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Interview

Holger Schmidt: “I sometimes wonder if people spend as much time on Facebook as they used to.”

Janina Benz_February 15, 2012_2:50 PM_No Comment

Janina Benz: Hi Holger – could you briefly introduce yourself to our readers?

Holger Schmidt: Of course. After 14 years as a journalist for the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, I joined the news magazine Focus at the start of the year and will be writing for them about the digital economy. When I’m not working, I enjoy spending time with my family and going mountain biking.

JB: You’re one of Germany’s best-known online journalists. What do you think the future holds for journalism – will it be predominantly driven by the print or online market?

HS: Print and online journalism will coexist for a long time to come. As a journalist, it makes sense for me to be active both in print and online to reach as many readers as possible. So while my column on the digital economy is appearing in the print edition of Focus, I’m also launching a blog soon on the Focus website, focus.de.

JB: You’re also very active on Twitter. What are the differences between the way you use Facebook and Twitter?

HS: Twitter is my preferred news source and I use it intensely, to share news as well as consume it. I use Facebook more for entertainment and communication, less for information. If I had to divide up my social media time, I’d say about 70% is spent on Twitter, 15% on Facebook and 15% on Google+.

Dr. Holger Schmidt

JB: We’ve been making good use of social media to publicize the CODE_n contest. In turn, this has allowed us to attract well-known interviewees and jury members. During the campaign, we also saw very clearly that Twitter and Facebook have very different strengths and possibilities. What do you think the strengths of these two networks are?

HS: Twitter’s clear strength is its ability to spread news rapidly. It plays a more important role in many other countries than in Germany, and is less suited to communication than Facebook is. I sometimes wonder if people spend as much time on Facebook as they used to.

JB: How come Twitter is mostly only popular among internet professionals in Germany?

HS: Twitter’s great for news junkies, but the entry barrier is too high for most people to use it as a practical information channel. If you don’t mind reading the news with a slightly delay, you don’t need Twitter. I think news aggregators will definitely help in extracting the most important information from the 250 million tweets sent every day. Twitter also wants to open an office in Germany to gain a foothold here.

JB: How do you think Facebook and Twitter will continue to develop?

HS: Facebook will hit the limits of its growth in the foreseeable future, so it will have to focus more on making money. Twitter will likely undergo fairly major change to make itself attractive to more people. But I see both as established, central parts of the web infrastructure.

JB: What does the future hold for Google+?

HS: Google+ has made a good start, but I’m not sure what role it’s supposed to play next to Facebook and Twitter. However, integrating content from Google+ into Google search results will serve to populate Google+ almost automatically.

JB: Managing trust is a hot topic in the media at the moment due to its choice as the theme for this year’s CeBIT, and also in light of other issues, such as the current debate about the enforced introduction of the Facebook Timeline. How do you see this discussion? Where do you think privacy is most threatened?

HS: Anyone using social networking sites needs to understand that their advertising models are based on user data. I’m neither surprised nor appalled that Facebook shows me advertising tailored as closely as possible to my stated interests – it’s a sensible business model for a social network. What I do have concerns about is what happens outside Facebook via Facebook Connect, which records which websites I visit. It’s none of their business. Apart from that though, I keep to one basic rule: Everything I post on social networking sites can be read by anyone – today and in ten years’ time.

JB: Thank you for the interview.

HS: My pleasure. All the best!

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Interview

FELIKS EYSER: “I SEE MANY FOUNDERS WHO ARE BOGGED DOWN IN DETAILS OR PRIORITIZE THE WRONG TASKS AND STRATEGIES. THAT’S WHERE AN EXPERIENCED OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVE CAN HELP.”

Oliver Gassner_January 31, 2012_10:51 AM_No Comment

As the successful founder of Justaloud and RegioHelden, Feliks Eyser knows what is especially important for startups. In an interview with Oliver Gassner, he explains what really matters to him as the Managing Director of RegioHelden, outlines his experiences with startup contests, and reveals how his company is most successful at trade shows.

Oliver Gassner: Hi Feliks, would you please introduce yourself to our readers?

Feliks Eyser: Feliks Eyser, business IT specialist, founder and Managing Director of RegioHelden GmbH.

OG: What exactly does RegioHelden do?

FE: RegioHelden is a specialist service provider for local Internet advertising. In other words, we help lawyers, dentists and craftsmen gain new customers via the Internet.

