The worlds biggest economy is mostly FREE and CALLED NETWORKING. Its a dangerous animal – it can be the fastest way to success as well as it can it can suck you dry.

With DLD (one of the best conferences in EU) coming up and with my own praising of St Gallen’s Symposium (blogpost here) – I feel that I have to do a brain dump on conference and networking. Its mostly a closed club and you have to be invited to the really hardcore and best ones. It takes a lot of hard work and luck to get there – and off course you also want to be invited to the speakers dinners etc – if you are untamed curious and want to see whats really happening behind the scenes.

I started out back in 1996 by pretending to be a journalist (blogging was not really a term) – I wrote that I had a blog ( we had e.magazine.dk) and wanted to cover events like Sime (since I could not pay the fees)- and they did send me a ticket (or two) – and I went to interview the Speakers with my old Sony HighCam (as big as a truck) – having my xwife to hold the cam. That was a silly fast way to get under the skin of the techstars of the time – hanging out with Jack Ma, The Razorfish Dudes, The Swedish DotCom Superstars of the 90’ies (what a circus)…

“PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER”.

Groucho Marx – said it in a weird way. I dont really understand what he wants to say – since I really believe the reverse. Find the clubs that wants you and move on from there… :)

Many people call me to acces my network – and Im very proud to know a lot of really nice, funny and often interesting people. A good network is silly important if you want to bypass or even disrupt any structure (business or bureaucracy) – and it has been the main reason for most of my ups – but also for my downs… So I have to warn all of you guys out there.

(Am I just doing one more warning? Shit Im getting old – but well maybe I have always been :) – just taking a childish aporach).

• Be extremely carefull with networking – it can become a fulltime job if you are not very care full.
• Be 100% honest.
• Hang out with people who are smarter then you.
• Do more favours then you get*.
• Combine the info you get – and start sampling and testing the value and the truth level.
• Ask a gazillion questions! And dont be shy to look like and idiot just because you dont understand an acronym – there will for sure be 25-50% others who dont get it… I always ask and ask and ask – and many times I have tried that a lecturer doesnt even know anacronym.. :)
• Trade information – let people who are not super interresting for you right now – what you want in return (info not money or food) –

Plant tons of smart hearth driven seeds – and be longterm = follow your dreams, interest and hearth and adjust your materialistic dreams fast.

*life is not fair – and you will for sure ending up giving a lot of energi and brainpower – before you can harvest.

Dont Be Fooled By The Few Successes

Dear Highly Valued reader – and potential entrepreneurs of the 2011 class. I know that Im one of the most intensive promoters of entreprenuerial lifestyle in the techworld. Ups and Downs – Good and Bad – Fantastic and Horrible. I know a lot you highly valued readers are either entreprenuers – who reads my bullshit – just to get confirmed that there are people more crazy then you. Or you are wannabees who just flirt with the idea – or you are just about to jump into it…

Valuation Hysteria Is Comming

I feel that I have to state it AGAIN: It takes about 5 years and its seldomly without profit you can sell companies for sky high numbers – and get a chance to be called an over night succes…

Im working more then ever –
and I feel more succesfull then ever.
And I think the technology entreprenuers are having a better time then ever.

But be carefull – we are on a direct path to a new tech hystria – Facebook and Groupon drives it  – these companies are historically growth monsters breaking all existing rules for generating growth and profits. And they inspirethousands of people to go into tech ventures*. AND ITS GREAT – the Kaufamann Foundation points at entreprenuers and entreprenuership driving nearly all Jobs Creation in the US. We need Startups to create those jobs – to preserve the biggest luxury we dont remember on daily basis: Social Stability in many many coutries. But.

But There Is A But

But Twitter (and Skype) is planting a dangerous virus in the newcomming entreprenuers heads.

But I have to warn all the startups who thinks HAVING NO REVENUE MODEL LIKE TWITTER is a way to build a company. A company has to make CASH – one way or the other…

Its VERY SELDOM that a company can be sold on promise, idea, userbase or disruption alone. Write it on your laptop!

Thats it

I still recommend everyone who gets goosebumps – when they visualise a day where they have their own company – and decide themselves what to do – and work on exactly what they love to do! But remember its shit hard – and you still have to do a lot of household stuff – like taking out the garbage and deal with crazy good competitors from the whole world… Its not heaven – but its close – and I love it. LOVE IT. Its takes just in between 5years and a lifetime to make it. Just get used to it – you probably have to be a bit crazy – look who is writing.

*The Scial Network (the movie) – is one big promotion and vocabulary on building a company and reaching the skies – off course also showing that capitalism is hardcore. But get used to it – it insanely competitive.

Im a Apple FAN, I love Jobs, I cry when I see his Stanford speach – I nearly stand in line when they launch a new category killer. I AM A FAN.

I get high when I see how Apple makes money like no one else (I love rebounds) – I love to talk about how smart (nearly psychic) they are launching Pro, Air, iPad, iPhone, Nano… all with a perfect range of disk size 320GB, 128GB, 64GB, 64GB, 16GB – and me a perfect EXCUSE FOR HAVING ONE OF EACH :)

But I also love that – no matter how FUCKED UP SMART – and HOW FUCKED UP CLOSED the iTunes loop is. I’ve started using a better service – SPOTIFY. They are cornering iTunes on their own devices – looove it. I can have all the music I want (FREE WITH ADDS)  – SUBSCRIBE (or get a voucher) AND I CAN go into offline mode and bring SELECTED MUSIC to the plane (or other of theose last and rare places without internet) – but always have NEARLY ALL MUSIC IN THE WORLD when on the www-grid.

For Apple its classsic situation – the WEB2.0 is just so fast and smart (and now the fucked up record industry has woken up and handed out more lisences) – and even Apple (my heroes) becomes a legacy hell. And iTunes is YESTERDAY – subscription ALL YOU CAN EAT is TODAY.

Wondering whats tommorow – old school Radio (or Rdio :) ? Well lets face it – growing up is hard – remember back in the teen years when you could throw a big party just by dialing via that old land-line phone and having a venue…

On the contrary Im just blow away by Facebook – I liked the movie and Peter Thiels response. And not only did I like the Facebook Message announcement – but I was blow away by this interview with Founder “Field Suckermountain” – he is pure BRILLIANT AND INTELLIGENT.

Talking iTunes and Spotify: YES Facebook can do a Spotify in 6 moths (and buy it in 1 ) – they are becomming such a defacto – and now you have MONSTER BRAND sites just looking like facebook (and its not design stealing – no no – just a fussy and comfy design). This example tells a LOT

Spend your day well. And remember rule number 6 (Don’t take yourself too serious).

Im just wondering when the Airlines and Travel Agencies all over the world will be wearing EVERBREAD shoes.

Im angry…

Bla bla bla bla..

Well in reality Im happier then ever.

I have tried a LOT – but nothing like this travelshow EVERBREAD had 4 people participating in, in Singapore. With the creame de la creme of the Travel Industry at WIT Singapore (http://www.webintravel.com/). The lady behind this show Yeoh Siew Hoon – is the REAL ENTREPRENUER – someone who does stuff that is really challenging and risky. EVENTS like these are game changing for any disruptive B2B company.

Rmember: Only B2B

When good becomes great.

The EVERBREAD team was so amasing – working together in this homogenous and tense way that even real good startups seldomly experience. WHen good becomes great. But off course it feels good when all the major players and the smartest guys in the industry wants to talk you AND WE SIGNED 10+ contracts at a conference. But it felt like spring – after very long 16months of winter (development and client tests) and trying to tell the market that EVERBREAD IS FOR REAL. SHOUTING: “Yes – we are able to do search better then anyone else in  travel.”

Being Back In Asia

I got some amassing insiders to how Asia works – I love to hang out with the people who really make business happen in an exploding city/region. And I must say that my relations with the Singaporean government and one of the largest companies got to a whole new level. Wish I could say more… :)

Getting on the MAP

Any startup needs small miracles – and we also have one of them in Singapore – when CNBC suddenly invited us on the SQUAK BOX – and after this little clip – I suddenly realised that some people actually still watch television (or maybe just investors :). And our phone has been ringing like mad ever since.

Watch the CNBC clip here

SOME WEIRD STUFF you might wanna know:

A) You can get frre land in the land of the free – link

B) The people at Tradeshift got a Parrot Drone you can controle with an iPad – delivered to the office  – video

C) Here are my notes to a TRADESHIFT movie we are making.

You are wondering

about why Im angry – when I post like a very happy Saliery who just succeeded in stressing Mozart.

But one of my secrets is that when I do something – I really do it all the way. AND now that Im running a company – I really (NATURALLY) dive 100% into the spirit of being a CEO and the spirit of the Business – and hang out with only SUPER FOCUS CEO’s who are in MY EXCACT SITUATION. Its about 5-6 and all of us are having the same problem with VCs, Private Equity, Pension Funds – say Investors.

Everyone one in this CEOgroup says the same – after getting some tracktion they suddenly feel that ALL OF THE INVESTOR UNIVERSE WANTS THEM AND ARE (WULFF)HUNGRY FOR THE SAME COMPANY – but 99,5% of these institutions are all about saying: We really like this (sounds like WE ARE READY TO TRANSFER MONEY – for any CEO/Founder) – lets follow you guys closely. And by the way – we know this guy X – he is an industry expert (and can eat all you time as a CEO – because he has no job or is silly rich and bored – and shit ass clever very oftenly).

– so they reject you and say the magic words: “Can You Come … Later”*

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*Its makes me even more angry that I was the same way 4-5 times in my time as investor – using time as a parameter to get the comany closer to the edge – here called: Bankruptcy. Only problem is that if I could just have acted like any big fund that I talk about about. Well – then I probobly could have had a VERY LARGE FUND – But not the people, the daily miracles and the fun I have with my amasing latest adoptions: EVERBREAD and Tradeshift** :)

** On Tradeshift thing are so crazy wild and I cant really comment on anything. One thing I want to say is that: I think we just fixed some lower level global problems . its a long story (maybe the film will take more then 50sec) – again I cant say more – just that its beautiful and you will love it. Specially the ones of you who are noble Real Three Huggers – who didn’t forget about the environment just because it becoming mainstream.

