Stefan Wolpers | On what's keeping me busy

Startup Camp Berlin 2012 – 16. and 17. March 2012

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:46:20 +0100

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:

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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)

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Michael Jordan: Maybe it's my fault, or maybe you're just making excuses.

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:20:45 +0100

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:

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Steve Jobs Stanford Graduation Speech 2005

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:21:51 +0200

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

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Your First Startup – By Sarah Prevette

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 16:46:27 +0200

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:

Your First Startup

View more presentations from Sarah Prevette

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Reid Hoffman: Entrepreneurship Rules of Thumb

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 21:11:31 +0200

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.

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Jerry Colonna in Berlin on September, 29th: "Berlin Entrepreneurs Raising Capital from US Investors"

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:02:51 +0200

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

September 9th, 2011 starting at 9 a.m.

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

The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: Berlin Entrepreneurs Raising Capital 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:

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Google+ – Finally, The Long-Awaited “Facebook-Killer”?

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:20:42 +0200

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:

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Infographic with Benchmarks: How to choose An F-Commerce Software Vendor?

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:18:07 +0200

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… :)

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ifttt – Or: If This Then That – Personal Producitvity And Love At First Site

Wed, 25 May 2011 20:12:06 +0200

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Meet Eric Wahlforss & Alex Ljung at Startup Camp Berlin 2011 [Video]

Mon, 23 May 2011 11:21:00 +0200

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.

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Amazon.com: The Hidden Empire by faberNovel

Wed, 18 May 2011 16:02:27 +0200

Great presentation by Paris-based innovation agency faberNovel, that reveals how amazons’ digital engines work to reshape and dominate retail in the future. Let’s be honest, amazon is by now the most profilic logistics company worldwide when it comes to selling & shipping B2C goods to customers. You need a washing machine? amazon will deliver and install within 24-48 hours – that is the performance any other competitor has to beat. Price has become just one decision criteria among several others:

Amazon.com: the Hidden Empire

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Social Shopping on Facebook - Ondango Online-Shop Solution

Fri, 06 May 2011 11:53:50 +0200

Slides by José Matías del Pino. José is the founder of Ondango – a maker of an online-shop system for Facebook pages. He is responsible for strategie, marketing and business development and presented Ondango’s solution at the last Twittwoch, Berlin’s monthly social media marketing event by and for enterprises:

Ondango - F-Commerce - FacebookCommerce - 20. Twittwoch Berlin

View more presentations from Twittwoch e.V.

If you’re interested in getting deeper into NFO or newsfeed optimization and EdgeRank, Facebook SEO so to speak, you will like the slides ## 27 to 30. The formula looks nice, too: Copyright: Facebook.

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F*ck You. Pay Me. Mike Monteiro On Basic Principles Of Working With Clients

Sun, 01 May 2011 22:05:26 +0200

Good tips by Mike Monteiro–Design Director, and co-founder of Mule Design Studio: What ever you are doing, agree on the terms of the collaboration in advance:

What are we doing here?
How do we define success?
How do we measure success?
What happens if we succeed?
What happens if we don’t succeed?
How do we split up on good terms?

Why? That’s a low-brainer: Don’t let yourself be fooled by the good mood in the beginning–it won’t last. As soon as reality kicks in, terms need to be predefined or otherwise you won’t be able to negotiate fair–not to mention favorable–terms for you:

2011/03 Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me. from SanFrancisco/CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

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Best Practice Guide: Marketing on Facebook

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 18:46:41 +0200

Facebook published a best practice guide to marketing, covering all relevant areas of addressing fans and customers alike. The guide comprises of information on the following topics:

The Facebook ecosystem
Five guiding principles
- Build a strategy that is social by design
- Create an authentic brand voice
- Make it interactive
- Burture your relationships
- Keep learning
Facebook by objective
- Foster product developmentand innovation
- Generate awareness
- Drive preference and differentiation
- Increase trafc and sales
- Build loyalty and deepen relationships
- Amplify recommendationand word of mouth
- Gain insights
Helpful Facebook Resources

Face Book Best Practice Guide

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iOS 4 On iPhone and 3G iPad Stores Location Data In An Unencrypted File

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:20:31 +0200

The news that iOS 4 might trace (some) user movements to make information on the all important “Where am I”-question more reliable and more precise spread already upon the introduction of iOS 4 last June, when Apple changed the Term of Service.

However, since yesterday we know that Apple is storing this location information in an unencrypted file that is also synced via iTunes, e.g. stored back from the back-up file to new iOS device.

Pete Warden wrote an open source application for Mac OSX called “iPhone Tracker” users that allows to visualize the stored information in that file; see my movements for the last six weeks as recorded by my iPhone:

While I believe that there are numerous applications–particularly in the geo-fencing field–that need more accurate location information to provide a better service, I do also believe that this information needs to be provided voluntarily by asking for my permission in advance. This is in serious privacy matter and there is a good reason that any other entity needs to obtain a court ruling prior to gathering this information.

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Is Gamification for all Startups as a Business-Model/Concept Relevant?

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:41:48 +0200

Amy Kim–the CEO of ShuffleBrain.com–made a great presentation on the principles of gamification: “Beyond Gamification: 7 Core Concepts for Creating Compelling Products” where she covers seven general principals for creating great products that customer actually like to use:

Know your players: design for their personal & social needs
Build fun/pleasure/satisfaction into your core activity loop
Design for 3 key stages of your player lifecycle
Build a system that’s easy to learn and hard to master
Use game mechanics to “light the way” towards mastery
As players progress, increase the challenge & complexity
Embrace intrinsic motivators like power, autonomy & belonging.

