Helping university research count

It is always a pleasure when you have the opportunity to go out and share some of the experiences and learnings, you have had, to an audience who need the insights in order to improve their odds of turning ideas into successful startups. I had such an opportunity the other day, when I visited the… Continue reading Helping university research count

A new kind of rockstars

Until now it has been somewhat of an established truth that if you’re a software engineer, and you know your programming languages of choice really, really well, you can do pretty much anything; You can bring new ideas to life, build new products, build new business even, if you’re an engineer with a keen interest… Continue reading A new kind of rockstars

Triangulating opportunity

Some people get great ideas out of nowhere. They just pop up at the most unusual times and places. Other people can spend weeks looking over the ocean hoping to catch onto something and eventually leave the beach empty handed. And some people just have a basic fear of the blank sheet of paper -… Continue reading Triangulating opportunity

Excellence in failure

It sounds stupid, right? That there can be anything of excellence in failing. Because failure is just that, right? Failure. But look at it this way: If you don’t fail in anything, you don’t try anything. You never follow your curiosity to explore new things and new ways of doing new things. Having said that… Continue reading Excellence in failure

An age perspective

“You’re just too old!” I hear it thrown around every once in a while. Not specifically at me but more as a general shoutout to voice dissatisfaction that someone simply just not ‘get it’. But does age really have anything to do with it? Of course not. In fact I think quite the opposite is… Continue reading An age perspective

The crisis test

Do customers flood you with support calls when your service is down? Or is it more or less quiet? If it's the latter, you have a problem. Because then all indications are that your product doesn't really mean much to your customers; they can easily do without it. Maybe they don't even realize it's not… Continue reading The crisis test

Your idea is not about you

One of the hardest things to do when you're trying out an idea for a new venture is to separate your own feelings from the data. After all, you probably came up with the idea because you thought it was great - perhaps even the greatest since sliced bread. And now you're bringing it doubt… Continue reading Your idea is not about you

Celebrate invalidation

There is one thing we often forget when we talk about validating ideas and business models for startups (or any other entity for that matter); That it is also an accomplishment to invalidate something. Usually we have a tendency to see things that didn't work out as extremely wasteful from which only fractions can be… Continue reading Celebrate invalidation