well. I think you have to have both: a solid business model and a good presentation so that you gain your public attraction. And then the best way to sustain that is through substance, which would your business model.

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Anyhow, with that being said… The event consisted of several speakers who focused on the theme of product deisgn. One of the speakers was Erik Ceder, who works at Veryday, which is a people-and end-user driven desing company that has had large corporate customer like Spotify, Toyota, IKEA and so on (the list was endless, phew). It is actually one of the top 5 design consultancies in the world! Furthermore, Ceder has also won the Red Dot Award for Product Design, which is basically equivalent  to the oscars in the digital design world. Pretty cool 🙂

The speakers gave us some useful tips in how to make your product i.e. app, webdesign etc. appealing and easy to grasp for your customers, or to the audience just in general. They 3 main tips were:

1) Simplify it/Less is More (even though you get lots of ideas for your product/service you need to scale you down layout to simplicity for others to easily understand and see a red thread)

2) Bring it to life/Branding (your product must have character and personality to create a credibility with your customers)

3) Fake It ’til You Make It (really spend time on developing your business plan)

Something else that I learned, and something the speakers were very good at pointing out was that Design is really about Conversion, meaning that it is in the end about changing behaviors (of users) and making usage more simple. One pretty interesting tip was that you should do the so-called “squint test, meaning that you should stand 3 meters away from you webpage or app to see what your customers would notice first. Then you should ask yourself if you like what you see  😎

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All in all, I believe that design/product design is a crucial part in developing your idea/product/service. It is a way to convey a message, a chance to showcase your stuff to your customers and instill a feeling or create a connection in and with them, especially when a lot of today’s innovation are digital – several business ideas that I have seen for the past few weeks have been based on mobile apps – we surely are going more and more digital!

However, a good busines splan and model is just as important. So I think both must go equally well hand-in-hand. So watch for my next post where I will go deeper into business plan/model generation! Also, read Danny’s post too to get more perspectives! 🙂

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This evening I attended an event organized by “Stockholm startup weekend”.

The main purpose of this organization is, like you can get from the name, the startup weekend competition: a 54 hours event about people working on their ideas and trying to set up a simply structure of their startup. At the beginning of the evening they explained this event and the winning team of the past year gave some tips.

After all these preliminary speeches, the main purpose of the meeting took place: a lesson, following by a workshop, entitled  “Online conversion from a designer point of view” led by Erik Ceder from Veryday.

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He gave some important suggestions about how the web site of your startup should be, we can resume the concept in 4 points:
1. Credibility: it doesn’t have to contain “dark patterns” which mislead the customer, instead it has to include statements by testimonials and social proofs which enhance the brand experience;
2.Personality: the website must be playfulness (for example using a mascot), consistent and unusual in order to capture the attention of the customer;
3.User experience: we have to focus on the conversion goals, we have to drive the customers attention where we want;
4.Disposition & Layout: obviously the website has to be attractive, it doesn’t need to have too much information on the same page but it has to emphasize the most important points.

Talking about the workshop, its main task was the rethinking of the website of a very innovative product, Easystove (http://www.ezylife.com/shop/ezystove): a wood cook-stove, created to help the poorest populations, which is very easy to use. Divided in groups we have to produce a preliminary layout about the new website, created in order to sell the product to the people who do camping.

The event was very interesting, especially regarding the website tips, but the best part was to see how the designers work: it was amazing to watch how they translated their ideas in effective layouts in only one hour. They are very gifted people to take into account when you develop a startup!

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Two and a half years ago a couple of friends and the two of us read Business Model Generation by Timothy Clark, Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur.

It seemed that the purpose of the book was to convey to the masses that everyone can create and manage business models; and the Business Model Canvas (BMC) is the way to do this.

There are 9 dimensions described in BMC:

  1. Customers Segments: An organization serves one or several Customer Segments.
  2. Value Propositions: It seeks to solve customer problems and satisfy customer needs with value propositions.
  3. Channels: Value propositions are delivered to customers through communication, distribution and sales Channels.
  4. Customer Relationships: Customer relationships are established and maintained with each Customer Segment.
  5. Revenue Streams: Revenue streams result from value propositions successfully offered to customers.
  6. Key Resources: Key resources are the assets required to offer and deliver the previously described elements…
  7. Key Activities: … by performing a number of Key Activities.
  8. Key Partnerships: Some activities are outsourced and some resources are acquired outside the enterprise.
  9. Cost Structure: The business model elements result in the cost structure.

As you can imagine, the Key Resources we posses or have access to should correlate to our Key Activities, and regardless of how you want to view these two aspects, none of them would exist without the mentoring and assistance of your Key Partners.

This is the basis of your offering, but it is also the basis of your Cost Structure. What your business is good at, what means you have to achieve these and how much it will cost you add up to the center of your business model; what do you offer you customer segments, what is your Value Proposition?