“I think we can tell ourselves “everything” to survive and turn every crappy situation in something good”.

Im really trying to see what could be wrong – every day. I feel that Im not allowed to be happy. And I feel so deeply happy despite the fact that I went bankrupt and lost everything. Since I swapped the Amex Black Card with a calling card – and my houses went on forced sale (dont know the english word). In the back of my head Im still wounded – my pride – my facade is not happy with this shit. But Im back on my feet and own most of what I had before – and dept that is manageable.

I LOVE THIS

But my life is 100 times more intense and real now. The daily flow with the EVERBREAD team and the 2-3 phone calls with the TRADESHIFT founders – is something I enjoy.

Well thats obvious – when things are possitive and moving forward like a rocket-ship trough the stratosphere… But I like to have controle over whats going on – I like to be deeeeply into the details and solve real problems and off course SELL SELL SELL. I love it.

On the other side I unfortunately have to say: “Thank you so much for thinking of me – but NO THANX” – to a lot of interesting projects and startups (4-10 pr week). But thats not hard anymore – it was in the beginning since evaluating new ideas, projects and companies was what I did for 5-7years. Although I was bad at EVERYTHING after first meeting and transferring cash. My problem: I had a table so full of amassing dishes and I did not know where to start nor where to end my days… I was distracted.

I STILL  FEEL GUILT

Maybe one of the things that really makes me angry with myself – is that quite some people lost money on my too wild newspaper venture-ride. And off course – IT IS SOMETHING THAT I SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF. Everyone knew this was high risk – and 80% on the suplier side got over paid – but still it might have taken some of the 20% down – and I HATE IT. Also I really hate that all these people suddenly had no job.

Besides that – it feels like the lesson was needed. To go back to the humility – and not just blow it all up. But instead – I should probobly have saved some energi and money. And spend some time – sitting all still – on PAUSE – to preserve and be proud of what I had.  Hmmm…

Next time. Next time it must be…!

I WAS ALWAYS TOO YOUNG

One of the big problems with getting wealthy and successful as a very young mann is that:

A) You dont get an upgrade on you brainchip – but everyone around you suddely listens too all you bullshit. And you find yourself in situations ALL THE TIME – where you are asked questions – where you have no clue about the answers.

B) Believing your own BULLSHIT – suddenly you start actually believing all the bullshit you say and think – and all the edgy ideas becomes: “Something we just do with a good team and throw some money at…”

C) THE REAL PROBLEM. You cant attract older and wise tallent – its hard to spend the time it takes to build trusted relationships to mentors, partners and fresh entrepreneurs. Thats where I went all wrong.

Should you ever end up in that situation, I can only advise you to do what you have to do. But try if you can tame the flame a bit – and find someone elder to get advise. For me its been a journey – and still is – I have learned that money really matters less and the energi from within is not at all tamed.

I have learned it all on my own body – and Im taking my own medicine:

People, People, People is everything – FOCUS HARD – very careful with hallucinating visionaries – and 100% focus on the fact that succes comes from sales not from funding…

CONCLUSION

Maybe nothing is wrong – maybe Im just happy and lucky to have the ability to adjust. Like I have done trough all the years as a pretty edgy entrepreneur. I’ve never had a book or a blog where I could read about thoughts like this – and I would probably not have listened. Its nearly impossible to learn from others when you are as selfmade as most successful entrepreneurs. But I want to say one thing: REMEMBER TO BE PROUD OF THE SMALL THINGS YOU ACHIEVE – and dont be shy to defend your achievement instead of hunting the next big thing.

Since I can see all this (and even get it into writing.

It looks like Im getting old and loosing the REBEL inside :( – Maybe I am – since Im now doing B2B software – hardcore science and business structuring.

But what the heck.

I FUCKING LOVE IT. Its never too late for a fresh start – BINGO!

PS having close friends, advisors and being in love really helps

(can also be read if you are working for an entrepreneur and find him/her weird some times)

To all of you guys out there who work every day on your dream. Who get up every morning and work like ants on creating you dream. You guys who don’t get disturbed by the common rules – or your mother in law – who wants you to take a real job. Quite often it can be a little lonely – and very few people understand what the crack you are trying to do = you might feel a bit lonely some times.

Most of us ENTREPRENUERS are often called stupid (because we are sometimes) – and laughed at – and we try not to show the world how nervous we are while we are strangling with that crazy idea. That dream of a company – a vision coming live. While we are trying to persuade friends and partners and people with money (and hopefully a bit of brain and knowledge) to join our vision – to take part in the unknown. We are trial and error people – who knows the very best: There is no formula!

There is so much hope.

Remember the small victories (and celebrate them) – and don’t give up. The world needs you – and only innovation can solve the crisis we see in the western world.

And remember that Zuckerberg, Zenstrøm an Evan Williams are people like you – and they had no clue that Facebook, Skype and Twitter would become so silly big… You can copy and learn and read up – but I think the real trick is hard work, long hours, focus and the ability to mobilize people (employees, partners and clients/user). You have the same chance.

Im writing this because I get so so many fantastic e-mails from people who wants to start a company – make a vision come trough or just have an idea. But right now – Im not able to help out – not able to invest (money is still super tight). My only way to help is to give a little oxygen to the entreprenuerial flame(s) out there – and underline that crisis is a fantastic time to start companies. 1) Many game changing companies have been started in recession – and despite all the warnings about double dip (and this is not salsa and guacamole) – the economy will come back somehow. 2) Only the hardcore – who are really serious try in this climate 3) Building a global company has never in history had such low entry barrier. (Imagin how much time a the founders of Johnson&Johnson must have spend waiting for snail mail 100years ago – when the went global with theyr plaster).

And Im proud to see them brave “idiots”

Around me – who don’t get scared by a all the hick-ups a small company has – and stay behind they vision and dream. Despite the fact that they could take a silly well payed job (and potentially bored themselves to dead). And I say idiots – because the risk is silly high and friends and family sometimes suffer – but that what it takes to be an entrepreneur. And I see people who made enough$ to relax and live on a beach – who keeps doing it (like me – back then). And then I see how most people with this religion called entrepreneurship – get a lot of energy from meeting up in groups and discuss and unveil all they problems and SUCCESES.

Use all the new initiatives – Startup Bootcamp, seedcamp.com, … They are fantastic meeting places and generates tons of new teams and ideas.

The Temperature of Venture Capital

– right now – the VCs (of whom many has problems raising a next fund) are very active – and a bit more polite then before. And if you can assemble the rigth team and the rigth vision – there is TONS OF INVESTOR CASH TO COLLECT. But you have to be fair on valuation and extremely focused on building a real revenue generating business – AND THATs IN MY OPINION VERY VERY GOOD. Sanity is back.

Dont spend time on reading to much about the new big Angels versus VC discussion – thats a way too niche discussion to care about as an entreprenuer. Just find what suits you – and be carefull with generalising about investors. They are all as different as 10 siblings – same family – but all have their own personalty… From Conway over Fred Wilson to Andreessen Horowitz and maybe your next door neighbor.

Just Do IT

Yes – bacause you can. And technology is faster and cheaper then ever. Just remember that most people around you will not understand you – and that does not mean that you dad is wrong in everything he says. You have to create a VERY SOPHISTACATED filter when it comes to advise and help – and you can start by decifering the crap that I have just incepted to your brain here/now… :)

Its simple – not easy.

Impact – by teaming up with MONSTER BRAINS.

– seems to be what really trickers me. And I cant really go into detail on the busines impact that I feel I have been a part of over the last 12 months. But Google was so kind (99% or anti trust reasons) to

Remember: I was bankrupt – I had no clue what would happen to my house (where the kids lived with their mother) – I had no control of my portfolio / AND THE WORLD WAS HIT BY THE BIGGEST FINANCIAL CRISIS POST WAR…

It was not really until Friday I understood how much (read on)

Impact EVERBREAD already has

Here is notes from our internal daily newletter (and yes that the level of profesionalism we strive for at EVERBREAD) when Google bought our competitor ITA for 700mioUSD – and chose to mention EVERBREAD IN ALL SLIDES

BIG G BUYS ITA
The entire industry is buzzing about it. After quite some time evaluating the product, Google closed the deal at $700 million, buying out air travel search tech provide ITA Software. The team (500) as well as QPX will be in the hands of the Mountain View search giant, but timing on when exactly that will go live to consumers was not confirmed by Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt. According to Schmidt and Marissa Mayer, Google will try to provide flight information in innovative way and refer travelers to websites where they can complete the booking, but overall, the two Google execs deferred questions on future developments. In that case, Kayak should be a bit worried (as a horde of article already mention that), as well as Bing (Wired’s magazine is priceless – Google Dings Bing….) and Expedia, Orbitz and quite a few of the rest big boys right there.
The FTC and the Justice Department will be looking into the deal to ensure there is enough competition out there. Also, something that you might have not read yet in the crazy article storm – apparently, ITA’s revenue is not enough to require European Commission involvement, which is definitely a good sign for the deal to come through.
Some interesting pieces:
Webcast: http://bit.ly/aiC4ol
Press Release ITA: http://bit.ly/bjDbRo
Press Release Google: http://investor.google.com/releases/2010/0701.html
Tnooz: http://bit.ly/b8kSpl
Search Engine Land (a very, very good piece): http://selnd.com/akyv6o

Simply very hard to understand from a time persepctive (11months) – but obvious when you see your product live…!

At the same time Trade-Shift Happens

Again – I was contacted by people with drive, brains and experiences that is BEYOND NORMAL. And we have been working like mad ants to get our visionlive – here is a guest post from  co-founder Christian Lanng (and yes – I have taken the chairman seat after ending bankruptcy).

Inside the hype machine

Tradeshift has officially existed for 9 months and 4 days and it’s still
hard to understand how far we have come. I keep being reminded whats
possible with the right team, and timing. But had I not met Morten exactly
a year ago and had he not been bankrupt, we would probably never have
developed the idea that became Tradeshift, we would not have had the
focus or time needed.

