Posted in June 2007

Trip to Berlin & Hasso Plattner Institute

Last week I took a 2-day trip to Berlin, visiting an event at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam and visiting some friends in Berlin.

(Morten Lund in a panel – read my twit & Iavor’s Jaiku)

(The trigami dog enjoyed the good food and networking)

(Very interesting presentation of an extreme alpinist. See my twit. Note to myself: Remember the shadow on the wall, i.e. don’t forget your vision!)

(Visiting CBS from Ecato in their offices at Jägerstrasse in Berlin-Mitte. See also the recent interview from Sebastian with CBS)

Other Twitter-Messages
Read my other twitter-messages of my berlin-trip

Tagged , , , , , ,

John Buckman about Usability and User Centric Design

"Users just want to listen to music – they don’t want an account, they don’t want to explore, they just want to listen! We respect that." John Buckman (magnatune) at LIFT07 (Panel: Creative work in a free world)

John’s results at magnatune:
# Average visiting length 2 hours 40 minutes
# Every 40th user pays money (conversion rate = 1/40)

Tagged , ,

First Kiva-loan repaid, reinvested in Africa

Four months after my first Kiva-investments, my first loan was paid back 100%.

I reinvested the money in Togo (Africa) to a female entrepreneur who runs a general store.

Meanwhile, over $7 million has been invested through Kiva from 70’000 people. Most interestingly, 99.76% of all the money has been paid back 100% – isn’t this just AWSOME? You can help entrepreneurs generale wealth, get the money back 100%, help some other entrepreneur generate wealth, get the money back 100%, …, etc.

Tagged

I finally started to use Plazes

Registered at LIFT2007 on the 8th February 2007, I finally started using the service today (i.e. I needed almost half a year to adapt, even though Plazes was a trigami customer ;-). I installed the Plazer 2.0 and I installed the widget (see the sidebar). So far I like the user interface very much.

Lets plaze it!

Tagged

Next Venture Cocktail on 28th June

The last Venture Cocktail (my first one!) was GREAT (read my according twitter-message after the event).

Next Venture Cocktail will take place on Thursday, 28th June from 7pm at Pier West.

Important Links:
# Venture Cocktail website
# Event-details on XING

See you there!

Tagged , ,

Sunday trip to Munich

Yesterday I did a short one-day trip to Munich. I went to visit Amiando.com (they have apparantly a 7-day week) in their new headquarters (headcount is 16 people now – wow!). I also met the founders of MyMuesli.de, and Jochen Krisch (Exciting Commerce).

First I took a very nice walk downtown:

But it was so hot that I had to cool myself:

I of course did a short video (with Usgang.ch founder Marc P. Bernegger and Felix Haas, CEO of amiando):

Link: sevenload.com

Lukasz Gadowski was also there. It was very nice getting to know him better – since I am an official Gründerszene.de team member now :-).

Now you know how I spend my sundays – it was fun and VERY sunny :-).

Tagged , , , , ,

California, here we come…

Loic Le Meur is moving to San Francisco. Why he is doing that he explains in his newest Podcast:

[flash]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY7BcnkIfoc[/flash]

Actually, over the last year I decided that I will move to California, too. Maybe not tomorrow, but most probably in 3-7 years. My reasons are:

#1: THE WEATHER!!! I cannot stand it being depressed for 6 months.
#2: THE ADVENTURE!!! You have to risk things in life.
#3: THE BUSINESS!!! Silicon Valley, what more can I say…
#4: THE LIFESTYLE!!! I love the American way of life.
#5: THE PEOPLE!!! Best people in the world

Go for it, Loic!

Tagged , ,

Venture Cocktail #3 today

After another successful Venture Cocktail, we’ve decided to keep up the momentum and hold the next event next week Thursday, the 14th of June. Plenty of investors and entrepreneurs have expressed their interest in coming, so I hope you can come too.

As for the venue, we will meet next week at the same place (Aya Bar – Heinrichstrasse 269 on Steinfelsplatz near Escherwyss tram stop, Hardbrucke train stop) and at the same time (7PM on).

Feel free to contact Elizabeth at 078 784 78 57 with questions and please pass the information on to anyone you think might be interested in joining us.

Please bring plenty of business cards, and I look forward to seeing you there!

Venture Cocktail

The idea for Venture Cocktail was born, like many great ideas, out of an informal chat. We observed, as many of you probably have, as we sat in the lobby of the hotel hosting Red Herring’s Venture Market Europe – a conference celebrating top tech startups and financiers – that some of the most exciting business gets done over chats like these – over coffee or drinks. That day in Cannes, my friends Prodosh and Remo suggested that I, with a background in media and public relations, should launch an event which brings together international entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators on a regular basis, to exchange ideas – to create an informal environment where people with common interests could gather for inspiring conversation. Though this is not a new idea, the setting is.

And what better place than Zurich, where the appetite for innovation is clear. While global companies such as Google, IBM, eBay and others settle in to create a critical mass for technology, the Banhofstrasse provides the financial resources for innovation. My role is simply to offer the glue to put the pieces together.

My plan is to meet at least every last Thursday of the month at a designated place in Zurich. Red Herring Magazine’s Farley Duvall will be there as our first supporter, as will blogger Remo Uherek (http://www.remo.fm – Remo about Entrepreneurship), Prodosh Banerjee, local technology entrepreneur and photographer Oliver Pages. No fees, no sponsors, and people will buy their own drinks. This will be an organic event which will grow as we do!

So, whether you’re an Investor, an Entrepreneur, an Innovator or simply Interested, join us for cocktails.

Tagged ,

Dog Attack!


"It’s boring listening to the notary. I want to GET OUT and EXPLORE the world!"


"Why not taking a TRIP to Zurich?"


"Pit stop at Starbucks."


"On the way to SF Start up party. Getting excited!!!"


"Hello Google."


"Dominik fell in love with me so much that he wants to bite my ear. I love you too, buddy!"


"Rinaldo thinks that I make him look really cool."


"Meeting so many new people makes me thirsty. Taking a sip out of Rouven’s glass. Mhhh."


"Pitching trigami to the audience. Dudes, you should have hired me earlier!!!"


"Off to the PARTYYYY. Cya guys…"

Tagged , , , ,

I am also blogging for Gruenderszene.de now

I am happy to announce that from now on I will blog about Swiss Entrepreneurship on Gründerszene.

Here is the official announcement

Thanks for the honor. I’ll try to post a "Swiss update" at least every two weeks.

Tagged ,