I Just emerged (at 04h00 in the morning) from an 18 - hour (!!!!) - bit of negotiation with two international VCs in one of the startups dw capital is invested in. We had the full program:

- the Lawyer pissing contest (pardon my french)
- the last-minute deal restructuring
- the last-minute battle over terms
- the nerve game on who gets to leave the table first (well not quite, but we did have a little theatre play)
- we used three rooms and a hallway to do all telcoing back to the principals

But now come the differences:

- a savvy founder who kept his nerve and outplayed the lawyers well (it always helps to just call the principal of the VC)
- and a really easy-going notary, funny on top of it

So it all ended

a) succesfully
b) even on friendly terms
c) and with two bottles of champagne….

I’ll get back to the audience on my findings out of the process. Still a lot to be learned, or remembered again at the very least.

Cheers!

The past weeks have been incredibly busy. Sevenload, Qype, Oneview, and itravel are achieving their respective crests.

http://www.sevenload.de has an exploding user base, has just won nicole da silva and a number of young stars had their start on the platform. It is now by far the most used German Video and Photo Platform. myvideo is raising a stink and faking their user numbers (check by looking up a user beyond # 800), but have little to now recognition in the relevant crowd. Remember “the Tipping Point” and you’ll know why that’s relevant. Ibo’s Team is just the better team.

http://www.qype.de is growing fast, getting really useful, and closing a new financing round (no details, it’s all NDA’d) - but just this much: Qype is going to be the dominant player. Stephan is an incredible guy and has a great team.

http://www.oneview.de are preparing their gamma, and it will rock. Full google-kicking potential. We will get our revenge for having been the first social networking/bookmarking site (1998) and not getting the recognition because the business model had no market yet in 2000. Great team there too, with two additions to the developer team.

http://www.itravel.de - stay tuned for the first real long tail social commerce site, you’ll see more and more of the community in the next three months. In cooperation with Sevenload!

I’m really excited as we are preparing Upload! 2006, which we hope to become the coolest web 2.0 / social commerce / next big thing event of this and coming years.

BTW: we are desperately looking for developers, marketers, tecchies, pr guys/gals, project managers, business developers, sales guys etc etc etc…. contact me, or denkwerk @ http://www.denkwerk.com

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

Just a short Blog note to describe the feeling of surfing on 1,5 MBIt Satellite Internet Connection on the Coast of KOS, a Greek Isle close to Turkey. That’s how ubiquitous it’s gotten (not to mention the Outback and other remote places).

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

Hi there!

R0cketrabbit is an Entrepreneur who’s seen the frist wave come and go, and is excited about the chance to do it all right this time.

In my 15 or so years of entrepreneurship, I’ve grown an organisation to 200 poeple, squandered millions of VC money, gotten my neck out of the sling without going bankrupt (but just quite), mourned the death of my friend and co-founder Felix Hildebrand, grown a startup, oneview, to 16 countries and 10 languages, scaled it back to 15 poeple, grown wise and then back to enthusiasm, and co-founded or -funded 12 companies.

This blog will try to give an honest, disrespectful, but positive account of my tribulations - I’ll be more than glad to share and discuss my findings - critics welcome!

Cheers

R0cketrabbit