"LeWeb is about entrepreneurship. It's about being international. It's about inspiration. It's about the best of the best."

Loic Le Meur

I'd like to add:

"LeWeb is about pay-it-forward culture"

While the official LeWeb theme was SOLOMO, Social, Local, Mobile, I felt this year was particularly about the entrepreneurial stories, the successes and failures that thrive the change. Steve Blank explains the pay-it-forward culture best: "We're all in this together."

Daniel Ek, CEO and Co-founder of Spotify

 
I was truly glad that Daniel Ek, CEO and Co-founder of Spotify, made it to LeWeb this year, and together with Loic shared the importance of pay-it-forward culture. All success feeds each other and no startup cluster, hub or ecosystem won't grow, nor bloom, without sharing those successes. I think the European, and specifically Nordic startup ecosystem needs to hear it explicitly from today's change makers.

In the spirit of pay-it-forward culture, I've gathered learnings from LeWeb startup founders, finishing with Mr. Karl Lagerfeld himself, also a high school drop-out, and probably the most entrepreneurial and curious soul at LeWeb this year.

I'll start with Daniel's most important learnings:

• Execution is everything. No offense to innovation, but 95% of success lies in execution. 
• People are everything. Period.
• Focus. Learn how not to do everything.
• Please watch the entire interview with more great insights from Daniel.

Sean Parker, Founders Fund, and Shervin Pishevar, Menlo Ventures EyeEm Photo

• One of the biggest failures: Hiring wrong people. As young and naive entrepreneur it's easy to get impressed by and end up hiring crazy people.
• Which naturally leads to: People are great asset class. I also urge you to read Naval Ravikant touching the same concern both Sean and Shervin share: The downside of all smart kids starting their own startups instead of working together and building kick ass teams.
• Success and failure amnesia: Despite the successes and failures, keep going, keep building and creating value to people. As Sean put it, with every new venture some things get easier, but one has to be paranoid. Building company is hard.
• Timing: Don't build product 10 years ahead of your time (Bill Gross learnings: Survive until the market is ready) 
• If you don't fail, you haven't tried hard enough.
• Watch the interview

Dennis Crowley, CEO and Co-founder of Foursquare EyeEm Photo

• Execute on long term vision. Dennis and Naveen with team Foursquare are doing fantastic job, making it very clear from the start.
• Watch the interview and read the recap by Mike Butcher

Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote EyeEm Photo

• Give your users time to fall in love.
• Mobile services have to be REALLY simple and direct.
• Focus on making a better product.
• Work with something you love. You're more likely to succeed if you work with something you're passionate about, and if you don't succeed, at least you spend time on something you love.
• Watch the interview

Dave Morin, CEO and Co-founder of Path

• Simplicity takes time.
• Shipping for mobile is different than shipping for web, especially regarding design and process.
• Recruit right people.
• Enable users to do what they try to do with your service.
• Have courage to take your time and solve important problems instead of launching too early. There's a downside to shipping too early and getting three star App Store reviews.
• Watch the interview

Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram EyeEm Photo

• Great products come from great teams.
• Lack of a dark moment makes startups fail.
• Find best people in the world, building team is not about filling headcount.
• Watch the interview and read the recap by Mike Butcher

Kevin Rose, CEO and Co-founder of Milk

Learnings from Digg: 

• Stay true to who you are, pay attention to real hard core users instead of what other smart people tell you.
• In order to succeed with community based services and business models, gamification might be great way to hook up to a service, but it gets old really fast, there has to be real utility in the service.

Learnings from Oink:

• Releasing as invite only app in order to let in passionate people first wasn't such a great idea after all. You don't actually want hatred to be your customers first impression. Oink dropped invite only after few weeks.
• ps. If you make it the application of the week in App Store, expect huge shot on the arm. It creates more sustainable sign up growth, not just a temporary launch peak due media coverage.
• Watch the interview

Bill Gross, CEO of Idealab "Great idea is crazy idea right until it becomes self-evident"

• Market power rules
• Master your demo
• Pursue you passion, you'll face numbers of challenges as did Steve Jobs and Walt Disney along their huge successes.
• Focus. Don't worry picking the wrong focus, even that is better than picking no focus.
• Recognize your strengths.
• Don't overbuild. better to grow slowly.
• Timing. Survive until the market is ready.
• Test. Find the way to test the real customer value proposition.
• Stick with it. Ignore critics when you KNOW you have great idea.
• Find essential partners. Critical for global growth with world changing product.
• Harness your users' passion.
• Watch the presentation

The Ben Parr

Ben Parr didn't just share his views on upcoming trends, but friendly advice to entrepreneurs from his time as editor in large at Mashable.