The idea is really pretty simple, that all business should be able to connect
and trade as simply as people connected on Facebook. To which the
most common reaction have been, are you sure that have not been done
before? And the simple answer is: no – for many reasons.

That does not mean Tradeshift was created overnight (no such thing as
overnight successes exist. We spend the last 5 years before Tradeshift
creating the worlds first p2p business infrastructure in Denmark, and
after that participated in global standardization of the e-business field, so
we had a lot of knowledge with us to begin with, but together with that
knowledge a lot of frustration.

Most solutions in the market, was expensive, poorly designed and typically
only worked with one big partner at the time. So Tradeshift represents our
bet, at a solution to the problem of connecting business online, but this
does not mean we think it is perfect, far from.
@Hartvig Hit the nail spot-on, when he criticized the beta product we
launched in May in Denmark (in Danish: http://hartvig.com/2010/5/19/
tradeshift_%E2%80%93_symbolet_pa_det_lave_danske_bundniveau.as
px) – we had been so focused on getting the fundamentals right (simple,
free, global), that we missed a few points:

• Product / Market fit might differ substantially in your launch market
and target markets

• If your product is hyped it can NEVER live up to the hype, people will
be disappointed get used to the idea

• Don’t be afraid to show the world where you are going, stealth is for
cowards (ML: COWarD$!)

Product / Market fit:
All start-up theory talks about reaching the mythical product / market fit.
And as a start-up you are soon faced with a dilemma, should you design
your solution for your home market or should you aim your ideal market
from the beginning. In the end it’s a matter of logistics and cash. In our
case we choose to go for the big play right out of the box, building a truly
global product for small business invoicing, but we chose to launch it in our
home market first.

• Only 50% of the 20M small business in Europa have an accounting
package or use an accounting package in their business, these
where our starting point (they have no fixed idea how business
software should be and are therefore a good starting point for
disruption)

• Make sure you get localization right, test, test and test some more.
NO translation agency or copywriter can get it completely right, in
the end rely on your users to give you the right feedback (we learned
this the hard way).

• When we launched in Denmark, we launched in a market hugely
different from most of our target markets, more than 70% of the
companies have accounting software, and they expect all invoicing
solutions to work with this out of the box, so instead of disrupting we
immediately felt the pressure to conform to the existing solutions.
In the end this taught us some extremely valuable lessons, and after
the initial backlash we saw that the product had a completely different
reception in Germany and UK, where most small business don’t have
accounting software. Luckily we did not panic and over focused on the
Danish feedback, but we where left with some depressed supporters.

The hype machine
Working closely with Morten Lund, you realize that he is a marketing
monster early on, I don’t know if many others in Europe could have pulled
off landing some of the interviews we got early on, in Wired, Techcrunch,
etc. what most people don’t know, is he is able to do this, because he
has a no-bullshit attitude to reporters and journalists and they like that,
and in the end it always comes down to the content, not who made the
introduction.

The dark-side of the hype machine is also very obvious, we where
stunned to see the tweets and some of the news being circulated about
what Tradeshift was and could do (basically we would disrupt the worlds
financial system single-handedly, while creating peace in the middle-east).

As the hype grew you suddenly got caught in a catch22, improve on your
product, so it can live up the hype or release early, and risk disappointing a
lot of people. In the end we took the tough decision to release what we felt
was a very early version of the product.

Today we are very happy we did this, some of the feedback we have
gotten in the last few months have really changed the direction and priority
we have given to a lot of features. Instead of sitting in “stealth” mode
imagining what the world would want from Tradeshift (Did anybody say
Duke Nuke’m Forever?). But we don’t forget the cost, we disapointed a lot
of people, and ironically instead of just shrugging it off, this is one of the
things that drive us today, and our development effort – we want to make
sure that we can deliver on the initial promises (maybe not peace in the
middle-east).

Don’t be afraid
That leads me to the last part, today there is all to often a sort of secrecy
culture around start-up projects, people are afraid of getting whole ideas or
concepts ripped of, in the early days it made a lot of sense, when products
where basically “mail on the web” and it was all about getting that critical
mass first.

As a start-up there is no such thing as getting your ideas spread too early,
and even though we have some very advanced magic going on on the
inside of Tradeshift, I always know that it can get ripped off in 6 months by
the right team, but I’m not afraid since i know how much further we will be
in those 6 months, and furthermore I know we have the vision, the idea of
where we are going, and they do not or else they would be there by now.

Thats also why we put our roadmap (link: http://tradeshift.zendesk.com/
entries/195589-the-next-3-months-of-tradeshift) , out open on the internet
for the next 3 months for everybody to see, that means my competition
can see it too, but in the end they can’t win just by copying what we will do
next, they have to understand why we do it and that takes the vision.

All in all, I’m extremely proud of where we are today, but I still feel we have
a lot of promises to fulfill, that’s what makes the next 9 months and 4 days
so exiting.

/Christian Lanng

Stuff I think you should think (deeplyabout)

TELL IT LIKE IT IS: Ohh finaly someone a Microsoft woke up at gave us a sign that the shark still has teeth – some dude in Cooperate Communication – Frank X. Shaw – did a blogpost that I love (and look at 30min a day). Its outlining how small everyone else is compared to Microsoft (and for startups is scary!! but also a great inspiration) / read here

YOU CAN DO IT: Another very interesting thing is the power of formerly young men – who are now grownups and have a LOT of power in the tech industry. EVERBREAD (announcing big thing within the next 4h) – would NEVER have been where we are if it wasn’t for a post potsmoking surfer called Michael Arrington and his UK work monster Mike B. AND The NYC scene is now booming thanx to many things – not the least Mr Calacanis and C Dixon – who apparently never sleeps. My conclusion: YOU CAN DO IT!!

That’s life, that’s what all the people say.
You’re riding high in April,
Shot down in May
But I know I’m gonna change that tune,
When I’m back on top, back on top in June.

I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.
I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself, flat on my face,
I pick myself up and get back in the race

Just got back from a MIND-BLOWING

conference – and it takes quite some to blow my mind on conferences – since I do 20-30 a year. But at the St. Gallen Symposium I really saw how BIG you can think – and how WIDE you can execute. Every TOPTOP biz dude from Europe was there – and well thats fine – but more impresive was the fact that 200 students from all over the world was flewn in – and the talks and the debate was SECOND TO NONE.

On top of that – the whole event was 100% organized by the students – and it was better done and better prepared then anything I have ever tried. Take a Swiss armyknife and let it have sex with a PATEK PHILIPPE watch – then you have an idea of the precision and controle and security – AND YET STILL WARMNESS AND HAPPINESS that was spread around here.

Then off course there was an amasing dialogue mostly facilitated by Marc M (check him out) – and I saw presentations at the highest level I have ever seen. Specially my new friend Professor Kishore Mahbubani (author of the book “Can Asians Think ?” (I spoke next to last week at Yale)) and the very down to earth and off course über smart Dominic Barton, Managing Director of McKinsey worldwide. WOW. Im telling you that stuff ROCKED neural networks in my brain.

A huge congrats and thank you to all the students!! And a big thanx to Philip Erzinger for convincing me to go – since I didn’t really wanted to :) – since their pr was simply not good enough. But I love when seeing and trying: is believing. Off course you have argue why the f*** did they invite a crackhead like me… I still dont really get it – But Im feel humble, happy and confused as a 10y old Boy who just go home from 2 days with Open-ended Amex BlackCard in a toy store.

Please do yourself a favor and see Mahbubanis talk

There is no direct link to his speach. but for you – dear valued reader – the best part is that you can watch a lot of it online on high def video – here :)

——

Here is a pretty good interview from the programme (with my comments):

Speaking of “the entrepreneur” is always tricky, as there is no clear-cut definition. One way of approaching this problem is to ask entrepreneurs themselves what they think entrepreneurship is all about. Let us hear first from the serial entrepreneur Morten Lund (DK) who covers this year’s topic in a most comprehensive way. He is young, he is famous for having invested very early in the VoIP service Skype, he learnt the ups and downs of entrepreneurship the hard way and he is realistic about the outcome of entrepreneurial endeavours – even those of the St. Gallen Symposium.

Morten Lund, there are a lot of investment opportunities out there right now. You, as an entrepreneur, must enjoy yourself a lot.

I am bankrupt at the moment (I was when I did the interview), so I cannot do a lot, but then, on the other hand, I can help other people start mind-blowing businesses. In a downturn like this, most entrepreneurs move in the opposite direction to the cycle. When everything collapsed two years ago, a lot of people where investing in start-ups they did not know anything about. (Including myself)

How this?

The clever guys, they cashed in two and a half years ago ( I know quite some) and they are now buying up like crazy from all the bankrupt guys (idiots) like me. For real start-ups, like what I have been doing in technology, this time is, of course, amazing. The reason is that this technology is now mature. Both from the consumer side, as people are using computers all the time and they buy a lot online, and from the technology side, where it has become so easy to develop a website or a web service or to rent servers.

For instance, you have the world’s biggest infrastructure at Amazon which you can just tap into with no set-up fee. So those two components, the e-side and the consumer side, work now and the developers and infrastructure are amazing, and then combine this with the fact that you can actually get developers because they have been fired and are much more realistic salary price-wise – that is all together probably the biggest opportunity in technology history.

What is your part in this game?

Imagine how we would have gone to the cattle market a hundred years ago and seen that perfect cow that gives milk, delivers some good babies and lots of meat you can eat. These are all the processes in the game in which I have been for over 15 years, creating companies, and through trial and error, finding those perfect cows that actually deliver (Christian and Assen – dont be offended :). And now, the technology and the people who want to buy and use it have combined in a way that suits someone like me perfectly. And that is, of course, a dream.

Is it the right time for entrepreneurs? Are they agents of change?

An agent of change for me is more somebody who is standing outside and wants to label people like me. But it is impossible to put a label on me. I am not a consultant, I am not an investor, I am not even an entrepreneur, I am many things in one.

