June 2012
1 post
May 2012
2 posts
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MAKE YOUR OWN INFOGRAPHIC
I love infographics! Its a clever, pretty visual way to explain important stastics which would otherwise be drab and boring, let’s face it. Now there are sites popping up so you can do your own infographics, even without design experience. I love that and have had a look at some of the sites. Here a review:
Fastest: Visua.ly This instantly creates pretty infographics about predetermined...
April 2012
13 posts
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Podcast in Danish. I dette interview taler jeg med...
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USE VESTING TO FUTURE-PROOF YOUR STARTUP
Vesting is a function where the shares owned by founders (and employes) only become fully owned after a number of years. It’s to prevent that founder leaves, but still keeps all his shares despite not doing any more work. You could say it helps keeping people on the bus.
I just read an excellent long post about this by Dan Shapiro. Here’s the hightligts:
The structure of vesting:...
Was kindly invited to talk to ArcticStartup...
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HOW FAST CAN YOU GET A MILLION USERS?
For long does it take to get 1m users? Well, for most people it takes forever, as it never happens.
But here’s some numbers on the biggest, fastest (or best at getting PR) ones out there. It’s quite useful if founders doing projections for investors:)
-iPhoto iPad app: 10 days. -Instagram: 2,5 mth (downloads, not users*) -Spotify: 5 mth -Fab: 5 mth -Dropbox: 7 mth -Banjo: 9 mth...
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Gadget meets fashion: Emotion-sensing dress.
This is pretty crazy. The Blubelle Dress changes the look instantaneously according to our emotional state and our personality. Wild and beautiful!
The Design group Royal Philips Electronics in Holland has come up with it as a part of their SKIN project, an exploration research into the area known as ‘emotional sensing’.
Not sure how useful. But certainly both fun and beautiful.
Full...
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STICK TO YOUR VISION - JUST CHANGE STRATEGY
Marcus Pincus recently came out talking about his strategy for building a company. I found it a very worthwhile read, and wanted to share it.
“I’m sometimes called a serial entrepreneur, but that’s only because, before Zynga (ZNGA), I failed to create a sustainable company. After starting two companies in the ’90s, I had a social networking startup, Tribe.net, in 2003.
.
One of the...
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THE BEST WAYS TO OUTSOURCE DEVELOPMENT
When you can’t afford, or find, the programmers or designers you need at home, should you then outsource (technically it’s to off-shore) to cheaper countries?
This is a common question among companies. My recent post “Is this the end of hiring from Eastern Europe?” really split the waters, so there are quite clearly many sides to this.
In my opinion outsourcing, or...
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Photography
A beautiful sunset time lapse by Tyler van der Hoeven
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MARKETING TOOL: KNOW YOUR FOLLOWERS
#KnowYourFollowers is a new tool I just found to see who follows you on Twitter. While this may seem a little pointless and self-absorbed for yourself, it can be very valuable for your company account, which you’re probably using for marketing purposes.
You can try it for free and get basic stats over nationality, city, interests, working status, professions etc. Or you can pay to see...
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HOW TO USE STARTUPWEEKEND TO VALIDATE YOUR STARTUP...
How we used StartupWeekend* to test if Everplaces could work:
Both my co-founder Angie and I have been in startups for some years, and we felt time was right for starting a new company. We have a few ideas in mind and were trying to validate which of them had best potential to get really big. In the end, StartupWeekend was a huge help for us in choosing.
We had both worked on other peoples...
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TRUTH ABOUT ADVERTISING
March 2012
20 posts
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END OF HIRING FROM EASTERN EUROPE?
(UPDATED)
Just had an interesting conversation with an Eastern programmer we were interested in hiring. His demands were plain ridiculous. It made me think, that perhaps the time of hiring in from Eastern Europe is soon over?
In this case, his salary expectation was €7000 ($9000) plus flights plus moving expenses (moving expenses, seriously?). He thought that was fair since, according to him,...
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TWEETING CEOS ARE TRUSTED MORE
According to a new survey by BRANDfog, CEOs who communicate freely using social media are held in higher regard – not just by employees, but by customers too.
The idea being that the Boss Who Tweets leads to an organization where internal communications is more dynamic and transparent. The findings were picked up by eMarketer, who made this:
In terms of importance, 86% of respondents rated CEO...
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KEEP SALES EMAILS SHORT AND SWEET
I get a lot of emails from people wanting to help us drive traffic, downloads, advertising, i.e sell their services to Everplaces.
