In recent years Berlin has become known as the Startup-Mecca of Germany. Entrepreneurs and VC’s, local and foreign, flock to the city and as a result we’ve witnessed the birth of an already impressive, but steadily growing entrepreneurial ecosystem. After only one previous event, we’re proud to say that Startup Camp Berlin has already made a name for itself as a not-for-profit event that successfully captures the entrepreneurial spirit of Berlin and brings together some the most renowned thinkers and doers of Germany and beyond. The organization of the camp is in full throttle, so more info is soon to come. For now we’re happy to announce that

Startup Camp Berlin 2012 will take place on 16-17 March at the Mediadesign Hochschule in Kreuzberg.

Entrepreneurs Club Berlin e.V. and media.net berlinbrandenburg are excited to once again co-host the conference. Lessons learned in 2011 have led to an improved format:

• Friday, 16 March will be a full conference day with a focus on more experienced entrepreneurs.
• Saturday, 17 March will be dedicated to up-and-coming entrepreneurs.
• Those of you who deserve to go, but have little to give can apply for a scholarship.

Ticketshop:

Tickets are once again available via amiando:

Presentations and workshops:

The SCB12 has an awesome program in stall for you, among others covering the must-have topics:

• Law (contracts, term sheets, investments)
• Funding, Taxes
• Online marketing:
  • Affiliate marketing
  • SEO, SEM
  • Mobile marketing
  • Social media marketing (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Monitoring)
  • PR for Startups
• Best leadership practices (e.g. agile management, design thinking, recruiting)
• Software developement:
  • Offshoring und nearshoring
  • Software frameworks (e.g. Magento)
  • Agile development methods (Scrum).

To tackle German‘s fear of failure, that still stands in contrast to the successful startup mentality of the U.S., we’re bringing you a special track dedicated to failing.

Organisation & input by you:

Startup Camp is a not-for-profit initiative that depends on the help of a few remarkable volunteers. If you’re keen on contributing to our 10-person team we’d be happy to welcome you aboard. There’s much to do:

• Blog
• Facebook, Twitter
• Helping hands at and after the event
• You name it.

We’re also always happy to receive hints or introductions regarding sponsoring, workshops and awesome speakers.

Stay up to date:

Join the newsletter, RSS-Feed or follow us on twitter @ecbln.

Sponsoring:

Startup Camp offers a great way for companies and individuals to give back, make interesting contacts, promote themselves and much more. Seize the opportunity and contact Sascha Schubert (schubert[at] entrepreneursclub [dot] de) or Stefan Wolpers (wolpers[at] entrepreneursclub [dot] de) for more info. (Translation by Wilken Bruns and Andree Huk)

Posted via email from Stefan Wolpers | On what’s keeping me busy | Comment »

Great video by Michael Jordan and Nike on success. And all the work that’s needed to deliver, despite all the talent you might have got. And how failure drives you. 62 seconds everyone in the startup community should watch:

Posted via email from Stefan Wolpers | On what’s keeping me busy | Comment »

Steve Jobs on life, death and goals – nothing more to add:

Posted via email from Stefan Wolpers | On what’s keeping me busy | Comment »

An excellent presentation by Sarah Prevette, the founder of Sprouter.com, an online platform facilitating knowledge exchange between startups and business leaders. The deck summarizes all the experiences I made myself: from the excitement in the beginning, the frustration that is inevitably, the risk of falling in love with the solution and not the problem, the cash problems etc. etc. My favorite slide is number 14 of 23: “BTW: a customer is Someone who gives you money.” - enjoy:

Posted via email from Stefan Wolpers | On what’s keeping me busy | Comment »

Good video with Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn on his Entrepreneurship Rules of Thumb. The video was shot at the Entrepreneur Thought Leader Lecture given at Stanford University Reid’s rules of thumb include:

• Disruptive change, go for a significant, high impact
• Aim high for the big gain, a global impact
• Build a network around the company for intelligence, resources etc.
• Plan for good as well as bad luck: rise to the occasion, find opportunities, have a plan B and plan C (if is’s not working at all)
• Maintain flexible persistence: balance “having a vision” vs. “listen to customers, be adaptive”
• Rules of thumb are notrules of physics.