OG: And you do that primarily with Adwords? Or what else do you use?

FE: That’s right, Adwords is the most important channel. We also offer Google Places management.

OG: If I understand correctly, things are going really well for you at the moment. How many employees are you adding per month, and at how many locations?

FE: We currently operate four locations with a staff of around 45. We’ll be adding about another 15 by March. New locations are slated for the summer.

OG: How do you manage that kind of growth? Huge enterprises like SAP are geared for it, but you?

FE: Learning by doing. ;) The most important aspect from the organizational perspective is a strong middle management consisting of people that each supervise teams of three to ten.

OG: And how is the quality of the applicants? Are you satisfied with them, or do they need a huge amount of training? Startups with a strong development orientation have real bottlenecks to contend with.

FE: Well, the nice thing about us is that we’re not that strongly development-driven. We’re more about sales. The quantity of applications is no problem (several hundred per month). The bottleneck is in fact one of quality. As a rule, we seek out applicants who have the right spirit and who we can train for the specifics. Basically, we hire for attitude and train for skill.

OG: Sounds like a good tactic.
CODE_n is a contest for founders in the mobile sector. How important are contests and prizes for business founders?

FE: If the prize money is high enough, it’s an interesting way to finance your activities while in bootstrapping mode. That’s what we did at my previous project, Justaloud. The publicity and the contacts that are always touted as an incentive didn’t really help us that much back then, however. At RegioHelden, we don’t participate in contests for lack of time.

OG: If you were on the jury of a startup contest, what would you look for in a company to put it at the top of your list?

FE: A strong team, a sustainable revenue model, and a clear marketing and sales strategy.

OG: Among business founders, there are the serial founder types and the execution types. Serial founders often go into VC or become active as a business angel. Execution types tend to become CEOs of something big. What will you be in five years? On your fourth startup, a business angel, CEO of XING, or on an extended vacation?

FE: To be honest, I’m not giving that much thought at the moment. But I don’t really see myself as the CEO of a big company that I didn’t found. :)

OG: Well put. ;) What do startups really need – assuming they have developers and an alpha: connections, good advice, money?

FE: Good advice certainly helped me the most. I can only recommend that founders actively seek contact to experienced mentors and constantly get input about their own business model and development. I see many founders who are bogged down in details or prioritize the wrong tasks and strategies. That’s where an experienced outside perspective can help keep things on track.

OG: The prize for the CODE_n contest is the opportunity to exhibit at CeBIT together with other winners in a special CODE_n exhibition space. What’s your killer tip for startups on how to make the most of such an opportunity?

FE: Be aggressive. ;) When we started exhibiting at trade shows, we were very passive and took few leads home with us. These days, we really lay it on: magicians at the booth, contests, all kinds of goodies, lots of staff (up to six people at a stand of four square meters) and the mindset that we’re going to approach everyone. Using those tactics at your average SMB trade fair, we convert up to ten percent of visitors into leads who give us their contact information. When we started, that figure was less than one percent.

OG: What are you doing at CeBIT? Is that even your target audience? I can’t really imagine finding dentists or craftsmen there.

FE: Right, and that’s why we’re not exhibiting there. The trade fairs we take part in are relatively small and not very well-known, but focus tightly on our SMB target group.

OG: If you could name a startup (in Germany, Austria or Switzerland, but not Stuttgart ;) ) that we should interview, who would it be and why?

FE: Have a word with the guys at sofatutor in Berlin: they’re a really nice team with a cool, useful product.

OG: Thanks for the interview and your time.

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Interview

LARS HINRICHS: “CHANGE IS A DAILY OCCURRENCE FOR ME.”

Oliver Gassner_January 19, 2012_10:26 AM_No Comment

As a member of the CODE_n12 contest jury, Lars Hinrichs helped to select the startups that will make it into the finals, and thus to CeBIT 2012. We caught him at his desk at HackFwd, a provider of venture capital, where he acts as the “executive geek”. Hinrichs took the time to answer some of our burning questions.

Oliver Gassner: Hello Lars, would you please introduce yourself to our readers?

Lars Hinrichs: http://hackfwd.com/people#lars-hinrichs

OG: You’re on the jury of the CODE_n12 contest. What would prompt you to send a startup’s concept straight to the “circular file”?