So what are you?

I am mostly a guy facilitating a trampoline. I am the guy who dares to jump the crazy jumps on the trampoline and that people try out like a trampoline. I am facilitating a catapult. The best you can do now is to launch start-ups with good people, but you do have to have simply amazing, crazy, smart, good, cool, nice people, because these kinds of people can challenge SAP in one of their niches. But they have to be amazingly smart, hard working, into their stuff and vibrant. And they have to complement each other perfectly. Then, with added luck, it is possible.

What are the ingredients of entrepreneurial success?

Entrepreneurs are executing a vision and turning it into reality. You need a lot of skills in that process – accounting skills, sales skills, people skills, science skills, presentation skills and so on. The entrepreneur closes his eyes and lowers his hands, then uses all he has himself and reaches out to the world for the best of the competences to make it happen.

He has to be smart and trustworthy and socially strong enough to make his thing take off. How many times have you drawn your small ideas on a piece of paper for your friend but they never became reality. It is the entrepreneur who has the (mental) capital to get the idea off the piece of paper and into sales.

It is about skills, but it is also about luck, is it not?

In my world everybody knows that you have to work superhard (and be disciplined like hell). But then remember, there are global opportunities with technologies and the internet, but there is also global competition.

There will be another two hundred start-ups, some in the same market as you, so you also have to be lucky to break through or to find the right people or to chose the right strategy or to find the first client and adapt all of those things as you go along. You always have to acknowledge luck as part of your entrepreneurial success.

And sometime you fail.

That is why I am apparently so interesting. A lot of people tried what I tried, they have been categorised either as geniuses or losers. If you are one of those people in history who actually dares to talk about the fact that you failed, it seems very strange. And Ooh! If you are honest and talk about failure, that seems to be very new.

Do we need more of a failure culture?

Maybe we do have to be more realistic. So when we have an entrepreneur symposium at St. Gallen, we could also have a failure symposium because failure is much, much more likely than success if you are an entrepreneur. But you do not want to talk about it. I mean, eight out of ten seminars fail. It is very important for you to have the courage to say “I will”, “I can”, “I dare to do this”, but also “I can and dare and see that I can fail”. Then you become really strong.

But is the entrepreneur as an individual not massively overrated?

Again, you want to put a label on it, you want to categorise people. There are very few one-man brands in the world. Michael Jackson did it. (But)Everybody would acknowledge that he needed the band to create the music. In entrepreneurship, as well, you have the initial guy who starts something or who finds the team. But entrepreneurship is much more about team work and group effort.

There is a saying that true entrepreneurs are long-term oriented. But your entrepreneurial career does not reflect that in any way.

I would love to have a long-lasting business that I could keep forever (EVEBREAD = Everlasting Bread and is my dream of a such company). I would love to have this green tech company that purifies water of which I would be the proud owner forever. I think we all would love that. But with entrepreneurship you really have to remember that the entrepreneur can take the idea off a table and turn it into some kind of sales or product. The big corporations will then be so happy to buy this when it works, because they know how to make a critical thing huge. That is why they have a big corporation.

They do not believe they can be innovative at the same level, so they want to buy as soon as an entrepreneur has started. And they are much better at the managing game when you get to a certain level. So I get in quick, get out quick, it is true. Because it pretty often happens that you cannot say no if somebody wants to buy your stuff. The entrepreneurs in charge can get a lot of money, and most of the entrepreneurs, me especially, will take this money and do more of what they did before, meaning turning ideas into reality.

In your opinion, what is the best political and social context for entrepreneurship?

Put crudely, the best model for entrepreneurship in history is the model of American society, because it has created the Gates, the Carnegies and most of the biggest companies we know in a very short time. The Americans can beat anyone and every start-up because they always have the best start-ups and the most successful (financial eco-system until now). Talking about the best social model or political climate for entrepreneurship, I think we have been pretty lucky in the Scandinavian countries, but I doubt whether it is sustainable. (China and India will eat us alive :)

You have to be hungry to be a successful entrepreneur. You have to want to prove to the world, especially coming from small countries like Switzerland (and Denmark), that you can do it. The Nordic model makes people too demanding, they are not hungry any more (dinner is served for free no matter how stupid you behave). That is unfortunate, because I love to live here. Denmark is facing some real shit now. It will be very difficult to keep up all these crazy standards of social living.

Are entrepreneurs role models?

Yes, because we think that entrepreneurship is something we want (have) to do. But we forget that being an entrepreneur can mean failure. Successful entrepreneurs are role models, but seven out of ten entrepreneurs are not role models because they fail.

Interview: Johannes Berchtold

40th St. Gallen Symposium

There is something really (b2)big happening

– everything is simply moving into the browser and API’s- and there is no end to the change this will bring to the ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE business as we know it. (Know that we are all onFacebook).

Note: In my humble opinion most new SaaS products you see – is just an idea of putting an existing piece of server-side software or a client application – like Salesforce :)

SaaS

Nothing wrong with that – but its ALL ABOUT THE SOFT PROCESSES. Think of FACEBOOK as the global educator in “stream experience”. Facebook (Twitter) will make demand of change in business software: How-come you are much more updated on your remote friends weekendtrips – then you are updated  on your company and colleagues last efforts – well the answer is simple – the is NO INFORMATION STREAM in you company.

Change an Industry that has been locked down by legacy and time

First Everbread

(Im CEO)- is a VERY deep play in the basic simple idea of redoing something that is so old and important – that time has madde it look impossible to change. But with a team of 35 superbrains and a strategic leader who can really direct a vision into reality – then time and technology has really proven ready to CHANGE. Everbread is in sales dialogue and has signed deal – with all to key players in the travel industry. Why: Because its GOOD – well done – disruptive – and the new managers in the travel sector wants to use technology – not just be in a “thats how we have always done this” job. Everbread only lack the appstore play – until now – other then that its the biggest play I have even been close to understanding.

Second Tradeshift

Every government or Fortune 5000 company in the world can save min 50mio$ pr year – in one days work of setting Tradeshift up – because the long tail of suppliers – 60% are on paper (it costs 16$ for a Gov or Large Company to recieve a paper invoice (KMPG report states)) suddenly can deliver instantly digitally – with seemless integration to existing processes. And basicly no one has to spend their day opening paper invoices and/or retype PDF documents into their ERP system.

Tradeshift has 60.000 hours of code under the hood – and rocks a paradigm (EDI) in its purest form – and maybe even the fundamental idea of how to do accounting. Mr Lanng (speaking at NEXT10 about this very subject!) – the co-founder said something I wonder about nearly every day: “When I was in government – we always tried to jumped the idea of selfservice and go directly to AUTOMATING processes without user intervention.” Think about it – accounting and payment can be done automatically if you setup the right parameters and infrastructure. And the whole idea of a lot of these messages like a credit note – is just legacy – why dont we just do a collaborative draft and agree on it – then the rest is just a process that can be automated when agreed on (the hard part is security and soft processes). This is the real revolution for small business, they can start seeing their business as a network and not as a bunch of administrative processes (they run in the background).

But this doesn’t stop here, imagine that all those processes are wrapped into a cloud platform with open API’s (not like the closed EDI and bank networks of today) there is even endless amount of applications to be be build by third parties – and ecosystem that can evolve – a crowd-sourced movement of impact. OK – Im fired up – but Im pretty sure you can see that something big is coming here – off course you have to be hyper optimistic – but there is no lack of that on the team.

Third Hoist (my bizz stream)

Im not involved – but Im a fan – and its not funded – but Im pushing them a bit to take a hard-hitter CEO and then some smart Do$. Here you have a Danish startup with an amassing collaboration system. Oh shit that sounds like the 90’ies – but here is a smart piece of software that can create a STREAM for groups of coworkers. And its done in a amazingly simple and smart way / so that project and companies automatically! creates a stream by putting their – meetings, tasks, events, brainstorms in here… This is so much bigger

Both in Tradeshift and EVERBREAD something is upside down

When 2-5bio§ revenue companies cold call us or contacts us from the webform – despite our very very silent existence – you can feel winds of change – or is it just wind from the CloudService centers airconditioning? :)

MARTIN SCHAEDEL INTERNSHIP SCHOLARSHIP

When I landed in Paris 3 weeks after my bankruptcy I got a facebook message from a stranger – “your friend (my student in entrepreneurship since he was 18) has died in a plane crash pls call me”. Today is a BIG DAY – but I only got through all of this to show @Martin that I meant it when I said persistence is everything in entrepreneurship. Therefore TODAY IS DEDICATED TO the launch of MARTIN SCHAEDEL INTERNSHIP SCHOLARSHIP

UPDATE from a Bankrupt To My Dear: Fam. & Backers & Valuable Readers

(This will be my last post about bankruptcy and how it feels).

Its been a silly tough time since I realized that I had to close my newspaper 19months ago. Being insolvent and bankrupt is no real fun. Personally is has meant that I have been out of cash (as in NO credit card no nothing) – everything i controlled was taken by the government appointed lawyers.

Ive been loaded since i was 26

– when I sold Neo Ideo – with Lars, Jimmy and Thomas. But – let me tell you something. It has been a huge relief and friend$perience*. I had accumulated way to much crap (why the fuck did I have more art than I could have on my walls: wanna be artsy hip’ass) – out of desire to show the world (my mum and my high-school friends?) how smart and fast and brilliant I was. Well now you think – he has to say so. But this is true to everything I have ever done – and true I have been (mostly) :) – putting my money where my mouth was – and ALL OF IT.

REALITY ALERT: Dont even think about feeling sorry for me. I could have had a badly paid job at a restaurant and been fired – with nowhere to go!!!

After the shellshock – and some crap from a couple of people here end there (something that was a dot in the story but was filling 99% of the picture) – I can say now: I’m so happy to have seen whats supposed to be the button. The self pity vanished fast – and I just started charging for what I do (instead of being Santa Claus handing out money to every kind guy with half a good idea. I now had to get involved and charge for my time/network/ideas – (I know it sounds absolutely wacked) – but it was actually much less lonely and now I knew that no one was hanging out just because I had the biggest bag of candy. I had no candy tied to my leg – and a few guys (and girls) stopped calling :)

Note: My Mum was as ever cool: “Morten, dont worry – you got yourself into this stiff – and ofcourse you can get yourself out…” – and yes Im lucky to be born with good genes and such fine psychology.