• Build something that last, build a sequoia.
• Be adaptable, both regarding ideas and people.
• Don't build a company, build a cause.
• If you truly believe it, keep building.

Fair to say, I can't wait to see what kind of sequoia Ben is about to plant, and Loic promised to invest in :) Hint: It won't be a photo sharing, nor a daily deal app. Watch Ben in action.
Ps. Check out all live sketches from LeWeb'11 by Livesketching

Startup Competition With Advice On The Importance of Focus
EyeEm Photo

Great advice from Startup Competition judges on focusing and not trying to solve multiple huge problems simultaneously.

ClearKarma got the judges excited in the beginning by offering consumers safer food choices, but in the end left them worried by facing classic chicken and egg problem: Trying to solve two huge problems at the same time. As young startup it's important to have bold vision, but more importantly, to have the ability to focus. Watch the entire pitch and Q&A.
Judges: Zachary S. Bogue, Angel Investor & Advisor, Fred Destin, Partner, Atlas Venture, Lyle Fong, Chief Strategist & Co-Founder, Lithium, Patrick Hoffstetter, Chief Digital Officer, Renault, Michael Parekh, Investor & Advisor.

The Karl Lagerfeld EyeEm Photo
Karl Lagerfeld doesn't think he's the right person to give general advice to entrepreneurs, but here're few of his learnings that fit right in:

• You can only be yourself.
• You have to adopt to the world, it won't adjust to us.
• You have to be curious.
• Your work has to be 100% you, not what you want to be.
• Invent your own rules.
• One should learn and be informed, it's easier than ever before to be informed today.
• 95% of his work goes to trash. My interpretation: Be patient, be excellent, keep iterating.
• Bonus: Great Tumblr with Karl Lagefeld quotes

Thank You Geraldine and Loic for paying it forward!

My dear startups: Keep paying it forward and come back to share your story next year at LeWeb, December 4-6 2012! EyeEm Photo

Find out more About Me. Ways to make sure You don't miss anything: Subscribe to my Feed, follow my Swedish Startups Twitter list, Startup Advice, connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook. Or just drop me a line.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Flickr CC by JournalDesVitrines.com

You know it's not just another Internet conference when you have Mr. Fashion himself, THE Karl Lagerfeld, opening up for the 72 hours non stop Geraldine and Loic Le Meur LeWeb extravaganza. The program this year is so packed with the latest goodies in SOLOMO it makes it almost hard to breathe.  

I'm so glad Dennis Crowley of Foursquare is back now 15 Million members strong, Daniel Ek, Co-Founder & CEO of Spotify will share few facts on the music industry, and I really look forward having Shervin Pishevar of Menlo Ventures coming over and talk to Sean Parker, General Partner, Founders Fund, who just raised another $625M fund.

Don't miss Phil Libin CEO of Evernote, an awesome entrepreneur story, and one of the great companies in Sequoia portfolio.

Since you need to stay on top of social media metrics and trends, you can't miss Jeremiah Owyang, of Altimeter Group deliver “State of Social Business” And did I mention I'm super excited to hear what Ben Parr has to say.

LeWeb - The Ultimate Exercise In Networking With No Excuses

You know the D-day is getting closer when the "xx likes you" mails keep hitting your Inbox. For every year the Team LeWeb is walking the extra mile to make it easier to meet. So even this year. There's no need to sigh and dig into the plus 3 000 attendee list, just hit over to Presdo Match, whosatleweb.com and hotatleweb.com and start booking! It's what you make out of it, so make sure to make the most of it.

Is your startup looking to meet early stage investors, even less excuse: I've laid up the ground work for you. Here's few you'd like to meet:

• Atlas Venture with Fred Destin
• Wellington Partners with Christian Thaler-Wolski, Daniel Waterhouse and Eric Archambeau 
• DFJ Esprit with Scott Sage 
• Dave McClure, 500 Startups
• Earlybird Ventures with Jason Whitmire and Maximilian Claussen 
• Point Nine Capital with Christoph Janz 
• M8 Capital with Joe Nile
• Index Ventures with Danny Rimer, Martin Mignot, Shardul Shah 
• Balderton with Charlotte Anne Swerling, Bernard Liautaud, Roberto Bonanzinga, Harry Briggs
• Accel Partners 
• Atomico
• Charles River Ventures 
• Jeff Clavier
• Shervin Pishevar
• Ventech with Claire Houry
• From Nordics you'll find Northzone, Creandum with Fredrik Cassel and SEED Capital with Rasmus Bjerngaard, Jakob Ekkelund, Niels Vejrup Carlsen and Jakob Ekkelund