Posted via email from Stefan Wolpers | On what’s keeping me busy | Comment »

If you happen to be in Berlin on September 9th, 2011, don’t miss the breakfast with Jerry Colonna at the ECB-Breakfast event of the Entrepreneurs Club Berlin e.V. – Berlin’s tech startup-scene network. Jerry Colonna is one of the best-known venture capitalists from the USA. He partnered back in 1996 with Fred Wilson and founded Flatiron Partners, that became invested in companies like comScore Networks, Geocities, New York Times Digital, PlanetOut, Return Path, Standard Media International or Starmedia. Today, Jerry is working as a life coach, among others for portfolio companies of Union Square Ventures. Besides the breakfast-event at ECB, Jerry will on September 10th, 2011 also have his workshop Disappearing Into The Fire: Surviving the Startup Life that Fred Wilson has commented on: “One of my all time favorite blog posts about entrepreneurship is the Disappearing Into The Fire post written by my former partner Jerry Colonna. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and go read it. Jerry has been a highly successful VC, then disappeared into the fire himself, and emerged as a fantastic CEO coach who I recommend so much he can’t take any more clients right now. So he’s responding to that problem by cloning himself. Well actually not quite. Jerry is starting to do workshops so he can help more entrepreneurs and CEOs.” Jerry blogs on The Monster in Your Head and twitters via @JerryColonna. Now, Jerry will on

talk about the potential of Berlin-based startups to get funding from US investors:

. The event will take place at Frannz Club inBerlin, Schönhauser Allee 36.

Registration

Registration fee is between 12 € (Early Bird) and 20 € (Late Bird) incl. VAT and transaction costs:

Posted via email from Stefan Wolpers | On what’s keeping me busy | Comment »

Did Google yesterday present its long-awaited Facebook contender? Admittedly, the last two years haven’t been kind to Google; Facebook seems to have gained the lead in the competition:

• Facebook now absorbs more and more time of normal Internet users at the expense of Google and other services
• At the same time, Google’s own ambitious (social) projects like Buzz or Orkut lack the critical mass
• Facebook’s share of display advertising increases steadily
• The cooperation between Microsoft and Facebook starts bearing fruit, particularly when it comes to Bing’s social search
• The ever increasing presense of Facebook’s social widgets and its Open Graph API has become a major threat to Google’s business model as Facebook can target significantly more precise now (tip: watch the videos of the European HACK Facebook tour)
• Latest battle-ground: location, places & daily deals. Local online marketing is–with regard to the failed Groupon take-over and its mobile strategy (➞Android)–an essential part of Google’s future positioning
• Facebook Credits have become an accepted virtual currency, at least for digital goods and social gaming.

And now Google+: not another social network, but a social communication layer to Google services, that shares a lot of the look & feel with Facebook, e.g. design elements, notifications or a news stream to share location, photos, links or videos. Google+ focusses on the targeted sharing of information, thus compensating partly Facebook’s advantage of having access to profile and relationship information:

• Circles: groups of friends, easy to set-up and administer
• Hangouts: a group-chat with up to 10 participants
• Sparks: an algorithm for recommendations and content – probably an early version of Eric Schmidt’s serendipity engine.

Will Google+ suffice to compete with Facebook? Doubtful in my eyes, or as Fast Company put: Just a splash, not a wave. What is your opinion? Related posts:

• Google: Introducing the Google+ project: Real-life sharing, rethought for the web
• Techcrunch: Google+ Project: It’s Social, It’s Bold, It’s Fun, And It Looks Good — Now For The Hard Part
• Search Engineland: Google’s Facebook Competitor, The Google+ Social Network, Finally Arrives
• Wired: Inside Google+ — How the Search Giant Plans to Go Social
• Gigaom: Why Google+ won’t hurt Facebook, but Skype will hate it
• ReadWriteWeb: Google Circles, Google’s Radical New Social Network, Launches Today

Posted via email from Stefan Wolpers | On what’s keeping me busy | Comment »

Tom Crampton, Asia-Pacific director of 360 Digital Influence for Ogilvy, has provided a comprehensive infographic with benchmarks for choosing vendors of F-Commerce software solutions: For classification reasons, Thomas Crampton has picked the following categories:

• Pricing Model
• Availibility ON and OFF Facebook
• Target Market: Small Business
• Target Market: Large Business
• Availability of Apps
• Store Analytics.

The infographic covers the following f-Commerce software vendors:

• 8th Bridge
• North Social
• Shop Igniter
• Payvment
• zibaba
• Usablenet
• Moontoast
• milyoni.

The recently covered, Berlin-based F-commerce software provider Ondango is not yet listed – I keep my fingers crossed… :)

Posted via email from Stefan Wolpers | On what’s keeping me busy | Comment »

Posted via email from Stefan Wolpers | On what’s keeping me busy | Comment »

We were very pleased to have Eric Wahlforss and Alex Ljung of Soundcloud as speakers at the Startup Camp Berlin 2011. We also asked them to give an interview, and here we go:

Eric Wahlforss & Alex Ljung, Soundcloud, Startup Camp Berlin 2011 from Entrepreneurs Club Berlin e.V. on Vimeo.

Posted via email from Stefan Wolpers | On what’s keeping me busy | Comment »