Hi, I’m back @ reading the basics, which i can only recommend:

1. The Cluetrain Manifesto - the bible for “power to the customer” revolutionaries

2. The Tipping Point - winning the multiplyers is the real model for building a community / social network

3. The Long Tail Parts I and II - that’s where it’s going, folks - you can’t think enough about the implications

4. Blue Ocean Strategy - THE method for innovation

Read it. Apply it.

Cheers

R0cketrabbit

I’m in San Francisco @ the Supernova2006 co-hosted by Wharton West, the California branch of Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.

http://www.supernova2006.com

Fascinating insights with a wide variety of companies. On the social networking / collaborative search side, Plum and netvibes stick out.

Yesterday we had a day of workshops with some hot discussions on exactly how new and self-sufficient social networks are. One side argues, in my opinion with truth to it, that word-of-mouth, the “wisdom of crowds”, and social collaboration are as old as humanity and Web 2.0 still has to prove a business case vs. just being a second wave of featureitis. The other side, among them cluetrain manifesto co-Author D. Weinberger, argue that the warmth of social networks is something entirely new, allowing companies to give users and customers the feeling of “being on their side”. Obviously both views hold truth.

I’m surprised at how advanced the American startups are in terms of user growth and speed of execution, but just as surprised to see that there is a lack of focus on viable business models I find surprising in post-bubble times. Entrepreneurs, though, are more cautious and less bullshitty than 6 years ago.

Looking forward to the next two days with Skype, Craigslist, Ether, Wikia, and many other smart companies.

Cheers

Watch out for the new startups on the blo(g)ck! It’s totally exciting to watch the startups of which I’m an angel investor evolve.

http://beta.sevenload.de launched 5 weeks ago and is at 250.000+ downloads of photos and videos… a day!

http://www.qype.de is growing fast and one of the hottest startups in the media

http://www.oneview.de is the original (yes, the original) to deli.cious and the only web 1.0 startup “rebooted” in web 2.0 - stay tuned!

http://www.itravel.de has a community in stealth mode and will become the hottest travel and social commerce play since ebay - that’s what I believe - meanwhile, check out the trips, they’re great - and real!

I missed the reboot because I was in Paris, but I hear it rocks. Hope to learn more soon.

Cheers

R0cketrabbit

The past 2 Days I spent at Expand 06,

http://www.expand06.com

the conference hosted by my friend Ola Alvahrsson, former Founder of Boxman and Founder of Result

http://www.result.com

Here I meet Founders from the Netherlands, Sweden, even France and Spain, including bigger shots like Tradedoubler (300 Poeple, listed on Stockholm SE since november 2005, 117 Mil. € in Revenues.

The conference is ablaze with founding willingness, endeavour, and the smartness of founders intent on not spending it all. As with Lukasz Gadowksi of spreadhirt.net in Hamburg, the most exciting founder was one who founded with 0 € in VC money. Samy Liechtl is Founder of Blacksox.com

http://www.blacksox.com or http://www.blacksocks.com

He does really smart marketing, selling “sockscriptions” of socks, to relieve “sock sorrows” by selling only matching socks, so if you lose one it doesn’t matter. He also puts small sock-shaped jelly in to his mail-order deliveries - with cheese tase!

We discussed that the exciting part about web 2.0 and social networks, is not so much the direct features you get but the potential it has for enhancing existing Business Models into the decision taking sphere (an aspect of both long tail and social commerce). Exciting discussion. More Later.

PS: Sweden is cool, the Swedes very nice.

Last thursday saw a big event in Hamburg: 450 - 500 would-be netphiles converged on SinnerSchrader’s (one of the biggest new media agencies in Germany) to acclaim and discuss the virtues of web 2.0, mashups, social networks, long tail commerce, etc.

http://www.next10years.de/

20 or so nervous VCs were imitating Dilberts Vijay (the World most Desperate VC), but I liked the rather cynical We’ll-Fan-The-Hype-And-Take-The-Money-But-Do-It-Right-This-Time entrepeneurs. My Favorite was Lukas Gadowski, founder of spreadshirt.net, who founded his 120-poeple company with 0$ VC money. that’s right, 0$. Cool guy. He urged “all the consultants and bankers in the room” to “do it again and found a startup, because you’ll get VC money now…” Hilarious, I keep thinking about the old adage of B2C and B2B meaning “back to consulting” and “back to banking” after going bust…. I now it’s really bubble 1.0-ish, but hey, I’m a veteran.

On a more serious note, while valuations are going up, it is true that there are four major differences between then and now:

1) development costs on more mature and open source technologies are a 10% fraction of the cost of 5 years ago
2) (viral, search, performance, affiliate) marketing costs are a factor of 100 cheaper now
3) there are 5-6 times more users with a wide range of needs and much higher affinity to web and mobile (adding up to 13 Mil. in Germany alone)
4) founders, even inexperienced, aren’t half as naive (though some ar getting giddy with the valuation thing).

Cheers!

the social dynamics are overwhelming, but if all the web 2.0 startups are to succeed, they will need to come up with better refinancing than Google AdSense - and the community will have to bear that without decrying “treason of commercialisation”. Maybe the key will be to generate not only the content, but also the revenue on a user2user basis. Finally, the vision of the internet as a gigantic network of knowledge would become true, where not only the big media and publishing houses earn money, but also the average Jack or Joe who happens to know a lot about one specific thing - like the mating habits of Galapagos Turtles…

Check out http://www.oneview.de for a startup that is giving this a try…

Cheers

R0cketrabbit