I have moved my blog to a new place at www.kuszpa.com !

See you there…

Target Partners Workshop, Michael Brehm, Felix Haas and the VC Panel.

IdeaLab! workshops, lectures and discussions

The last day of the IdeaLab! at the WHU started for me with a workshop hosted by Target Partners GmbH. Olaf Jacobi – not only venture partner, but also an experienced entrepreneur – run this very interesting workshop about the question ‘Venture Capital or Business Angel?’. He gave us some deep insights into the world of venture capital, also from the perspective as an entrepreneur in a very open and authentic way.

The Venture Capital panel with Olaf Jacobi (Target Partners), Maximilian Niederhofer (Atlas Venture) and Lukasz Gadowski (Team Europe Ventures) was also very interesting. Some statements and thoughts:

How good is Germany in terms of venture capital?

We have a great German community of business angels, but even though venture capital doesn’t have an old tradition in Germany, we can observe a huge progress in venture capital activities in the last years. We also have the most business start-ups in Europe, but the total volume of investments is still less than e.g. in Great Britain or France. The challenge is to establish an optimal symbiosis between young engineers and young business professionals, for example through a more intensive exchange between top universities.

What is changing because of the worldwide financial crisis?

First of all not so many companies will be sold. This means that nowadays the venture capital firms professionals can’t support new high-class companies – not because they don’t have the money, but because they can’t manage intensive more than 5-10 companies (with are already in their portfolio) at the same time. Secondly, there are already some rumors in the industry that small venture capital firms can’t hold their covenants which could be a problem for the companies in their portfolio. And thirdly it is also a psychological effect. There is a great uncertainty in the market, so every new start-up will have to face chary investors… But the good news: it’s also a great time for entrepreneurs, because e.g. you can find a lot of good and talented people on the labor market. And there are even more positive thoughts from entrepreneur’s point of view about the financial crisis (in German language).

What is the next big thing?

To the next big thing includes ‘micro system technologies’, ‘behaviour analytics’, ‘games’ and ‘mobile’ )

By the way the VC panel was moderated by Michael Franzkowiak (Gründerszene.de), who answered the question regarding the business activity of his new companywith ‘we make women happy’ or in original ‘Wir machen Frau glücklich’ )

All in all IdeaLab! 2008 was a great event and an interesting expedition for me. Beside all the lectures, I also had the chance to meet talented students who want to start their own business (like Jaroslaw Postnikov -WHU; Ansgar Buschmann – WWU; Christian Wallin – WHU; Marco Laspe – JWG; Christoph Brenner – HSG), some ambitious young entrepreneurs (like Tobias Anton - AS Media; Florian Schreckenbach – Talential GmbH; Ortwin Kartmann – Simty GmbH) and some ‘old’ clever entrepreneurs (like Lukasz Gadowski – Team Europe Ventures; Kolja Hebenstreit - Team Europe Ventures; Ehssan Darianiand – StudiVZ; Felix Haas – amiando AG).

Update: Some more impressions to IdeaLab!2008 (in German language): Kolja Hebenstreit, Lukasz Gadowski, Raphael Haase, Manuel Fritsch, Manuel Langele, Patrick Hundt, want2do.de

Stars of the German Internet Industry: Lukas, Ehssan, Kolja, Oliver an me )

IdeaLab with lectures of internet entrepreneurs

After the opening speech of Prof. Dr. Martin Fassnacht, prorector of the Otto Beisheim School of Management (WHU), Oliver Samwer (European Founders Fund GmbH) spoke about the effects of the financial crisis on start-ups. The climate will be tough, but he believes that the internet industry still is the best for young people, but you have to have a great staying power and today work more cost-conscious… and not only target for growth, growth and growth. His European Founders Fund already started to analyse costs together with their portfolio companies, with the goal to reduce the burn rate. However the internet industry is still exciting (‘die Branche ist geil’), because in no other industry the half of the top 10 players changed in the last 2 years.
More about the lecture of Oliver on the IdeaLab site (in German language).