TIPS TO GET TROUGH SHIT

1) Use your MUM – family and friends
2) Get (stay) in shape
3) Change yourself (u where probably on a wrong track)
4) Blame only yourself*
5) Reject (politely) all the people who want to share problems
6) Remember you started with nothing – so its like coming home

*Morten Nissen Nielsen and Svenn Dam (Chairman and CEO) – whom I trusted in my newspaper venture should take this medicine. I owe them everything – I love them for having me declared bankrupt – otherwise I would have been under management from banks and THEM (I offered them a seat in my board to manage this ship trough the crisis – so they could get the money that I really would have loved to give them). Now they have been blaming ME and EVERYONE around them for all kinds of crap – instead of creating value. But unfortunately I had a call with the Media Mogul number one in Denmark (Jørgen Eibøl) too late. He told me that these guys are driven by revenge and hate – and never kept one single budget in their lives. They dont even care about building value Svenn is on his second 200mioEUR burn with Dansk Bredbånd (a hopeless case) – just crash and burn and blaming everyone around him. Today they get 1mioDKR for the sad job they did at the paper – and the keep blaming EVERYONE – according the them even the official receiver is now a fool… But from my heart – I love them (“Its all about luck” – and maybe some Mental Tai Chi and a good psychologist)- and they where fucking amassing at keeping the agressivness and spirit high. And they found the most amasing journalists (and sales team and logistics team) all people I still admire (and talk to a lot) for producing a FANTASTIC PRODUCT. And if it would have been legal I would have paid them every single € i promised them – EVERY SINGLE ONE. And still today they collected 1mioDKR – whats consideren a LOTTERY WIN in Denmark.

Morten Nissen Nielsen got the special watch I give to super-talents – and I still think he can become a superstar – . I will never talk about this again – its out of my system and I love them.

Its a Rollercoaster – “faster faster”

If you have had the insane luck that I’ve been surrounded by – and consider yourself a human aggressive curious Joe from the countryside – not overly impressed with how things work. And you dare to take a shot at even the biggest structures – then I have ONE VERY IMPORTANT PIECE OF ADVICE. Be sure that the roller-coaster has a lot of speed when you go down – that might take you up faster :). I’m bullshitting – but

*friend$pirience – its UN FUCKING REAL

This is NOT AN Oscars thank you list – I just want to show how many people it takes to try to make a survival. You need quite an army of helpers and people – and since every rule and legal opinion has to be from experts – its not cheap.  And trying to raise funds to buy myself free has also been a WONDERFULL EXPERIENCE. Here is an anonymous list of favours that came in from a circle of close friends and people I nearly dont know (you all know who you are):

C: My lawyer has been unreal
D: My other lawyer – offered free advise
X: An expert lawyer I did not know came by and told me to just use him

S: has given me accounting and financial advise (despite his partners resitance)

S: got me 6months free at the gym

m: for hiring me instantly as a consultant
m: who I used in boards – helped with pocket money loan
j: old friend – just made a cash commitment if I would get a chance to buy myself out
r: showed up with pocket money at my door and a kondi vand
m: sendt me pocket money from Miami
g: whom i met 4 times – just made a cash commitment if I would get a chance to buy myself out
k: whom I met 2 times – made a bailout account in 7h when an oppertunity came
m: who’m a met 4 times – just made a cash commitment if I would get a chance to buy myself out
t: my close friend – just made a cash commitment if I would get a chance to buy myself out
m: austrian drinking buddy – just made a cash commitment if I would get a chance to buy myself out
p: who’m I never met – got me a place to work and live from

l: who bailed out the accountants to do the books for the holdings to stay alive
p: who I owe a lot of money… after today
m: who I owe a lot of money… after today
j: who I owe a lot of money… after today
visby: who I owe a lot of money… after today
m: for giving me 1000DKR without mentioning that day when my card was taken.

m: who sent me 6 bottles of wine

BMW: for transferring the car to another company and not taking everything down so that my xwife has had a car.
Henrik E. – Forstadernes Bank: who trust in me coming back one day. Thanx Henrik!

Alexander the COO of my life: (former BullGuard): Who stepped in (12 months ago) and has been my wingman and survival manager when it comes to paperwork, contracts and my new job – I cant say thank you enough.

Speaking gigs: Lots of companies and organisations have been hiring me to tell my story – and its been a good way to keep up the spirit. And who could say no to go to: Milan, Zurich, Paris, NYC, Tokyo… and talk about they ego and get everything paid for + having lots of inspirering people sending hundreds of emails… (I do have to say that the speech/show is getting GOOD and FUNNY).

As you can read out of this – all these people gave me the the chance to buy myself free via loans – but I will not be out of dept for the next 10years – mentally nor personally. I still kick my self over the small business owners who lost money from the paper and the employees who lost their jobs – the big ones (Companies and top2 management) collected together 150mio+EUR in revenue. And the VAT we paid was an insane number…

Do I regret personally

NOPE – I have more experience than ANYONE I KNOW in my age  – and I have learned a lot about friendships and see the world even more positive than before. And now my kids now the price of taking the train – and THEY LOVE IT. You could also call it the worlds most expensive MBA :)

Will I go all in again – hmm – hope not. But as one of my backers said yesterday: “Im also here next time my friend..” Im out…!

“Im so happy to have my drawing pad back.”

Here is the picture of where a real entreprenuer havev fun and feels alive – I really hope to start building for myself again soon. Not that Im not enjoying building for others and collecting a big fat consulting check….

When I fly I always –

pass out just after takeoff. Some time ago I was on a plane from Tokyo to Copenhagen to do consulting work for a VERY BIG JAPANESE GUY. I had someone very dear in my mind and I was dreaming and crying on the plane…  I’m my dream I was the main carrecter in”Californication”. A sexy lady (now my girlfriend) said ”Hey Morten, I have been thinking about it. I think you are the Hank Moody of your world…”

If you aren’t –

familiar with this TV show let me say that it is not something you would consider as an instant compliment.

Californication is about

a writer from LA with a rather complicated relationship with his life. He is drinking too much, smoking too much, fooling around too much and hurting his daughter and girlfriend all the time. He keeps ending up in strange crazy situations but for some reason he is to me a hero as he tries to be honest about his crazy choices. A heart-driven fool…

”What do you mean”,

I asked the lady a little offended, because this guy is really not a man a woman would spend more than a night with.

”Well”, she said. ”You fool around in your world, you smoke, ok, you drink, but you fall in and out of love all the time with  people , with situations, with companies and with ideas. You manage to look at the bright side of life and although you have been going through a very tough time lately I have not seen you smile and laugh so much since the day we met.
You are a Hank Moody because you try to be honest and stay in contact with yourself although you do not always know who that is for very long – neither do the rest of us.”

Ohh my God…,

I thought, it is going to be a very long flight – more than the scheduled 11 hours. But then i started to rethink…

Dear valued reader of this mental hygiene blog of mine, I am not good at writing long  well structured articles/essays. I am no good with long sentences, long relationships and keeping focus for too long. I communicate with the world through Twitter (140 carercters) and I get a lot of my info from Twitter as well. I am a super ultimate consumer of information and personal relations, words and ideas and I like to be fast, passionate and juicy about everything I do. I love to go all in – and that’s something I can prove :). I want to be a man of action and you could say short sentences. So for me to write this article/essay is overcoming a barrier and it is not a natural thing for me. Act Don’t Talk is my motto –> 2.0 Act Don’t Think or  Act Don’t Write :) …

The reason

for bringing the Hank Moody story up is because he is a kind of a guy who seems to go with the flow and no matter how much he screws up he seems honest and able to continue on the destine road of his. And in that way I have to agree with thr srxy Lady.

I have been investing in and starting up companies for more than 17 years and even though I am no more than almost 38 years old I am quite a veteran within this area. I have a pretty good, almost animalistic instinct for good people and kicking off ideas into businesses and I am willing to go very far too implement these ideas if I believe in the people behind. And then it happened last year – BANG – One of these ideas made me go personal bankrupt and it is now 14 months ago. You can read about the whole story on my here on my blogpost the-day-i-woke-up-without-arms-and-legs – its hardcore – but to me more hearthcore.

What I want to share with you

is that ever since that day I have been smiling more than ever. I am a bit afraid of telling people how I feel as they could consider me a bit loony (well I am). But I have to be honest and even though I lost more than 50 mio. euros I am more optimistic about life than ever. I feel free and although I do not own a credit card and my kids and their mother probably have to move out of the house they live in and Im inviting myself for dinners all the time I feel an unbearable lightness about life and my situation, which kind of embarrass me since I read about guys committing suicide for less money that I lost and that makes me rethink…..

Im no longer thingking about what Jet Plan to buy, it is no longer an option buying art for all the extra earnings on investments, it is no longer cool to show the size of your dick by showing up a charity shit. And I love that I don’t have to spend braintime on inventing crazy holidays just because ordinary was suddenly not good enough – no more swimming in champagne at fancy clubs. You end up killing and loosing yourself, if not literally then mentally – when the speed is too fast… To go bankrupt is probably the biggest eye opener to me  ever– it  has set me free and I do not need to hide my insecurities behind a speed, funds, material shelter of goods and staff and more and more unuseful crab. Going bankrupt has shown me more about myself than I had ever dreamt of and even better – it had shown and taught me for real – not just as a political correct cliche – that success is not earning money in itself. Success might be about understanding money as a tool to develop and changing the world. A tool to make people work and inspire  and motivate themselves and others.

