Strategy: how Axel Springer calculated and then bought its way to European digital dominance
I wonder if the European digital economy will follow 'Lineker's Law': 22 startups try to become the winner who takes all, and in the end the Germans win. It looks a bit like it, when you look at Axel Springers rise to digital dominance in the last half decade. From virtually zero - "a mere internet midget" according to the Financial Times Deutschland, Axel Springer strategized, calculated and shopped itself to the ve...
The black art of customer development (2): interview with Tristan Kromer of Luxr
As I’m trying to meet as many interesting people who think long and hard about the art of building products and companies, I had the opportunity to talk to Tristan Kromer of Luxr. He’s a coach at the accelerator Nest’Up this spring. He’s also the curator of a few LinkedIn groups on Lean Startup principles. His interest in Lean Startup methodology and customer development was sparked by reading ‘Four Step...
What Gordon Ramsay can teach you about startups
In my hometown, an Irish guy recently opened a fish and chips shop. When I first got to know him, he offered four kinds of battered-and-fried foods (fish, chicken, asparagus and risotto balls), with chips that came with three kinds of special salts (regular sea salt, spicy salt and salt with basil) and three different sauces. Apart from that, he also offered burrito’s (which also came in fish, chicken or vegetarian...
SoundCloud co-founder Eric Wahlforss: “How we built SoundCloud"
Update 24/04/2013: today, the office of Vice President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes announced that Eric Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung won the 'European Web Entrepreneur of the Year' award. In some ways, SoundCloud has become a byword for the ambitious (but immature) startup scene that is Berlin. It’s cool and hip and hard to categorize. Started as a way for semi professional artists to grow their own...
9 tips to get better at the black art of customer development
Admit it: you have, at some point, thought that you just didn’t have time to talk to your customers. There's just too much on your to do list. Anyway, if you would ask them what they want, they would say something like “faster horses”. And Steve Jobs didn’t ask consumers what they wanted, and you are on your way to become the new Steve Jobs. Right? Well, not exactly, says Ian Collingwood, founder of UXdna. N...