After other lectures of Julian Riedlbauer (Corporate Finance Partners CFP GmbH) and Martin Ott (Moneybookers Ltd.) Lukasz Gadowski was speaking about his new project ‘Team Europe Ventures‘, in which he pools his over 50 investments, and about critical success factors for start-ups. Firstly the team is very important; you need an a-team with complementary skills and the investors should help active in the founding phase and company building. Lukas also advised to focus on whatever matters for you, but don’t forget the ‘execution’ – to many plans and delays seem to be fatal for start-ups in our fast moving industry. Another interesting point was that you shouldn’t forget the magic formula ‘Costumer Lifetime Value > Customer Acquisition Costs’. But the most important thing was: mobile will become huge :o)
More about the lecture of Lukasz on the IdeaLab site (in German language).

Later on, after the presentations of Dr. Johannes Ziegler (Miaplaza Inc.) and a panel discussion about Pioneers in Germany – with Oliver Samwer (European Founders Fund GmbH), Dr. Johannes Ziegler (Miaplaza Inc.), Robert Basic (Basic Thinking), Julia Kleine (Tomorrow Focus AG) and Oliver Jung (Adinvest AG) - Kolja Hebenstreit (Team Europe Ventures) was speaking about ‘Key Performance Indicators and Product Management’. Kolja gave the audience insights on how to structure and continuous control a business modell in the internet industry. Afterwards Ehssan Dariani (Gruschel GmbH) was pitching for his workshop in Berlin. Beside his pitch, he also spoke about his time at studiVZ Ltd. in a very entertaining, but also authentic way.

At the end of the day, we heard some (entertaining) ‘StartUp Elevator Pitches’, before we went to the cozy ‘IdeaLab!2008 Gruschel-Lounge’ – a great reception with free cocktails )

The Mobile Entertainment Awards

Peperoni shortlisted for Best Communities Company in the Mobile Entertainment Awards

We have been shortlisted for the Mobile Entertainment Awards in the Best Communities Copmany category with our community peperonity.com. It’s great to be shortlisted for this awards that celebrate industry excellence in mobile content and services. In this category we are competing with some old friends; GoFresh, Flirtomatic, BuzzCity and Shozu. May the best win ;o)

Secret of success in the silicon valley

This one poped up during surfing the web. I found it on the blog of Vero Pepperrell alias ‘That Canadian Girl’. It is just perfect in moments of ‘uninspiration’ or defeat in the (mobile) web 2.0 battle, because somehow it makes you smile :)

An here is the master plan for success in our business (an executive summary of the video above):

1. first you need a buzzword, then a second and a third
2. pick at least two industries, you’ll revolutionize
3. find yourself an engineer, feed him pizza, buy him beer
4. give him just a fraction of a fraction of the pie
5. need a good domain name, must be cheap, can’t be lame
6. make your elevator pitch, code it up and flip the switch

peperonity.com in Greek and Spanish

Today we launched three new languages, so now we have peperonity.com in 10 languages; German (Deutsch) [2000.01.12], English [2000.01.12], French (Français) [2007.04.19], Italian (Italiano) [2007.06.29] Portuguese (Português) [2007.06.29], Polish (Polski) [2007.12.18], Russian (Русский) [2008.05.13], Spanish (Español) [2008.07.15], Romanian (Română) [2008.07.15] and Greek (Ελληνικά) [2008.07.15]. This time our team mates Ines, Panos and Codruta were making the various translations.

Some spanish publications: yahoo.es, hoytecnologia.com, actualidad.terra.es, laopinioncoruna.es, laprovincia.es and diariodemallorca.es. And a romanian publication: mediafax.ro

Panel, Networking, and in the middle an aka-aki profile and the real person )

A Day Exploring the future of Mobile

Today I joined the first Mobile 2.0 Europe in Barcelona, a conference bringing people together from all aspects of the mobile ecosystem, including startups, investors, mobile carriers, device manufacturers, mobile application developers and web technologists. All in all a very interesting event with some very good controversy like the panels on the ‘VC Perspective’ and the ‘Operator Perspective’ on the mobile market. You can find a summer of this event at the conference web site and some thoughts in an article ‘Mobile 2.0: Rummble, Zipiko and Dial2do shine, but venture captialists express caution‘ of Matthäus Krzykowski on venturebeat.com.