Startup Competition - The Sixteen Ones

23minutes.to from Iceland is the only startup representing Nordics and Baltics on the16 startups strong competition, but you'll have a chance to "get your hands on" few more from the region during the three days:
Finland: Zeighed, Wantlet, Foodie.fm
Sweden: Spotify, Reamill, Burt, Tripbirds, 46 Elks
Denmark: Podio, Evertale, Influads

It's All About Storytelling - How To Crush It On Stage

LeWeb is all about connecting people and sharing success stories - now is your time to shine.

Stay calm and tell a story; Great piece of advice by Waze, one of the last year's winners who just raised $55M in total in funding. I've also put together pitch advice and superb example of how another one of last year's winners Super Marmite crushed it on stage.

LeWeb - Study In Hustle

It's really hard to be an entrepreneur if you don't know how to hustle. Big conferences are the perfect occasion to show your skills. "Adopt an entrepreneur" was a new initiative by Silicon Valley Bank and Lepe Partners to pay LeWeb tickets for 20 entrepreneurs. Watch one of my favourite submission by Gabriel Hubert of Teleportd, Realtime Photo search engine and Seedcamp company, hustle his way to LeWeb. "If there's a will, there's a way." 

Alexander Ljung of SoundCloud On Why LeWeb Matters

Being consistent. Being resilient. Being brilliant.

It took Alexander three years to land the main stage at LeWeb.
Year one: Meet 25 VCs in two days, amongst them current investor Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures.
Year two: Hustle the conference demoing SoundCloud's then new Record button capturing industry voices.
This year Alexander will take the main stage on Friday 10th and talk about the journey of SoundCloud. Don't miss.

If You Still Can't Make Your Sorry Ass Over

Thanks to Ustream, there will be 3 (!) different live streams reporting every second of the action. When not hanging on the live stream, you'll find the latest buzz on social photo sharing apps Instagram, EyeEm and Teleportd.

DID I MENTION HUSTLE?

DID I MENTION TELL A STORY?

DID I MENTION BE A PERSON AND BE AMAZING?

Good. See You In Paris!

Find out more About Me. Ways to make sure You don't miss anything: Subscribe to my Feed, follow my Swedish Startups Twitter list, Startup Advice, connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook. Or just drop me a line.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

"Being obsessed with your product and customers should be number one focus area for CEOs"

Quote by Brad Feld via Sravish Sridhar of Kinvey at #SVBCEO

Foursquare running on its third year, with $70 Million in fresh venture funding, 3400 % growth rate last year, passing 10 Million members, a BILLION check-ins, and 500 000 merchants on board, it's fair to say there's a lot going on for CEO Dennis Crowley and his team. These are also the times when it's ever important to stay focused on the company's long term vision, as close to the product and its customers. Here's a great example of how Foursquare keeps focusing, growing and delivering:

For a couple of weeks ago I had a Twitter discussion with my friends about why Foursquare has totally changed my travel and places discovery, and become my number one travel, hotel and restaurant discovery guide. With new list function it's also easy to put together list of ones favorite places or a wish list. Ps. For those wishing to explore Barcelona Scott Sage style, save the list

Leading to an improved search functionality request:

Having Dennis bouncing back within seconds asking for example:

Followed by my 140 character feature request:

With no time wasted, the request was forwarded to Foursquare Product Development team.

How's that for creating user engagement and improving your product and user experience? Here's the entire feature request conversation:

See the full gallery on Posterous

Dennis + Foursquare + LEWEB 2011 = TRUE

Wish to learn how to create true engagement in SOLOMO (Social Local Mobile) services? Dennis Crowley will repeat his much appreciated last year's visit to LeWeb in Paris, and here's why you should join to listen him share his insights with Loic on the LeWeb Opening Day December 7th: 

Those who know me and follow me, know that I speak very strongly for the "Opt-In" Internet. With Foursquare you don't even have to get into the discussion about good and bad creepiness. It has by so far never broken my trust, or forced me be more public about my location, but instead keeps incentivizing and engaging me with the service, thus making me share more tips, as my location. I so wish more of the companies being started today would stop obeying the rules of false engagement using Opt-out, basically forcing me to like and share to be able to even sign up for a service! It's like no one anymore dares to trust that its service can create demand and true engagement.