So when does Revenue Streams enter the business model? There are a couple of components, as with Cost Structure, that composes Revenue Streams.

In an ideal world, a Customer Segment is a mass of people or firms that are seen as an organism. When there are different Customer Segments, and often there should be, these respond to different stimuli; you must approach them in a specific way. Your firm’s way of handling each Customer Segment should be as unique as the Customer Segment itself, and so the Customer Relationships tie your Value Proposition together with your Customer Segment.

There is also the need to reach your Customer Segments with your Value Proposition and BMC use the term Channels for this. Your Revenue Streams depend on what Customer Segments, how you have chosen to interact with these through Customer Relationships, what they are willing to pay for your Value Proposition and how your firm delivers this. This neatly ties up the BMC and creates a platform for entrepreneurs to interact with their business model and simulate changes in the business model as a result from external forces as Customer Segments or shortages of resources.

As we read this book, we did not think this was anything new. But as years have gone by, it seems like BMC is better motivated and that the authors of Business Model Generation have contributed to the masses. We believe that the framework and techniques presented in this book are, especially, suitable for agile project management methods where adaption, pivoting and sprints happen at a fast pace, the kind of management that we are here to learn and apply.

 

// Ludwig and Svesjo

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Im guessing many of you already know about: https://www.kickstarter.com/  This is a site where you can either fund a project or look for funding for your idea. The site has been around for a while, but from now on it also support swedish projects. So if you havent checked it out already take a look today!

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We’ve had the opportunity to meet up and have a short interview with a young Stockholm entrepreneur – Fillipe – about his work, his driving forces and his tips to others aspiring to build their own startup.

fillipe

who are you and what do you work with?

I am a 28 years old Brazilian living in Stockholm för the past 8 years. As a person I don’t see much limits. I like to take risks when needed. Right now I’m the COO of TopGrade, a startup company in the private teaching sector. We focus on math for high school students.

how come you became an entrepreneur?

Probably because of the need I have to work for myself, to learn daily and to be active in the decision making process. The holistic view of the business gives me the knowledge required to effectively expand the business and keep our quality standards.

what’s entrepreneurship to you?

Entrepreneurship for me is that risk taking attitude when for example testing a new idea, it is the joy of not taking the same old track that already has been explored.

what are crucial things to think about before you start your own company or join a startup?

Think about the financing. That’s a good way to avoid been forced to choose “B” when you really think that “C” is the best option, but you cant pay for C. Another thing, tell to your loved ones what you are doing. You most likely will need the support from your friends and family. Don’t forget them.

what’s the funniest part of your work?

Making mistakes. For too long we’ve been taught that is bad to make mistakes – but what I’ve seen is that they are not only necessary, but most of the time quite funny as well.

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I would like to bring back up the first exercise we had. We didn’t get a chance to here each others outlook on each topic so I hope that a person from each group can share.

My group was education and I have thought extensively before this instance about how the educational landscape would look in the future. There are 2 issues that education reformers want to solve: 1) the current infrastructure needs to improve and keep pace with rapid globalization and technology use 2) there is a lot of untapped potential in third world countries where access to education is held back by geographical, political, etc boundaries.

One of my dreams one day is to start my own school to address the first major issue. Education should be personalized and more analysis needs to be done to properly channel teaching to learning styles to maximize potential. But I also hope to provide an answer to the second issue. There’s a school in San Francisco that I applied to transfer to that I showed my group: https://minerva.kgi.edu/academics/seminar-experience. I think this is part of the answer to the future. In fact it addresses both major issues to some extent – we just have to find ways to put technology into the hands of those less fortunate (which is already being done).

Our group, in the little time we had, took some of the approaches Minerva had and expanded beyond it. I think the depiction is pretty self explanatory – most importantly just realize we have to tackle developed and undeveloped nations differently. 2030education

Thoughts on our idea for education in 2030? But more importantly, what was your group’s topic and what did you come up with? Thanks for sharing.

#Dreamgineering #thisisreal”Dream”engineering

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Dreamgineering was also in the Night with Eric Edmeades or Business Freedom Event!

I went to this event with huge expectations with their advertisement, it’s impossible not to have them:  Learn from Eric’ Business Freedom program how you can ensure more success for yourself and your business. This is an intensive workshop that will provide you with instant tools for success” and Eric, as the good showman that he is, didn’t defraud me.

I have been before in a Talk or speech with american speakers and but this 4 hours with Eric were especially interesting.

The event was split in two parts + Networking break:

+ First hours about “How you create your own inception business”.

+Networking

+Two hours about “Which kind of entrepreneur are you?”

= very nice 4 hours =D

After a couple of days  thinking about what to tell you about the event. I have realized that the most intersting is that his whole speech was based on the theory he was explaining to us. And it worked!

He was there to promote an event of more speeches in Norway “ELEVATE 2014” and after listening to him, most of the audience were thinking on going there!