It was suspenseful to hear the nokia lecture about their plans for the future; ‘Software & Services is one of Nokias core strategy for the future’, ‘It’s about things: People, Plazes, Media and Developers’ and ‘Nokia wants to be a internet company (OVI – Nokias conusmer brand)’. I also had a funny adventure during the aka-aki presentation. I tried their bluetooth applet and found some other aka-aki user in the audience. And I spot ’nanou’ (Stefanie Hoffmann, founder of aka-aki networks GmbH) in the crowd; she didn’t see me, so it was fun and easy to tease her in the aka-aki chat, because I could see everything she was doing )

Mobile 2.0 Europe Agenda:

Introducion by Rudy De Waele, dotopen/Mobile 2.0 Organizing Committee

Introducion by Alfons Sauquet, Dean of ESADE Business School

Keynote by Pekka Pohjakallio, Vice President, Suites Management and Marketing, Services and Software at Nokia

PANEL: Mobile Social Media

• Peggy Anne Salz, MSearchGroove (Moderator)
• Market Overview introduction by Alistair Hill, Analyst, M:Metrics
• Tommy Ahlers, CEO ZYB
• Charlie Schick, Editor-in-Chief for Nokia Conversations
• Doug Richards, CEO Trutap
• Antonio Vince Staybl, CEO Itsmy.com (GoFresh)
• Alex Romero, Director Partnerships, Yahoo! Connected Life Europe

Early Stage Start-up Sessions

• Viktor Maroknic, ?? (Moderator)
• aka-aki (Germany) – Proximity Networking
• Dial2Do (Ireland) – Voice to Text
• Shout’Em (Croatia) – Mobile Social Networking Platform
• Via Mobility (France) – Widget Platform
• YouLynx (Spain) – Mobile Social Media
• Zipipop (Finland) – Intention Broadcasting

PANEL: The VC Perspective

• Tony Fish, AMF Ventures (Moderator)
• Dr. Maximilian Niederhofer, Associate, Atlas Venture
• Inma Martinez, Investment and Innovation Executive, Stradbroke Advisors
• Claude Florin, Multimedia Marketing Manager, OpenCall Business Unit, Hewlett-Packard
• Patrick Raibaut, Partner, Debaeque Venture Capital

Pre Series A Start-up Sessions

• Jonathan Wareham, Associate Professor of Information Systems and Director of Research at ESADE Business School (Moderator)
• kooaba (Switzerland) – Mobile Image Search [Herbert Bay]
• Mobiluck (France) – Mobile Location-based IM, Chat and Social Networking [Olivier Chouraki]
• Rummble (United Kingdom) – Mobility Local Discovery [Andrew Scott]
• Secufone (Netherlands) – Mobility and Safety
• Unkasoft (Spain) – Mobile Advergaming [Jaime Lanchares]
• ViiF (Germany) – Mobile Entertainment Community

PANEL: The Operator Perspective

• Raimo van der Klein, SPRXmobile (Moderator)
• Martin Duval, CEO bluenove / Director of the Orange Start-Up Program
• Gian Paolo Balboni, Head of Innovation Trends Telecom Italia
• Unai Iturburu, Head of Vodafone Spain R&D
• Carlos Domingo, General Director of Telefonica R+D labs
• Anastassia Lauterbach, Executive Vice President for Strategy, T-Mobile International

Post Series A Start-up Sessions

• Daniel Appelquist, Vodafone (Moderator)
• Futurlink (Spain) – Proximity Marketing
• Mippin (UK) – Mobilizing the Web
• Nimbuzz(Netherlands) – Mobile IM and Text Message Service [King Yiu Chu]
• Palringo (UK) – Vocal Instant Messaging [Kerry Ritz]
• Taptu (UK) – Mobile Social Search [Stefan Butlin]

PANEL: Open Business Models

• Mike Butcher, TechCrunch UK & Ireland (Moderator)
• Chris Liu, Managing Director, Fjord
• Leif Fågelstedt, COO, Blyk
• Ilja Laurs, Founder & CEO of GetJar
• Ray Anderson, CEO and founder, Bango
• Laurence Aderemi, Business Development Director (EMEA), AdMob

Introduction to Mobile 2.0 San Francisco – Gregory Gorman, Special Advisor, Strategy and Market Development at SoonR

Closing Remarks – Carles Ferreiro, dotopen

Flat Eric in the back of my car.