Money and loss of it –

should never lead to suicide, ugly divorces, loneliness and mental loneliness. Money is like love energy and should be used and looked at the same way – with respect and mutual understanding. Money has to be reflecting the users values and personality and should be used wisely and with integrity. If you spend your money wisely and with respect and follow your gut feeling – then you might get closer to the right track i think.  It is not about the money but about the energy in it. Money is dangerous stored energy. Be honest about who you are and what you know and do not use people unless you really use them. Money is nothing – did you ever see a company build itself? Right – it’s the people, people, people.
My friend was maybe right  – Maybe I am the Hank Moody of my world – I live and breath it, and sometimes I screw up but I get back on the horse – I never give up on my dreams – and I am proud that although I have had everything and now have nothing I am happier than ever feeling more successful and on page with the soul of the world…

With EVERBREAD and Tradeshift

– taking of like space-rockets – I feel that my focus and salesman-skills channel in ONE DIRECTION and I actually add value. I see results – I feel that people around me grow and get more energized – and therefor I have a much better feeling about myself. I have tried being 100% confused about my 8-90 startups – and not into any detail. But now – that I have to perform as a CEO and Adviser – I see how much you can do with attention and focus – how many small errors I can find just from using my experiences. I’m not bullshitting you – dear highly valued reader – I LOVE IT. Off course – both project are HYPER DISRUPTIVE in their industries – and its not a boring butter cookie factory – but I love being into the details and MOVE A WHOLE TEAM and ORG forward. Its a very new and strange feeling for me – but I feel that I found my role here.

Should I ever be so lucky to get free and out of bankruptcy – I will lock myself into only doing One major thing and max 2 small side geeks.

RETHINK –

your own success parameters all you other Hank Moodys out there.. And remember Im always very liquid – I have the love of my 4 kids – that’s all that matters. Think about it … :)

Note: This essay was printed in German Focus magazine 11 months ago – and is only mildly updated.

Make it FULLSCREEN and chill:

This piece of art I have ever seen – it goes directly to my system – scary and yet an ever discover-full voyage in between your mind and your eyes.

Civilization by Marco Brambilla from CRUSH on Vimeo.

Me, Mylself, I

“I keep having this dream where I’m stuck in the bottom of a drill – I can’t jump high enough to catch the top and get up… ”

U don’t have to be clairvoyant or a numeric healer to understand that dream. For me the important part has been to cope with the fact that I’m a failure and forget about my cosmetic aware nercicistic self – AND MOVE ON. It did not take that long for the awake me and I make a small sallery and pay my bills partly from talking openly about my bankruptcy and working for EverBread where no one gives a shit. But apparently the deeper part of me is not really coping with the situation since this dream keeps comming… Its strange but maybe its also the key to entrepreneurship:

1) FIRST

You r a failure since u don’t take the NORMAL CARRIER ROUTE –

2) SECOND

when u get successful (and loaded) u r once again A VERY DIFFERENT KIND OF FISH but with self-confidence.

3) THEN FOR SOME YEARS

U learn the new lifestyle – rick – successful – kind of admired. You start talking way more then you listen (be very aware). You start being late for to many friend meeting… And You try to find out who u are – and build whatever you can with this weird self-confidence from money: – family, friendship, companies.

4) AND THEN

( if did not give up at STEP 1,2 or – became a coke head at 3 (still haven’t tried that kind of dope – it would be like reverse Woody Allen on downers). And if you really go all in to feel the kick from building something and you dont just sit on the money (or a stupid real estate portfolio). THEN IT HAPPENS -> SOME go bankrupt – and start over again. (then GO TO 1).

No Matter What Step you are at – Its About People

As always its about PEOPLE and the values inside yourself – and if u want to build a big vision or a big company u HAVE TO HAVE the ability to atrack people and talent that is way over your head – ITs CALLED SALES – sales of your vision. A term that seems to be eroded from all businesscards I have received over the last 5 years (I just checked).

No Matter What Step you are at – Its All About Sales

As an entrepreneur: Every day you have to sell your idea, your product and your self. And dont try hide behind it – with endless development or launching without called clients – following up – or even worse – A VIRAL STRATEGY and MEDIA. Call client and partners… EVERYONE AND HIS DOG.

It Takes A Lot Of Self-confidence

I had endless love in my childhood from everyone around me (parents, neighbors, teachers (even those with bad teaching skills, friends and Mentors) – and I now even have the unconditional love from my kids on top (and a incredible patient girlfriend). And that’s more I could ever dream of – so when I’m awake and have control over my brain I’m proud and happy. And I do sales and get a no every day.

BUT BUT BUT there is some unfinished business deep inside (its cosmetic – and its about some people (the first in my life) who fucked me over – and its about my personal brand and integrity) – something I haven’t been able to connect too and analyze – even though my shrink has given me a credit-line (but we mostly talk about sex anyway ).

I will keep fighting – and I feel stronger then EVER – just have to fix that dream part – Standing Stuck down that drill.

FlopStar – refers to Morten Lund to rock GeeknRolla, April 20, London

After this reboot of my business life (and personality) I have really learned many things that are obvious to others – but ofter new to entrepreneurs.

If you are an entrerprenuer you are braking new ground (even the German VCs who are copying as if the where chinese hifi producers in the 1980’ies). You are figthing so hard to get in front of the clients – to be innovative – to break trough – that it can be really hard (nearly impossible) to absorb knowledgge from your surroundings – aka listen to people with lots of knowledge . NOTE FOR NON ENTREPRENEURS: Despite what you hear – it always starts with NOTHING – only human capital (PEOPLE) and an idea. Then comes product, money, clients, cashflow…

I have realized that – being a serial entrepreneur – the thing you naturally and unfortunately forget is: TO LOOK BACK and LISTEN TO THE ELDERLY. Its clearly because most elderly will tell you: ITS NOT POSSIBLE to do what you want to do. But my lesson over the last 18months is that you have to listen. You have to force yourself to listen and suck knowledge out of people who have exspeirience in the business you are about to enter. Consider it presales. (Hard Core Entreprenuers will say: We dont give a fuck – we are groundbreaking) – but never the less try if you can.

WHY AM I POSTING ABOUT THIS

I have always tried to have people in the board who could advise me – but it has never worked – mainly because I have been an idiot who thought I knew better… But in the last year I have been very KEEN on having board members who can support and help. Now – in the bankrupt version of me – I have been operational and not an OWNER – and I have had to listen and digest and iterate. Its highly likely that my lack of self-confidence due to my circumstances (no one has felt it ;) – has been a key. I can conclude that it has been SO EFFECTIVE and I CAN REALLY RECOMMEND IT :).Find older people with heavy industry experiences and LISTEN.

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

In london Tuesday I had a chat with a travel industry veteran, this was our second chat – he is a big kahona. And he gave me an advice that I could implement INSTANTLY on our Everbread business model – and WOW it worked. Conclusion: Listen – feel your advisers – make them comfortable – and then SUCK the 20+ years of experiences into you bizz.

Two days ago I

From M: "I just spent 3 days with some pretty serious people and learned a ton. I love the internet, fuck being a farmer is hard and the rest is bullshit =) can you imagine waiting 3 years to discover if your strategy was the right one?"

An email this morning from my friend Matias – made me feel stupid.

During 2009 – I have felt some self petty and I have been thinking that life was hard – but imagine if I was into real old school business – like farming (where we all came from – and yes my grandfather has a medium sized farm until early 1970’ies). But fuck me – and all the spoiled kids in the tech world. Its hard but NOT THIS HARD – as in farming where:

• Product cycles are 3-4 years
• Weather can kill all
• Its hard physical work
• Capital requirements are insane
• Lots of heritage
• Lots of environmental trouble

I feel humble that I can work in a sector where the screen always lets me work when and where I want to – mostly with whom I want to. And the fact that 99% of all offices are nice and warm. Well then there is the hardcore sales (the big secret of tech success) – where one have to aggressively show the vision and product (even very early stage) to endless amounts of clients and investors – but but but – the always offer you coffee and they are seldom rude.

Dear tech entrepreneur og colleagues out the – let be humble and proud and happy to be here in evolution.

Happpy Neew Year.

So the cocktail party ended at 5 in the morning – and was one hell of a mingling and “friendling” session. Thanx a billion to Tommy and the amasing people Fiskebaren for sponsoring a bankrupt friend. It was a bit more then wild to get a call from Richard that he wanted to have dinner and exspected a cocktail party for the http://www.carbonwarroom.com/ people. But – who in this world would say No? Ricard and Nick (his right hand mann) told about they whole group strategy nd made lots of jokes about themselfes – and I learned some very interesting insights about Virgin – impressive story – even better then the book. It had to be very closed and small – but what a party – I think the pictures tell.I was very impressed by the 45y old major of Vancouver – who was a fantastic guy and seemed like he meant it when he talked about going green. (Off course it was also nice to get an invite for the Olympics in feb).

A term sheet arrived in my inbox

Around 2pm a very good and pro VC pinged in with a term sheet – on VERY respectable terms for one of the companies Im advising. And the phone started buzz like it had a virus – what did they mean with A, B and C – and the smiles where combined with a sting of disapointment from the evaluation. But WOW – they already have 3 term sheets. And got one more big contract Tuesday – PLUS a writer from the worlds best tech magazine did an interview on the Tuesday.

The best board meeting in my life

Today was all crazy – Everbread had its first board meeting – and the UPPER IMPRESSIVE board:

Vagn Sørensen (x CEO at Austrian Airlines)
Montie Brewer (x CEO at Air Canada)
Mr X (x Amadues)
Michael Jackson (x Skype)
+ 8 staff

Showed up at 17.00 and after rehersing and preparign for 2 weeks – Assen and I (and Filip and Ashley) walked trough the presentations like two boy-scouts at the final “start a fire without matches” test. But it went really well – and everyone got psyked when Assen pulled of the working prototype and showed result that will redefine the industry.

WOW – shitasspetfuckers adrenalin kick. And the guys from the establishment (Montie has never been in a startup before) really smiled and talked about real innovation and disruption. I cant fall down (5.36am) – it was so nice to collect a bit of the fruits from 8-9 months of hard from the INCREDIBLE techteam in Sofia/Mallorca picture updated. How can I be so lucky to be surrounded big genuine brilliant smart – and nice human beings on this level??

