Just finished a great team day in Rainmaking. As part of the day we set goals for the rest of 2010. These included:

- Launch min. 2 new companies in UK

- GreenWire (our new business for recycling of used electronics) to be launched in Germany and Scandinavia

- Min. 2 of the startups who have attended startupbootcamp should be on track to get funding

- Grow customer base by 25% in frokost.dk and get established in Aarhus

- Increase current number of treatments per month in Godt Syn by 1/3

- Have signed deals worth min. £ 100,000 for the new AdPod in Cyclepods

- Raise min. EUR 150,000 in donations through charity dinners in London and Copenhagen

- Raise min. EUR 150,000 in donations through BetterNow

Now it is all about execution.

/Carsten

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

This week we’ve had a Cyclepods International meeting. We have them approx every 6 weeks. We had a very promising discussion on our Displaypod proposition.

From our Cannondale case (a cyclepod installed in a Toronto bike shop made up in Cannondale colors), studying British, Danish and Swedish bike shops, and discussing with an UK based shop fitter, we know there is a huge unexploited market for bike shop fitting and we are optimistic that we have a very attractive proposal to the bike retailers and manufacturers.

Looking at typical shop re-fitting sales impact and bike retail data, such as standard shop fitting cost and sales increase needed to hit break even, we have an extremely appealing offer to take to the market.

På trods af den generelle økonomiske afmatning og et meget svært marked for firmafrokostordninger, har frokost.dk i 2009 præsteret et resultat på 3,6 mil. ud af en omsætning på ca. 72 mil. På trods af en negativ omsætningsudvikling i det svære marked, har vi restruktureret forretningen til et overskud, som overgår forventningerne. Udviklingen i markedet og et øget prispres, sammenstillet med frokost.dks højere investeringsniveau, gør dog at vi ikke forventer at kunne præsentere et tilsvarende resultat i 2010.

I løbet af 2009 er teamet tilført nye stærke kompetencer, og består i dag af:

• et stærkt call-center af kundeservicemedarbejdere med merkantile, køkkenfaglige og serviceuddannelser og mange års erfaring fra blandt andet Falck, Radisson SAS hotels og Nordea, Frokostpartner og Restaurant Kong Hans

• et team af plejende sælgere, som laver face-to-face kundepleje, styrker kunderelationerne, laver mersalg og kundearrangementer. Vores kundeplejere trækker på uddannelser fra bla. sport & eventmanagement samt kundeservice og erfaring fra virksomheder som Nimb, Falck og ISS

• et velstruktureret new-bizz team som arbejder systematisk med aktivitetsniveauer, fokuserer indsatsen på de mest relevante segmenter og fine-tuner salgsprocessen. New-bizz teamet består bla. af tidligere ledende kræfter fra ISS og IDA Service.

• en direktion med bred international skoling og erfaring fra bla. Booz & Company, Corporate Value Associates og American Express

Teamets sammensætning afspejler frokost.dk’s direkte fokus på at fastholde eksisterende kunder og skaffe nye kunder.

Forventninger til 2010

I 2010 investeres i at udvikle og forbedre serviceudbuddet over for både kunder og køkkener.

Køkkenerne vil få yderligere redskaber, som hjælper dem til at levere bedre mad med endnu højere præcision og fleksibilitet.

Kunderne vil i løbet af 2010 få tilbudt yderligere services, og det forventes at kunderne vil nyde gavn af højere grad af kommunikation direkte mellem slutbrugere og frokost.dk. Services, som er under udvikling, inkluderer elektroniske menuer, online-bestillinger og ændringer samt medarbejderafstemninger om valg af køkken.

Med disse og andre investeringer, forventes frokost.dk at styrke sit unikke kundeværditilbud, forbedre markedspositionen og vinde en større markedsandel fra både route- og site-based konkurrenter.

Årsrapporten publiceres i nær fremtid.