The next ride of Flat Eric

Today I found a small surprise in my car. In the back rack of my PepCar Flat Eric was sitting and waiting for the next ride )
If somebody doesn’t know who Flat Eric is, then have a look at this videos:

Enjoy more videos like:

• Bring Back Flat Eric!
• Flat Eric – Alive & Kicking
• Flat Eric – Dancing 1
• Flat Eric – Dancing 2
• Flat Eric – Dancing 3
• Flat Eric – Dancing 4 (Guitar)
• Flat Eric – Barber
• Flat Eric – ID
• Flat Eric – Prunes
• Flat Eric – Wanted
• Flat Eric – Fly
• Flat Eric – Crow

The “sechs in the city”; Lisa, Naia, Sabrina, Inga, Svenja and Anna

Abitur 2008 at Gymnasium Hohenlimburg

Today I was on a school leaving ball at my old school Gymnasium Hohenlimburg to celebrate the school leaving examination ( Abi 2008 ) of my idols ’sechs in the city’. You maybe don’t know this girls, but they are quite famous in our village Hagen. After the ceremony in the school, we had a really great party in the Stadthalle Hagen. Once again, my warmest congratulations to Lisa, Naia, Sabrina, Inga, Svenja, Anna and the other high school graduates!!!

You can find more pictures in my photo album on flickr.

Our booth, yahoo lecture and me under discussion with myspace on a panel.

Mobile Social Web – Web 2.0 für die Hosentasche

Two days ago I was asked by Mark Wächter, if I can fill in for facebook on the Mobile Media Summit at MedienForum.NRW in cologne. They didn’t ask me first, but why not ) So I had the great opportunity to join the panel ‘Mobile Social Web – Web 2.0 für die Hosentasche’ (English: Mobile Social Web – Web 2.0 for the trouser pocket) and to discuss the developments in mobile social networks with Sarik Weber (Vice President – Marketing, cellity AG), Olaf Kroll (Director Business Development Europe, Fox Interactive Media / MySpace.com), Mark Wächter (chairman of Fachgruppe Mobile of Bundesverbandes der Digitalen Wirtschaft e.V.) and Ossi Urchs (F.F.T. Medienagentur).

Markus Nass made some pics with me in action, as carnival barker and in the panel. And here are my slides:

There were also other interesting lectures that day like the one by Dr. Rainer Deutschmann (Executive Vice President Mobile Internet, T-Mobile International AG), telling that they are changing more and more from a portal to a platform for third parties. And that it is important for them right now to explain to the user that they can now find the web brands like eBay – that they are familiar with on their personal computer at home – on the their mobile phone. And I just loved the statement of Michael Stenberg (Partner Director Mobile, Central & Eastern Europe, Yahoo! Deutschland GmbH): ‘the mobile internet is big’ )

Mobile Media Summit 2008 Agenda:

Mobile Internet – Kampf um die beste Startposition

• Keynote: Dr. Rainer Deutschmann
• Moderation: Ossi Urchs
• Panel participants: Mark Wächter, Dr. Rainer Deutschmann, Michael Stenberg, Matthias Büchs
• Presentations: Michael Stenberg, Matthias Büchs

Mobile Social Web – Web 2.0 für die Hosentasche

• Keynote: Sarik Weber
• Moderation: Ossi Urchs
• Panel participants: Maciej A. Kuszpa, Mark Wächter, Olaf Kroll, Sarik Weber
• Presentations: Olaf Kroll, Maciej A. Kuszpa

Mobile Advertising – Werbung direkt beim Kunden

• Keynote: Burkhard Leimbrock
• Moderation: Ossi Urchs
• Panel participants: Dirk Kraus, Mark Wächter, Burkhard Leimbrock, Stefan Meyer-Spickenagel
• Presentations: Dirk Kraus, Stefan Meyer-Spickenagel