I didnt even mention that Flydini.com our showoff appetiser got a new design and usability total makeover at 4pm – a 200% upgrade – play with it. If you travel a lot – be carefull – its highly addictive.

UPDATE:

Twitter Flydini Q & A:

_delux

@ML how does that help me apart showing the flights? I could just use lh.com and book there as well

Answer: GOOD QUESTION! This is only a very mild teaser – and the only place where you can get results that mix LOWCOST and OLDSCHOOL Airlines. Play with it – and you will se lots of value.
PS. On LH.com you see only Lufthansa flights – but maybe you want to use Air Berlin to get to Frankfurt and then LH to Rio?

– – – – – – – –

choffmeyer
@ML No prices on flydini.com ? How come there is no return flight date ?

Answer: This is just a teaser (but I use it all the time and it gets me combinations that I cant get anywhere else (you have to be a bit geeky to really get the value). We will not do a consumer solution with return, pricing and availabilty for now. We are B2B – and a still bit secretive. Sorry – I know it like eating candy with the paper on.

The best part

During the 5h board meeting the kids came over and wanted to sleep here – and behaved like angels – went to bed without trouble and where just soo cute. I will head up to them and get 1h sleep.

I love my life. LOVE IT. Copy Paste ;)

Here is one of the few interwieves I have ever given – where i felt I had something to say:
(it here in Danish) – thanx to Ari Gold Wegther from translating.

Dont Over-strategize

Morten, it was your engagement in the Nyhedsavisen venture that made you famous to the general public in Denmark. So let me start by asking which digital branches you have worked in?

Hmm… this is going to be a long article. After my agency days at Neo Ideo, where we worked with all sorts of digital clients since the birth of the Internet, I’ve invested in all directions. From  Browsers, Guleroden.dk and VindENHund to Kazaa, Skype, Zyb and Bullguard to Online Backgammon, iJoule and Trivop. You could say that I’ve tasted everything on the menu.



Which role did you have in these projects?
Usually, I’ve been co-founder and involved in the development of the fundamental idea, sourced the management who could drive the project and secured financing. I haven’t been particularly hands-on operationally.

The theme of this edition of MARKET is Digital Strategies. How do you work digitally on a strategic level with different companies?
I’m not especially talented nor have I studied classic strategy at Harvard. For me, the key issue is to crystallize collective ideas to collective action points aimed at the biggest possible chance of success while following the business vision. So my core strength has been my ability to create strategic value, you could say, as measured by revenue and cash flow only.

What are the most common and serious strategic hurdles for companies that want to create an online business? I’m not sure I know what strategy actually means. In my view, it’s simply about aligning vision and execution, since everything in my universe is about sales – everything. I have a presentation entitled: ”Don’t overstrategize.” I really believe that is crucial. Many, especially large organizations, invite me to their strategy sessions. Usually, there are big white boards and heaps of candy on the table with an implicit demand that A STRATEGY MUST BE BANGED OUT AT ALL COST HERE AND NOW. That’s pretty hard to achieve in such a mad rush.



Are there strategies that you have experienced as particularly strong across different industries? Keeping it simple – that seems to apply frequently. I’ve noticed that a winning formula can be the combination of simplicity, an easily digestible message, uniqueness with a twist of rebellion mixed together with radical transparency. Especially because the Web is more ruthless and transparent than anything else we’ve seen historically.


Now when we dig in to specific industries, which strategies you applied have been really successful? I’m hitting a dead-end on this one. Sorry to disappoint you, but after having founded and funded more than eighty-eight companies, I don’t think that there is just one cookie-cutter solution or strategy that works for all.

Strategy is typically a flexible concept. In your opinion, how do you get the most from strategic work process? I’m thinking here of development and implementation respectively. You need to go back to basics and apply simplicity and honesty all the time. Employees and customers should be able to grasp your company strategy in two sentences, while they are interrupted by an SMS, email or tweet, for example, or before they drown in the pompous and patronizing propaganda that strategies often end up being. Personally, I had my most important strategy experiences, or lack of it, this year:

1) with Richard Branson, who asked me for advice when considering to enter Formula One racing. Of course he didn’t ask me because he thought I knew anything about that business in particular. Branson was just testing a gut-feeling that he had and soon afterwards acquired the Honda team based on common sense and maximum leverage of the Virgin brand. And most importantly, he made a swift and definitive call. No mucking around with twenty-five McKinsey guys running around doing SWOT analyses and plodding through a tediously slow, handicapped strategy process.

2) I’ve been fortunate enough to spend some time with Puma’s CEO, who came to the job 16  years ago with revenues at €200 million euros back then. Today, after having been at the helm during all these years, he has lead the business to €3.5 billion in annual revenues. Puma’s strategy has been quite simple: bone-hard work and focus on shifting from sport to fashion. Easy to grasp for everyone around him.

3) In Germany, Bionade started from scratch and created a new category of organic soft drinks that did not exist before. Peter, their CEO, shared their remarkable company history with me over a couple of buckets of red wine. Bionade’s evolution was not a properly planned strategy at all. In fact, the plan was rooted in the acute realization that their family brewery would not survive the global beer battles and consolidations. So the new business direction was an alternative to being acquired or bankrupted by the beer industry’s major players. Twenty years of innovation and development were kick-started by this difficult yet fortuitous fact. Fortunately, the family matriarch, who owned the brewery, gave her sons a free hand to experiment with 100 per cent organic brewing of strange and deliciously flavored soft drinks.

So, basically, this was a crisis-driven process, rather than the result of careful strategic planning. Dr. Oetker announced in December that it is taking a majority stake in Bionade and will provide six-hundred sales people along with their beer distribution channel in support of the company. As a direct result, they are poised to break the 200 million units-per-year ceiling. Is that strategy or just pride and consistency?

”The public wants to be seduced: millions of Danes play lotto daily, even though statistically speaking it is completely idiotic.”

Morten Lund

It’s ten years ago that the so-called Dot.com bubble burst. What’s your take on changes in the e-commerce landscape and on doing business online since those days?

Nothing much has changed, except that the Web has proven that it can generate real money now. For example, JustEat earns DKK 20–25 million selling pizza in Denmark alone this year. But it does fluctuate. We’ve had a global bubble in the meantime, which just burst and left a global mess, and we’re probably going through another bubble during these recent months.
    
The public wants to be seduced: millions of Danes play lotto daily, even though statistically speaking it is completely idiotic. The winner appears on TV, but if you showed the scores of losers, it would take a year of non-stop broadcasting to parade all of them on the screen before finding a winner. TV will remain forever popular and Lotto will become illegal. It’s not hard to draw parallels for the Dot.com or stock markets. All Roskilde bank clients loved that bank, even though nobody know what the hell was going on inside. Now the situation is reversed, because people discovered that stock markets are a lot like Lotto. Any deviation from the interbank-rate can quickly result in massive financial losses, even to the point of losing your shirt entirely. Same for the Dot.com arena, where some very talented – and lucky –  people made enormously successful companies that bled money yet appeared to be perfect strategic fits for established  corporations. The hysteria was self-perpetuating: at some point, Framfab was worth more than Ericsson and AOL duped Time Warner into a merger – the cat was in the bag. On the other hand, some blue chips were clever enough to buy pre-revenue companies and turn them into fantastic businesses. 
    
That’s just how it is in times of upheaval. Dot.com is something people can understand now and there is clearly money to be made in this space. That was not the case back when investors blindly jumped on the gravy-train, lured by greedy aspirations, tons of hype and the adventure of the unknown. It’s true that a few exceptions confirm the rule. Like Google, for example, which didn’t have a revenue model for several years after it launched. Call it strategy or opportunism. Was it a mistake that Brin and Page embarked on a venture without really knowing how they would make money? They took enormous risks and tested boundaries to the very limits of their investors’ pain threshold. Now that is called Venture – the definition of real Risk Capital.

I’ve lived in the Venture Capital world since I pinched an edition of Denmark leading financial paper, Børsen, on my own newspaper route and hungrily consumed every article about Michael Mathiesen and a few other real pirates and risk-takers who created new companies and business models in the late-eighties and early-nineties. The rationale behind this is not the worth of each individual business (investment), but the sum total of ten high-risk investments yielding one or two big winners that profitably pay for those firms that are bound to fail. Although this might sounds totally crazy, especially when coming from a fringe-lunatic like me who just lost everything on one supersized investment and admittedly cannot make a proper return on a range of smaller ventures, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this concept. But it’s difficult at this junction in time to see the bigger picture. When even blue-chips like Maersk hit rock bottom, all those ridiculous cliches such as due diligence and prudence that that company has fostered sound pretty empty… is there anything left to believe in?

If we fast forward ten years, which successful business trends do you imagine the future holds? Software and technology double in performance capacity each year. I believe we’ll start seeing things that we can hardly imagine today. The core fabric will be a Twitteresque integration that allows us to measure everything and twitter in small nerdy groups about our main interests. Business models? Don’t ask me. Twitter and Spotify, both investment opportunities I missed when burning cash on my newspaper fiasco, are great examples. They don’t make a dime yet they’re growing massively in size and scope. These types of shops are changing the way we do stuff. Chris Andersen, the author of Free, was just in Denmark, and the cover title of his new book exactly illustrates what the Internet is really about.

What’s your experience with creating a business by giving something away for free?
Skype started as freeware and today generates USD750 million dollars. When something is new and disruptive it has the power to revolutionize consumer behavior, so its pretty smart to start by giving it away free. Consider it as a kind of sampler or teaser, if you will, that people gradually adopt in their daily lives until it becomes essential to them – at which point you need to be ready to deploy your payment model.



What should be free and what shouldn’t? No idea. But be very careful to avoid giving your stuff for free when you could have charged for it. Bits and bytes have the advantage of being cheap to duplicated and transport without any material degradation of quality.

Do you believe that it’s possible to earn money in the long term on something that ultimately can be digitalized?
Yes. But the innovation does not only come from the ability to digitalize things. We now have social software that makes good sense. Not just an ERP-system located in the cloud, but social online applications created beyond the cloud. Of course, that is monetizable, just look at online-dating.