LH: Anything that’s not new and not innovative.

OG: Does every innovation make money, or does it take something more?

LH: Business models take shape if you have happy customers, not vice versa.

OG: How many startups do you look at every year, and how many of them do you invest in?

LH: I don’t count them. This year we’ve invested in about eight.

OG: What’s the web or mobile app that changed your life or work the most over the past twelve months?

LH: I don’t know – change is a daily occurrence for me.

OG: What do startups really need from the outside – connections, good advice, money?

LH: Three things characterize a successful startup: 1. it adds sustainable value to the market; 2. it has an unique competitive advantage within its niche; 3. it is an economies-of-scale business. In short, startups need a business model. That’s all it really takes – everything else is just icing on the cake.

OG: That’s from within. What can/must investors/angels contribute?

LH: “Angel” is an unfortunate term. Investors provide money and value (experience, motivation, commitment to growth).

OG: The CODE_n12 finalists will be winning exhibition space at CeBIT. What’s your tip for a startup that wants to make the most of that opportunity?

LH: Be outgoing and don’t wait for someone to show up.

OG: Of the questions that people ask you about XING, which one are you tired of? And which question should I ask you instead?

LH: I’m tired of them all. As a rule, I no longer answer questions about XING since leaving the company.

OG: OK, then I won’t ask you whether you had an office in the Valley, and whether that would have benefited your international reach.
If you could nominate one (mobile) startup in Germany, Austria or Switzerland (one that you do NOT hold a stake in or serve as a consultant) for us to interview, who would it be and why?

LH: I would only recommend those that I hold a stake in. *laugh*

OG: Not counting Google and Facebook, which startup would you have liked to have invested in?

LH: I do in fact have a financial stake in Facebook. Unfortunately, I turned down the chance to invest in Wonga.

OG: What does Wonga do?

LH: Wonga offers loans online – almost in real time, of a limited volume (up to GBP 400), and for a short time (55 days maximum).

OG: Thank you for your precious time, Lars! ;)

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Interview

NICOLAS BERG: “WE WANT TO TURN THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN.”

Oliver Gassner_December 12, 2011_1:03 PM_No Comment

Nicolas Berg, RedalpineWe spoke to founder and venture capitalist Nicolas Berg about unpurchased Facebook shares, the enriching effect of gamification apps such as Quest.li, the DNA of successful startups, and why true venture capitalists also invest during times of crisis.

Oliver Gassner: Hello Nicolas, would you please introduce yourself to our readers?

Nicolas Berg: I’m Swiss, a company founder since 1984, a business angel active in enterprises such as XING  since 2000, and I’ve been with Redalpine VC Venture Partners since 2007.

OG: Is the present a good time to invest in startups?

NB: It’s always a good time to invest in startups – except perhaps during extreme hype phases, because insanity is contagious.

OG: So you’re saying we’re not in a hype phase (yet)?

NB: No, definitely not. If anything, the mood in soft-currency countries like the U.S. and the euro zone is somewhat reserved. But true startup founders and venture investors don’t care very much about that. We want to innovate and turn the world upside down.

OG: What are the signs of a hype setting in? Or do they creep in gradually, like the proverbial frog being brought to a boil?

NB: You can see it on the stock market when even the pros toss proven formulas such as price-earnings ratios overboard and start waffling about user multiples or Internet fantasy. It happened in the tech sector in 2000 and in Japan in the 80s.

OG: What’s the web or mobile app that changed your life or work the most?

NB: In the 90s it was e-mail, the AltaVista search engine, and financial platforms. In the past decade, Facebook, Skype, Google, YouTube, and a number of iPhone apps such as maps, phone books and messaging. At the moment my favorite is Quest.li, an app that offers web and location-based treasure hunts. And Connex.io, an app that intelligently synchronizes and merges all my address books, telephone directories and social networking contacts.

OG: Can such treasure hunts also serve marketing purposes, or are they pure entertainment?

NB: Either is possible. Anyone who plays Quest.li can also build their own quests. Quest creators can choose whether to run them locally or globally, and whether to make them free or require a stake. The company already has inquiries from major brands such as food chains and tour operators for quests to be built by the crowd, in which dedicated, informed brand consumers can win coupons.

OG: Can a web project that does not have a gaming, dating, or (ultimately) selling character ever be financially viable?