While waiting to unlock your LeWeb11 Foursquare batch, read my takeaways from previous LeWeb and watch LeWeb 2010 interview with Dennis Crowley.

Find out more About Me. Ways to make sure You don't miss anything: Subscribe to my Feed, follow my Swedish Startups Twitter list, Startup Advice, connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook. Or just drop me a line.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Flickr CC: natashalcd

"How well does our website and app communicate our vision?" 

I was recently asked the question while giving feedback to up and coming mobile social sharing service. We had already talked a couple of hours about the service, so I had gotten a clear picture what the founders' vision was.

I paused and finally answered:

"It's like a jigsaw puzzle: You have all the pieces, but they are assembled in the wrong order, so you can't see the complete motive of the puzzle, i.e. your vision."

This is fairly common, especially in the early phase of a product. You've probably heard "Can't see the forest for the trees": You want too much, too early, and become feature rich. It's easier and more fun, especially being a geek, to build more features than think about the bigger picture, nail the one thing and follow your long term vision. It also takes time to crystalise your vision.

That is also why there is so many recurring startup advice out there to remind you to

• Focus!
• Do one thing well 
• Start by serving one niche well 
• Find the one thing, the heart and soul of the product 
• Don't add, but remove features 
• Stay away from the feature wars 

When the dance floor is filled with other pretty and smart boys and girls, it's easy to get anxious, get caught up in feature wars, and lose the sight of ones vision. Don't. Instead, keep refining and aligning your core functionality with your long term vision. (Why I love Foursquare so much)

Remember, there's almost nothing as appealing and contagious as self confidence and clear vision. Mixed with large portion of humility and humbleness.

Don't Make Me Think!

Being feature rich only ends up confusing the user and buries the message and the value or your service. When the service lacks natural flow it makes a user think. An intuitive service makes a user excited and incentivized. Keep in mind that an average user only engages with between six to seven websites and services on daily bases. There's no place of being confusing.

Tips On The Way To Make Your Product Communicate Your Vision

"You gotta start with the customer experience and work backwards to technology". Steve Jobs

Whenever in doubt, these five minutes will pull you back and keep you on track.

"That's what sold me. One slide." Fred Wilson

Getting your one line pitch right is really, really, really hard. It also boils down to being able to communicate your vision in one slide. It's part of the journey, and it might take few years to crystalise it. Ask SoundCloud.

"Sound" from SoundCloud on Vimeo.

"Sharing your vision is the most important thing a founder can do." Alexa Andrzejewski

Alexa Andrzejewski, CEO & Co-Founder of Foodspotting shares her learnings on how by sharing your vision, you can avoid many common mistakes startups make:

The UX Driven Startup (Or The Vision Driven Startup) - Updated October 2011 View more presentations from Alexa Andrzejewski

One more thing: Watch TechStars show on Bloomberg TV!

Six extraordinary great episodes, that capture the early phase of building a product and refining how to communicate your vision.

Find out more About Me. Ways to make sure You don't miss anything: Subscribe to my Feed, follow my Swedish Startups Twitter list, Startup Advice, connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook. Or just drop me a line.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

This feed has moved to

Vi ber om ursäkt för att posten med datumet för nästa SSWC poppar upp i rss-feeden hela tiden, trots att posten nu är gammal. Flera av er har hört av sig och undrat vad som händer. Det gör vi också.

Wordpress är ominstallerad och uppdaterad till senaste version. Och feedburner rapporterar inga fel.

Om någon wp-ninja där ute kan lista ut vad som är fel, hör av er.

Tomas

I går kväll tilldelades Sydsvenskans Kinga Sandén Stora Journalistpriset som årets förnyare med motiveringen:

“För att hon i realtid med hjälp av Twitter hittar svåråtkomliga källor och information i utrikesjournalistiken och vidgar världen för läsarna.’

Kinga är en av de skarpaste journalisterna jag känner. Hon är väl värd priset. Hade hon inte fått det nu, så hade hon fått det senare.

Sen är det synd att motiveringen fokuserar på Twitter. Det är ju inte Twitter som är grejen, om nu någon skulle tro det.

Grejen är att journalistiken aldrig varit så utmanad som nu, samtidigt som dess möjligheter aldrig varit större.

Den sociala webben stjäl läsarnas uppmärksamhet, men erbjuder samtidigt journalisten fantastiska möjligheter till att bygga en verklig relation med läsaren. Det är det som journalistkåren måste förstå. Precis som @kingasanden har gjort. Följ henne. Och lär.

Foto: Gitta Wilén på Sweden Social Web Camp.