Most I just skim, and half the time they use such vague marketing-speak I don’t understand what they are selling. Goes without saying, I never buy any of that.
But yesterday I got this one. Had ten times more effect than all the others one. Short and sweet:
...
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CONVERTING HITS TO USERS
Good conversion rates are the holy grail of web startups. Today I signed up for Faavorites. I really like their copy of the signup button. It stresses the urgency and therefore makes you want to sign up.
“Hey, we only have a limited amount of spaces left; hurry on through before anyone beats you!”.
Psychologically it hits you because it implies Scarcity. One of Robert...
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GOOD DESIGN MATTERS
In Everplaces we’re not afraid to admit we’re a little crazy about design. We think it’s hyper important.
Therefore we’re stoked to be listed on D-Lists’ Inspirational Web Design list. Here we are together with some of the other sites on the list:
Whole list can be seen here
Tine, CEO
Posters can be art
Lo-Fi Film Posters
This brightened my day. Here’s to you.
Credits to Aziza Asat
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THE MYTH OF OVERNIGHT SUCCESS
We talk way to little about the bumps along the way to fame and fortune.
The truth is that being an entrepreneur is mostly about being knocked back, and only occasionally about winning. This makes it a tough, and sometimes lonely, journey. But it needn’t be lonely.
I wish people would share the tough stories more. Some of the stories that have been the most inspirational to me personally...
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STOP FOCUSING ON SAVING MONEY WHEN TRYING TO...
Here’s some pointers on what’s wrong with the way government tries to create growth.
It’s from an interesting podcast by @trendsonlinedk with @kaspertidemann founder of danish startup @meeho that’s based in the US.
To listen, go to around 14.00 on http://t.co/SIdyBlI Its in Danish. Quotes more precise in meaning than words, admittedly, as I’ve translated them.
...
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THE AGE OF CURATION - WHAT'S DRIVING THE PINTEREST...
My company Everplaces was recently dubbed by Fast Company as “Pinterest for the real world”, because it’s made to save and share physical locations you really like, such as restaurants, shops and beautiful locations.
It is no secret that I consider curation to be a considerable opportunity. This excellent report by Engauge sheds some light onto why Pinterest works so well:
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How to hire great coders, says founder of Codility
Greg Jakachi, founder of Codility, is a bit of an expert in hiring programmers. He just did a talk at HackFwd’s Build9 event which I attended.
Here’ his rules for hiring truly great ones…
1) Smart AND gets things done
2) People you done work/project/hacking/school with. Trust plus you know how they work. Start building relationsships before you need them
3) Hiring is...
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10 most important SEO steps
We all need the google juice. Today I am at HackFwd where the Sebastian Deutsch, founder of Watchlater just did an excellent talk on SEO.
Cheat sheet from the talk. 10 essential SEO steps:
1) most relevant content at Titel, H1 and H2 2) avoid dublicate content 3) Use link masking to include links google shouldn’t follow. 4) Make sure you have site map 5) Careful with canonical meta tags...
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Please stop peeing our pants to keep warm. Plea to...
Just did a radio show with Minister for Growth and Commerce in Denmark, Ole Sohn, and two fellow entrepreneurs, Martin Bjerregaard, Rainmaking and Tommy Ahlers, Podio. It was part of De Seks Hatte on 24/7, radio show I am part of.
It has left some pretty big questions in my mind…
To start, here is the Governments plan
1) Map Denmarks positions of strength 2) Develop innovation strategy...
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Hail the bureaucracy. Step up EU.
The EU has discovered social media. Or, fast moving as always, they’ve heard about it. So they are conducting an investigation “into its benefits in order to catalyse the take-up of social networking by European organisations.
I just got invited to come down as a part of a massive panel explaining them how social media works (could I suggest reading on the internet as a slightly...
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Layers of the web
The bar has been raised for building products people will love. Today we need to consider three layers of the web, all of which needs to be addressed in a great product. Imaging a pyramid consisting of:
Emotional Utility Content
Bottom layer: Content: The first challenge is simply to get relevant interesting content. This used to be an end goal in itself but the bar has been moved.
Middle...
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Best marketing campaigns: Chocolate covered...
Yes, I know I have mentioned Grasshoppers before but they truly deserve it. This was the campaign that made them instantly famous, as described by Mashable. In short, they collected a list of the most influential 5000 people in their segment in the US, and send them bag of chocolate covered grasshoppers and a link to a video.