So, he went through his 5 magical steps and got what he wanted:

1. Finding the ideal target market (ITM)

2.Finding the VALUE that motivate your ITM

3. Performing a engagement pitch  by going through ITM values

4. Telling them an inceptive story –> Achieving credibility, authority, virality and reciprocity.

5. Teaching them how to buy your product, from YOU

And he performed so well that no one could realize till the END that he was selling himself and his event!

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Marco and Jiamin have told you the big details already, so here in my post I have just written my opinion and thoughts about the experience.

Nice weekend! =D

Raquel/ Dreamgineering

 

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Yesterday, I attended the open house event at Student Inc with Raquel, Lenny and Peter from the awesome team Dreamgineering. My Klint, the at Student Inc. manager, gave us a very informative and  insightful tour of Studen Inc and the startups that they have helped and are helping along the way.

As Raquel and Lenny probably has informed you in their posts http://intopreneur.com/?post_format=link and http://intopreneur.com/?p=173, Student Inc is a KTH organziation that supports Technical startups by KTH students, not through investing in them but helping them find investors.

To sumarize and not to repeat too much of what my aweosme teammates have already told you: around approximately 10 am My gave us a tour/introduction of the timeline for startups that Student Inc helps and it includes 3 phases: Initiation, Development and Phase Out with the third phase being that you can pretty much stand completely on your own (see picture below). We were also introduced of all the very exicitng business ideas that were happening. The creativity on that timeline seemed endless! 🙂

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Some interesting things that My reminded us about Entrepreneurship were that as a startup, you have to earn your investors (i.e. laying a good groundwork and building a solid business model etc.), and also that passion for what it is that you do is very important (some thing I talked about in my previous post).  As there will be ups and downs,  only a passion for what you do will “get you through” it ( as well as positive customer feedbacks – getting recognition and appreciation for your work in any area is always a fantastic feeling that fuels you up with energ).  So basically, you have to be very into your idea, what you do and what value it brings to your surroundings to get through the downs and also keep on getting yourself through the many challenges and the huge amount of hard work (especially finding investors) that startups embody. But ups are obviously very easy to sail by in whatever you choose to do, but the downs? Trickier. Much trickier.

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On top of this, My also pointed out that Persistence is crucial as well. And seeing the 3 phases the startups on Student Inc’s timeline have to go through, it surely is. However, all successful startups such as Spotify, Apple, Facebook started out being small. It is through hard work and being tenacious that got them to where they are. It sounds obvious but I can really imagine that when you have a business idea that is new to the world and without any funding and with the insecurity around it all, letting it go does seem tempting.

Anyways, I am excited to start working on Phase 1 of my idea for the course and trying out all the things that I have learned to far. My will also come with some useful feedback to the whole team, and who knows, maybe my idea (or another one) will be launched into the real world one day 😀

/Yuwei, team Dreamgineering

 

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Tonight I went to the event about Business Freedom and had a quite enjoyable time there. Earlier I though that it may be some speech on what is business freedom and something like your business freedom should never against national interests and there is no absolute freedom and whatever… But it turned out that it’s nothing like that and Eric is quite a humorous mentor and entrepreneur. He wants to bring energy to us and make some change in our life.

It took him a long time to realize his love for speaking of business in public.And he told many useful tools and quite a lot knowledge which is a great help to people who is going to start or is running business right now.So useful that I wrote 6-paged notes in total.

Below is some from my notes…


How to Define a Successful Entrepreneur: the company runs smoothly with or without the owner physically being around.

Inception Marketing, it’s about making value for people(make them want to buy something) instead of just satisfied what they want. A great metaphor is there is 2 ways to catch a butterfly: one is the net and another is to build a beautiful garden that they will come to you.

Choosing a Coach/Mentor:business background is important! 2 hours is enough to decide if you can sign the contract with him/her. We should hire people for the good result not just for a feeling of certainty.

Making MISTAKE: This is a big part of running business…Making mistakes is useful and necessary for growth. But it’s not simply about making mistakes, it’s to make ORIGINAL mistake, that is, never make the same mistake over and over again.

Big Mistakes: a) do not chase after easy sells like a monkey sticking to the nut. b)sell is like a date, do not only think and talk about yourself. On the contrary, make some connection. c)do not chase the clients, is you are needy they will run away.

Attraction: Same as the butterfly metaphor, success is far less of what you chase than what you attract. So you should attract your clients and make them come to you.

Standard of Successful Company: People there are strongly passionate and loving being there so much, treating work like their life.

Telling Story: Everyone likes to hear stories. So why not make your business sound like a story especially in a conversation?

DO WHAT YOU LOVE!

HOLD TIGHT if you are truly good!

Protect the trademark & chase after the BRIDE!


 

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Other thing like ITM and inceptive story, Leon has put in his post in deail so I’d not repeat 😛 I had a great time there and will be so happy if you can also learn something from this post!

 

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