As Rainmaking is co-hosting Startup Weekend throughout the Nordics, Startup Weekend found it interesting to interview Carsten Kølbek about Rainmaking’s involvement. Here is the result:

How have you got interested in Startup Weekend?
We have launched a European accelerator program called startupbootcamp. The critical factor for us is to attract the best European startup teams. When we met Clint Nilsen, one of the founders of startupweekend, we immediately saw this as a great vehicle for getting in contact with hundreds of entrepreneurs across Europe and that is the reason we are now sponsoring and co-arranging startupweekends in Vilnius, Kaunas, Stockholm, Lund, Copenhagen and Oslo.

What do you hope to get from Startup Weekend?
Personally, I hope to have a fun and rewarding weekend where I meet a lot of great people who are enthusiastic about entrepreneurship. From the perspective of Rainmaking, I hope we find one or two great teams who could be candidates for our startupbootcamp program this summer in Copenhagen.

Please, tell prospective participants about yourself and Rainmaking
I am the co-founder of Rainmaking, which is a “startup factory”. We have created 11 companies in 3½ years. Some have failed but fortunately we have also made our first two exits. Currently, our companies have an annual turnover of EUR 20 million. And we employ 60+ people.

Frokost.dk har i den forgangne uge været i medierne. Denne gang er det erhvervsbladet, 24-timer og P3, der alle har sat fokus på den seneste udvikling indenfor frokostordningen, og dens betydning for medarbejdertilfredsheden.

Mange virksomheder sparer i disse tider frokostordningen væk – en udvikling der ifølge Alexander Kjerulf, som er en af verdens førende eksperter i arbejdsglæde, både foringer motivationen og arbejdsglæden hos medarbejderne:

”Det er et rigtig, rigtig dårligt sted at vælge at spare, siger han og fortæller, at den fælles frokost betyder meget for såvel sammenhold, effektivitet og arbejdsglæde på en arbejdsplads” (Alexander Kjerulf, Erhvervsbladet, d. 26.2.2010)

Du kan læse hele artiklen her :http://www.erhvervsbladet.dk/ledelse/krisen-aeder-din-frokostordning

Læs 24-timers artikel her: http://www.24.dk/article.jsp?articleId=8222

For mere info om frokost.dk: http://www.frokost.dk/

Rainmaking has made a donation of 1.000 USD to an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The orphanage is run by Sister Asayech and a very competent local staff. We have visited the facilities ourselves, and experienced first hand how well they take care of the children. We weren’t there to donate money in the first place, but instead to learn about development projects in the third world as part of our preparation of www.betternow.org.

However, when you see a place like that, you just need to make a small contribution.

At a trip to Istanbul I experienced a truly inspiring service level at an averaged priced local hotel. This letter was lying on the bed when we arrived! Of course with that dedication to customer satisfaction I did not need to use the owner’s mobile number.

When we left, two from the staff followed us out to our taxi, and stayed and waved as you drove away! And it wasn’t because they did not have anything else to do. In fact they hosted a conference for a lot of important people – including their tourist minister – at the same time as we were leaving. They just had that event planned very well, and they stayed focused on EVERY customer, even insignificant guests like my girlfriend and I.

When you experience something like this you want to come back. And that is good business!

/Martin

The other day Martin Bjergegaard was talking to a MBA class at CBS, which turned out to an incredible 2 hour Q&A. Here is what the MBA class wrote about their meeting with Martin and the ideas behind Rainmaking:

http://blogs.cbs.dk/mba_diary/?p=330&cpage=1#comment-8030

Imagine if we can attract 25,000 people to follow and engage in www.startupbootcamp.dk and the ten selected startups,  which will go into the startupbootcamp program in June this year!

It would have significant value for the ten startups if they can use this communication platform to spread the word about their new ideas and products. People could provide valuable feedback througout the development phase; help with contacts and network; and even be the first real customers.

Our goal is therefore to attract 25,000 hangarounds in startupbootcamp. We have to work fast … and if you can help us it is highly appreciated.

Be our next hangaround – follow us on: twitter, facebook and LinkedIn

/Carsten