The Campaign: Dead Grasshoppers
The campaign took over two months to...
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How to pitch journalists
I keep coming back to this list of what is interesting as a story for journalists by Mike Butcher of TechCrunch.
Its easy to fall into the trap of thinking the rest of the world find your startup as interesting as you do. They don’t. So I use mike’s list to reality-check communication.
This can be news-worthy:
*Drama
*Gossip
*Insight (trend, zeitgeist)
*Evolution (we’re the...
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February 2012
6 posts
3 tags
8 tips for new entrepreneurs
Jeff Richards, entrepreneur turned VC recently shared his thoughts on what he’d recommend to entrepreneurs now looking from the other side. It struck such a core with me that I’m going to post it here, it’s thoughtful and true.
1) Keep your options open. The smartest second- and third-time entrepreneurs I see raise capital in a very focused and efficient manner. They...
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Offline shopping how it should be. Apple does it...
I’m in Palo Alto, and I needed something for my iPad, I walk into the apple store and have the perfect retail experience.
Here’s how retail should be:
I immediately get approached by one of the many assistants, all friendly. One was an old man which I love since technology shouldn’t just be for young people and geeks. The thing I want isn’t in the shelves but the...
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Create like a God, command like a king, work like...
Quote of the day. This could just about be the recipe for succes as a startup founders and CEOs in general.
Photo credits Harold Edgerton, from here
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Curated collections: The new place to find...
Contextual commerce is going to be a game changer.
I believe it will change how we select things to buy online. For years we’ve been talking about online to offline, now here a way to do that in a simple, natural and meaningful way.
Pinterest is the best example right now, here’s a section from an excellent Mashable article, which you really should read.
“Shoppers are...
January 2012
5 posts
1 tag
WHAT DO THE BEST USE TO MANAGE WORKFLOW?
A major part of succeeding is having tight operations, adhering to ambitious schedules and keeping the workflow optimized. But what’s the best tools for this?
I am a part of a close network of 150 tech CEO and CTO and the likes in London. We’ve just had a long knowledge share about what we all use to manage this. This is what these successful companies use (my own categorizations,...
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Can you use Instagram images, legally?
Following my hunt for good images you’re allowed to use commercially to “prettify” products and websites, I’ve been looking into Instagram.
So they offer an API which gives access to the images. But they also state that essentially the images by default are ´All Rights Reserved´. As far as I can think, that mean you get access to the images, but basically not the...
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You're allowed to use Flickr photos
This is an important question for many of us, especially when you’re building services which integrate a lot of photos. We need to protect our companies against potentially infringing on others’ right, but also because most of us actually want to do the right thing.
It’s something I was reading up on tonight and I found this excellent post by Skelliewag.org called A Complete...
WatchTo all you wonderful adventurous spirits out there. Who change the world as you live it. Watch this, you deserve it.
(credits to Rockstart Accelerator)
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2012 is the year of social curation
UPDATED: I’ve received feedback which demonstrate I should explain myself better:)
(To me) social curation is not simply reposting or retweeting. While this provides a social filter to content it only solves part of the problem. In order for content to be truly relevant services need to enable people to set up further filtering themselves, so you only receive certain information from...
December 2011
7 posts
1 tag
WatchMy first interview showing nipple. ha ha. Go to 7min 43 seconds. From The Europas Awards held by TechCrunch in London. Although Everplaces is in closed beta and not doing press, there is a snippet of info about it here.
Thanks to the wonderful @romylondon for this excellent video of TheEuropas: You can see the full story on http://daretoask.tumblr.com/
Credit to Redg Snodgrass, @redgsnodgrass,...
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RULES FOR BUILDING STRONG TEAMS
I am totally passionate about building team culture. I like to think of it as building a tribe. I believe it is our strongest competitive asset as a startup, so it’s a core skill CEOs need to acquire.
Sadly, many CEO’s actions are driven by their own ego and need for recognition, which is often counter productive for the company. To clarify, all CEO are driven by a need to...
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Most app downloads are in the weekend
When should you release your app? Perhaps in the weekend if you want high download figures. According to this chart at least…
While the the Android marketplace and Apple’s App Store may have different user bases, both Distimo and Google show that the busiest time for app downloads is the weekend.
The most popular time for users to download Android apps is Sunday at 9:00 pm.
...