A buzz word heard a lot in Internet business discussions is “affiliate”. How do you interpret this concept?
It’s genius. But just like black market money changers and side street brokers, among whom I’m sure there are some decent characters, affiliates are a mixed batch. You really need to define your performance metrics before you buy any traffic from affiliate vendors. Most of them cannot measure conversion rates or the performance impact you need to know. Also, marketing managers typically believe that they are artists and would rather stroke their Pantone color charts than a complex excel sheet. And they end up losing out. When everything is possible, it’s always the metrics masters who come out on top.

Can you imagine that the ability to create and optimize affiliate partners becomes a competition parameter in itself and therefore a future differentiation factor? Affiliate, SEO, AdWords, partnerships and content-driven attention are obviously the way forward. When you acquire a user, by which I mean a potential customer, for free through a search engine, you’ve achieved your goal and you think you’re fat and happy. But if you don’t know what you want from that user then she/he is just eats up your server capacity and it doesn’t matter that they were delivered right to your business’ doorstep. Measurement and performance metrics are the absolute key to online success. Creativity is cheap. Creativity is a commodity that can be bought anywhere.



It is fair to say that the proliferation of digital possibilities is about to drastically change all types of business. Which segments are most threatened, according to you, and what can they do against it?
Sure, I believe there are some traditional industries that are threatened by this development. That’s inevitable. So let’s use the glass is half full/half empty analogy here: Digitalization is both a massive opportunity and a huge challenge (read danger). However, in many industries, we’ve seen the incumbents and established players beat out the smaller companies. Case in point: TDC has swallowed ALL ISPs in Denmark over the years.



Finally, any advice on what to look out for in the near future? I’m laser focused on enterprise cloud software and search. You know, I don’t have time any more to tool around with a whole bunch of wacky consumer apps, like I did when I was loaded with bling. Besides, I don’t feel like a successful person who is in a position to recommend anything to anyone. It’s time to call my lawyers and hear how my personal bankruptcy proceedings are going!

Question

1. moritzde

   @ML Morten, you asked for questions: why isn’t there a secondary market for medicin & medical tools, e.g. splints? let’s create one! r u in? about 11 hours ago from web in reply to ML

ANSWER:

Im not into it. But I have been helping a guy who is selling non prescription medicine and devices in retail – and there are big opportunities until you u get on the radar of the BIG KAHUNA’s.

1. ronnierocket

   @ML How do we get our customers to embrace open source and social media technologies more quickly? How do we eliminate the ignorance? about 13 hours ago from CoTweet in reply to ML

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ANSWER:

I think open-source is a given way for the future of very big and complex software solutions (not to be stuck with IBM, CSC or whomever) – and end-users should not even know about it. For me it’s just a simple and smart way to have something open ended – AND ITS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THAT when in function as a service  – its closed and not accesible (took me looong time to really get it). But Hartvig’s UMBRACHO thought me. I don’t see feel any ignorence – in my world. But I understand your worry..

1. jacek_kozera

   @ML are u still around in paris? How about à downtown Beer? about 13 hours ago from Twitterrific in reply to ML

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ANSWER:

Great idea. Im at my hotel.

1. JackOelkers

   @ML Not started yet ;o) I would like to build a company though. With a foundation of a good idea, lots of passion and the “six human needs”. about 13 hours ago from web in reply to ML

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ANSWER:

Nike cornered it: Just Do It..

1. Brandesme

   @ML Could you explain that a bit more? about 14 hours ago from Tweetie in reply to ML

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ANSWER:

I tweeted: Important question for entreprenuers to ask themselfs: are u building a company – or just building company (around u). Well – I just see quite somestartups with no substance beyond a bunh of people hanging out together – they are just building a live social-club, hangoutplace. And they are not selling, producing or working hard/focused enough. .

1. Thom_Fischer

   @ML You want more Questions? So, how successfull you are in the Meantime, using the f-word? about 14 hours ago from web in reply to ML

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ANSWER:

Well that word is not very strong to me. Im not english native speaking and not highly religious – and to me the f-word is just representing something most people I know love to do and think about more then 10% of theyre awaken hours… :)

1. luduong

   RT @ML: Please ask me more questions…@ML: Do you find yourself more “hungry” this time around? about 14 hours ago from TweetDeck

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ANSWER:

Good question!! The answer is

YES – very!

1. SoerenS

   @ML They’re (we’re) all competitors mate, trying to figure out what you come up with next! Prepare to get paranoid :-) about 15 hours ago from TwitterGadget in reply to ML

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ANSWER:

Its not about whats next – its a flow of actions – and some works and some fails. I will alwayshelp people to build companies. Now compensation is in honor and petty cash – when Im out of bankruptcy it will be in shares. (Or compbined)

1. emmanurom

   @ML Are you rich again? about 15 hours ago from web in reply to ML

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ANSWER:

No. Im living from day to day working my ass off (in fantastic job) – begging everyone I know to lend me money to get out of my bankrupcy. And Im getting closer.

1. Dejgaard

   @ML Mac or PC ? about 15 hours ago from Chromed Bird

ANSWER:

MAC ! Im moved 2 years ago and I still impressed just by the lack of bluescreen.

PREMISE for this note:

I have not been too focused on all the tech news in the  – ever – but the lack of exits compared to the number of startups and MONEY spent scares me a bit. And since I went bankrupt in January – I have had a 1000% focus on making money and do it FAST (without rushing into stupid stuff). It’s been healthy and actually really interesting. Since, while I had lots of cash – I got sloppy and sprayed my money (AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: Time) into too many things – and to much consumer stuff. It’s focus time…

Reality shapes Philosophy

So it’s been so cool and fun to be Santa Clause since I was 27y (and sold Neo Ideo) – arriving to meetings with a loaded bank account and an untamed lust to help small start-ups. PLUS I have had an extreme self confidence in building disrupting and revenue free consumer applications (Skype) and websites (Zyb and more) – since thats simply what I have done until now – risky risky. I was lucky. But if you are in that game – you need more then luck – you also need to be with fantastic people and have the right timing… (Well that’s what I talk about weekly in my speaking geeks). But let me confess – it’s too hard and the most ones are to small to do it when you are bankrupts and on the way up or lets say back…

“The Core of all enterprise IT – is going to be mesenging”

– George from Charles River they did Twitter and now Jammer

WTF @ML are you going B2B

Well – yes – enterprise it is. There are numbers of studies showing that people who go bankrupt – often make it back faster then they made their first money – and YES ITS ABOUT MONEY. Money as in: The greens you pay your rent, food and kids winter boots with.

And HTF does it work when you are bankrupt

Well its pretty simple. I own NOTHING and I cant own ANYTHING. Easy peicy. But I can take consulting jobs and speaking geeks (everything with travel and consumtion paid upfront) – and then rent a house (try to keep my xwife and the kids in the old house by paying the bills I can afford until the bank claims it) – take (lots of) loans from friends who believes in me – and then let the crisis be my best friend (when BMW don’t even want the leased car back – because their CTO believes I will be back soon). And here I am. Working extremely focused to first of all get my self confidence back (or get a real one – an updated self confidence from producing and not only placing bets – not living in the 90’ies and a noveu rich hippies – who felt stupid that he missed the 70’ies – in a yuppie world). So I live day to day – and wait to see what “they will take tomorrow” – or what some asshole will try to steal… But hey – it’s just reality – just money – and I’ve seen friends stand up and take care of me – like I took care of some of them once. AND I have more time for the kids.

This means I have to focus on building value and making MONEY. Focus on putting my time into a TECHNOLOGY company (no newspapers or landmine detection stuff) where I can use my skills – motivate, product develope, raise capital and SELL. (Remember: Revenue comes from SALES – product over the counter in exchange for CASH). And do it with my full integrity and since my only fuel is passion (absolutely not IQ) – I had to identify companies that would have the best people and the best ideas and the biggest market – AND THE FASTEST chance of making it BIG. And here it comes – very surprising to myself: Its B2B guys. Not some hyper risky role-game for Twitter or some other hot sexy thing like Spotify – loosing gazillions a day with a stiff smile and tons of users. It simply takes to much risk for me NOW. (And yes it’s one big fat contradiction of myself). But Im involved with 2 companies in the B2B space – still shitass cool technology and bizz models (AND YES I STILL WANT TO BE A PIRATE AND MAKE BIG STUFF) – and it just feels so much more likely to happen – therefor that’s what I’m doing. Running after 10-30mioEUR revenue first year of operation and a healthy scalable company – surrounded by the very best people and CLIENTS!!!

Sorry if I’m not motivating

To all of you dear valued consumer startups following me – don’t give up – it’s just a period (might be 4-5 years) – but I really pray for you and hope that I’m not killing dreams with this post. (Just hate to think about how many Facebook games and iPhone apps out there – who are burning – and only burning CASH).

Inspiration

I find good inspiration in Saul Klein (I was NOT impressed with him at Skype) – but this is a FANTASTIC ARTICLE – I follow many good twitter people – I leverage twitter to the max – and actually helped 3 upper smart guys to build the company via my RECRUIT TWEETS. And I once in a while read David’s article: Overnight success takes years and get reminded of 1996 when he was working for us batch scanning pictures – crazy kid (SUPERSTAR). And then I must admit – I get more calls from the Business Angels “who knows I will be back” (they think). VC’s then ever – and that feels nice – that the guys with the oil – still finds my ability to burn and heath worth throwing money after.

Sorry I haven’t posted for a while – focus you know – and today instead of getting hammered it got: rid of these thoughts.

PS. Cant wait to tell you more about my stealth stuff. But let me unveil – its about search and real time.

Pps. Whatch this Video and keep on until you get what they are talking about – ITS THE FUTURE. And the MS guys is fucking brilliant.

UPDATE:

I forgot to underline that Im so focued that I dont do new deals – so please dont sendt things to me (it’s hard for a deal addict) – and they havent made any pasters or chewinggum for that yet.