Excellent read for everybody who is into product design or product management, concepts, start-ups, business-models:

Beyond Gamification: 7 Core Concepts for Creating Compelling Products

View more presentations from Amy Kim

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Facebook Commerce – Just Another Buzzword for Investors or on the Verge of Taking Off?

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 17:44:21 +0200

Facebook Commerce, f-commerce, Social Shopping – selling on Facebook comes in a lot of different forms & sizes. Question is: Is it just another buzz word, driving the funding of new startups? Or is there a real opportunity, estimated by AllFacebook to be worth around $1.2 billion in 2011? Sometimes, Facebook integration into online-stores merely means adding a Like-button to category pages or product pages – although we know by now that “social media marketing” is communication with customers, not just squeezing a bit of code into a template. Sometimes, social shopping means adding a tab to a fanpage that lists the “Facebook version” of an online-store, often just an iFrame of a different template, collecting interest of prospective customers on the fanpage and leading it from Facebook to the web-store. Last, but not least, the Facebook application that utilizes advanced technologies such as Facebook’s social plug-ins, Facebook log-in or Facebook registration, based on the Open Graph API. There are just a few examples around where the online-shopping experience is driven beyond the ordinary matching of supply & demand in today’s logistics driven e-commerce style. Whether Facebook commerce will further social discovery, serendipity or: bringing back the joy to online-shopping remains to be seen. I am still not fully convinced that people will go to Facebook to simply shop. That is easier done outside of Facebook–at least at the moment. More interesting is the question, how trends at the horizon may change the current shopping habits in the near future, trends such as:

Social commerce, the missing link between the convenience, easy access and deals of e-commerce, and the inherently social experience of real life shoppin in online retail, is reaching maturity.
Facebook will have a major role to to play in the development of social commerce (including the virtual/digital goods market).
Brands and retailers who simply use social media as an additional e-commerce channel, without offering social (shareable) value, will stumble and fail. Successful social commerce starts with delivering customer value using social technology – not with sales.
Social commerce is a component of your CRM program, not a sales channel.
Social commerce is as much about deploying social technology in-store as it is in web-stores or Facebook.
We will see the emergence of the “social shopping cart” – a cart connected to your social graph, and a store personalised based on likes and recommendations.
We will see the emergence of social loyalty programs, where customers are rewarded for sharing their data with retailers, and are rewarded for social (inter)actions with friends. ’Rewards for social actions’ will drive this trend.
The Euro became the Single Currency for Europe, Facebook Credits is set to become the single currency for the social Web.

[Aggregated by Caroline Perry and published by Paul Marsden on Social Commerce Today on March, 31st, 2011] Should you be in Berlin on April 27th, feel free to join us at the 20th Twittwoch – an offline gathering of social media marketing professionals – on Social Shopping, Facebook Commerce – e-Commerce gets social. The event is free of charge:

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Steve Blank On Why Failure Turns Silicon Valley Into A Special Culture For Entrepreneurship

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:23:44 +0200

A few days ago, Gigaom published an interview with Steve Blank. In the video he is not just explaining how startups can take advantage of The Bubble but also why it is not possible to recreate the Silicon Valley. I transcribed the essential part from my perspective: “The biggest thing that makes this area technology cluster is, you know what we call a failed entrepreneur in Silicon Valley? Experienced. Nowhere else in the world do we say that. Anywhere else in the world if you failed you embarrassed your family, your community, your state. Not here. Failure is accepted as experience. And that changes this culture. Screwed it up? Great, as long as you don’t blame it on someone else and you say: listen, let me tell you what I learnt. I’ll never do that again. You can play this game forever here. Step outside the Bay Area and try that anywhere else in the United States–let alone anywhere in the world–and you’ll never get another job.” No comment required, I guess…

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CFO sought for Berlin-based Startup: F-Commerce, Data-Mining, Social Graph-Monetization

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:49:08 +0100

Interesting startup from Berlin is looking for a CFO:

full-time,
shares,
VC-savvy,
needs to know Excel inside out,
has a proven track-record and
can sell to investors.

Current team covers development (no shortage of skilled engineers), product, operations, HR, (social media) marketing and–if required–accounting. However, the magician for the financial aspects of the business-model is still missing.

Top tier VC is heavily interested in the concept and willing to invest–not bad, given the fact that not a single line of code exists at the moment. So, good team, cool idea and a great city to work & live in.

Interested? Contact me via LinkedIn, Twitter or mail: stefan.wolpers [at] gmx [dot] de.

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Why Tablets/iPads Pose A Larger Threat to Laptops, NetBooks And PCs Than You Might Think

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:23:35 +0100

Silicon Alley Insider today posted an interesting projection by Morgan Stanley on the exploding figures from the tablet-market. Even the bear case projects sales of up to 300 m units by 2016; not to mention the bull case of around 440 m units. And given the strong position of Apple in the components market–particularly as far as touch screens and memory is concerned–you can easily predict the winner of this race. Personally, I am bullish on ~~tablets~~ the iPad. I have seen a lot of sceptical people that more or less reluctantly bought a 1G iPad turned evangelists. And this is just the beginning. Can’t wait for the 2G iPad… :)

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