Avoid reading Twitter when you decide your next startup!
Most of us seem to follow the same persons on Twitter, read the same articles in TechCrunch, and go to the same events like GeekNRolla. In many ways this is fantastic to build relations and keep updated about trends and new exiting opportunities. However, the problem arises when most of the entrepreneurial talent is funnelled into looking at the same type of ideas.
Example: Groupon has been widely quoted and discussed in nearly any European forum read by entrepreneurs. And since people so easily can share links and documents via Twitter and other media the hype becomes even bigger than what a great success story like Groupon would have generated some years back.
The consequence is that many entrepreneurs start to think: “This is THE next thing – and we have to jump onboard now to not miss the train”. It is obviously great that we can all learn from other success stories and be inspired to develop new and modified startups in other countries, however, I would claim that many entrepreneurs would benefit from looking left or right of the mainstream and super hyped ventures, and instead find a less crowded space where they can create significant value with less competition.
Example: In Rainmaking we have entered the market for eye laser treatments in the Nordics and Germany. As far as I know we are the only entrepreneurs who have taken this step in that industry, which is 100% dominated by doctors and industry players. But we have proven that entrepreneurs with no medical backgrounds can make significant success and decent exits.
And I am confident there are plenty of such spaces out there waiting to be explored by some of the entrepreneurial talent that dares to think them self and not just follow what is mentioned on Twitter.
/Carsten
What a day in Rainmaking!
Executive summary of the 5th of January 2010
09.00: Met with partner colleague Martin Bjergegaard http://www.rainmaking.dk/hvemervi.aspx?lang=dk and discussed a new potential project within online retail. Also touched upon general allocation of resources for our new projects in UK
10.05: Met Tanveer – the cofounder of http://dk.vopium.com/ - and discussed a health care idea. Very exciting.
11.44: Nice lunch from www.frokost.dk – of course
12.15: Met Kasper Vardrup http://dk.linkedin.com/in/kaspervardrup and Michael Bodekaer http://www.michaelbodekaer.com/ to discuss potential ways of working closer together in the future. Great people! Hope we can find a win-win solution.
14.06: Replied to email update from Michael Wiegert – successful Swedish serial entrepreneur – concerning a possible CleanTech project we are evaluating together
14.53: Booked tickets for next weeks trip to London where we will have steering committee meeting in www.cyclepods.co.uk. Meeting are also booked with Henrik Werdelin from Index Ventures and three local entrepreneurs whom we might get an opportunity to work with.
16.15: John Zoffmann – cool designer and architect – visited our new office and had tons of ideas how to make our new offices illustrate our values, culture and innovative concept
16.37: Posted new job opportunity (online marketing assistant) on CBS, IT University and DTU job portals
16.42: Received first two applications within 1 minute … wauw
17.14: Received application from Estonia for our www.startupbootcamp.dk program. How did we reach out there?
20.15: Worked on the people and portefolio strategy for 2010 for www.rainmaking.dk – so many opportunities and so many great people who we can work with – but how do we match it all up in an effective and efficient way? Not to mention financing it all …
21.34: Watched 3 episodes of Klovn (a Danish sitcom). Big laugh and a fantastic day was over.
/Carsten
Rainmaking as role model
Rainmaking has been selected as role model by Denmark’s 2. biggest business newspaper Erhvervsbladet.
See the article at http://www.erhvervsbladet.dk/article/20090226/news02/702250020/
Welcome in the Press
Rainmaking has been elected "Entrepreneur of the Week" by Dagbladet Børsen and is today presented on the back of the supplement VækstDanmark. Rather the back of Børsen than the cover of Ekstra Bladet:-)
During an interview a couple of weeks ago, we were asked to provide some good advices for other entrepreneurs. We wrote down 7 advices, which in our belief can lead you to either make it or break it. They were shortened so as to fit into the textbox in the paper, but they do better in full length. Here they are:
The Rainmaking advice to other entrepreneurs:
1) Choosing the first the idea that comes into mind is slobby! Evaluate many ideas and kill the ones that are not waterproof.
2) If you can’t find investors for your project, there might be a good reason. Come up with better project instead of getting stubborn.
3) Your initial concept is most likely not the one that will give you a success. Always start of with a small test, so more approaches can be tries out before the purse is empty.
4) Be critical when choosing partners. Go for the best partners and employees. People who are twice as expensive are usually ten times more efficient.
5) Create a mental vision with your team from the very beginning. Identify exactly what you want to create and why it is worth fighting for. Be prepared to adjust the vision as you go along.
6) Take 10 hours of your workweek and spend the time reading relevant literature, talk to people and exercise. You will loose perspective if all you do is work.
7) Do not believe all the miseries you hear about entrepreneurship. Given the right circumstances it can be the best job in the world.
Interview with ‘Boersen’
Today Carsten called Dagbladet Børsen and 5 hours later we were seated at Café Den Blå Hund at Frederiksberg with journalist Louise Kastberg.
We spend 1,5 hours together and Louise took enough notes to fill up half an A5 pad. She found our concept surprising and asked good broad questions such as:
- How did you get the idea for Rainmaking?
- What makes Rainmaking unique?
- Do you have some good advice for other entrepreneurs?
With regards to the good advice, she had asked to prepare something before the meeting, so I brought with me a text with 7 good advices. It was probably too much text, as it needed to fit into a certain box in the paper. But the stuff you didn’t get to see there will be posted in this blog, as I, in all immodesty, believe that they are pearls of wisdom, which can make an enormous difference to most entrepreneurs. The 7 advices didn’t exactly emerge from nothing or by theorising – they are the sum of our experiences from 15 start ups and are the way we make companies in Rainmaking (or at least try to).
Reading the 7 advices again last night I had a feeling, which can only be described by compromising our decision to go against the flow of other entrepreneurs (who said Morten Lund) and never swear on our blog: it’s bloody poetry!
We eagerly await the article and will post the date here on the blog when we know it.
Rainmaking in CleanTech?
I spent the last three days at the CleanTech conference at the Bella Center., where there were university representatives, researchers and industry people from around the world. We are considering whether Rainmaking can assert itself in a CleanTech project.
The challenge lies in the fact that we lack expertise in this area, which makes
On the other hand, we are attracted by CleanTech’s great potential, as the company lies in an industry (or more correctly a "movement") that is undergoing significant progress. It’s already been hyped in Silicon Valley, and we are now considering whether or not now is the right time to join in.
It will be a challenge, but we like challenges! When we started up in the eye surgery business, we weren't given very good odds. But we got things going, and just two years later we are considered to be among those with the most expertise in the business in Scandinavia and Germany.
Let the race begin!