NB: A U.S. investor once said that social networks are always about finding more love or better business opportunities. That’s a bit of an oversimplification, though. Dating, “social” shopping and gamification are certainly important trends. I like the trend toward gaming best, because I feel that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to attract attention. Gaming is a state of mind in which not only children learn more effectively or are open to selling. I think people who are only into bargain-hunting don’t make sustainable new customers for brand partners, while smart gamers or Quest solvers are more committed, tightly networked, and probably more loyal.

OG: connex.io is “free for 60 days” (that always puts me off a bit). Others offer free accounts without time limitations but restricted functionality for their web apps. What’s better?

NB: For the first 60 days, connex.io lets you sync, merge and clean (dedupe) your data free of charge. If a clean contacts list isn’t worth $50 a year to you and you can do without the service, there’s no need to sign up as a premium customer. But many users with valuable networks of contacts, on LinkedIn or XING for example, will.

OG: The CODE_n Global Innovation Contest is a competition for entrepreneurs in the mobile sector. How important are competitions and prizes for business founders?

NB: They’re certainly a good thing. We’ve had good experiences with them in Switzerland. Awards such as venture kick, Heuberger, De Vigier, Venture, and Technopark let the best new or aspiring startups collect seed money to the tune of CHF 100,000. They also facilitate contacts to the investors on the jury. But once they’ve won two awards at the most, founders really should focus on building their businesses rather than entering competitions.

OG: How many startups does Redalpine support? And how many do you add every year?

NB: Redalpine looks at about 1,500 business ideas annually, or around five per day. We have invested in 16 European startups since 2007 and support them very actively. Previously, we invested privately in a similar number of startups from 2000 to 2006. Starting in 2012, Redalpine 2 is going to invest in another 20 to 25 startups.

OG: To get going, startups need a prototype and a good team – what do they need most urgently from the outside? PR? Connections? Money? Advice?

NB: Three things are important: an innovative, disruptive idea, a suitable business model, and a team of at least two highly talented entrepreneurs who are truly capable of realizing the vision on the market. We help as coaches and of course with our network, which includes co-investors, customers, partners, media, telcos and other potential team members.

OG: The CODE_n Global Innovation Contest offers 50 finalists exhibition space in a special CODE_n hall at CeBIT 2012. What’s your killer tip for startups on how to make the most of such an opportunity?

NB: I recommend that the winners put plenty of time, creativity, and diligence into how they are going to attract their target audience (customers, employees, journalists) to their booth before CeBIT. They should remember that trade show visitors are like moths: they’re drawn to light. They should also allow enough time and manpower to follow up the contacts after the show.

OG: In which startup (other than Facebook and Google) you would have liked to have invested and why?

NB: We were in fact offered Facebook shares back when the company was still valued at only $4 billion. But normally, we focus on ambitious start-ups based in German-speaking Europe. We haven’t really missed any deals in Switzerland that we regret, and in Germany it’s only been a few. We’re pleased with our portfolio: 100 insiders recently ranked the top 100 Swiss startups, and five of our portfolio companies were in the top 13 places. In the Life Sciences category, we even held the first through fourth places.

OG: Care to give us a name? It doesn’t have to be a deal that was offered to you.

NB: I would like to have invested in Apple in the 70s, because the company is now truly innovative and disruptive in three industries. I’ve loved Apple’s products since 1983.

OG: Thanks for taking the time to speak to us. ;)

NB: You’re welcome, talk to you again soon.

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Interview

PETER AMBROZY: “AFTER THE IDEA ITSELF, THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS ARE FEASIBILITY, AND ABOVE ALL THE TEAM”

Oliver Gassner_December 6, 2011_11:26 AM_No Comment

Peter Ambrozy in a digital conversation with Oliver Gassner about why he also likes to use Facebook as a business network, the importance of prototyping for startups, how startups can make their mark at trade fairs, and the point at which companies outgrow the “startup” label.

Oliver Gassner: Hello Peter, would you please introduce yourself to our readers?

Peter Ambrozy: Hello, Oliver. I’m the founder of edelight.de and investor in regiohelden.de.

OG: We should perhaps add that Edelight is a social shopping site, and that Regiohelden does local Internet advertising via Google Adwords. Can you even still call Edelight a startup, or would you already describe yourselves as an established company?

PA: Edelight has evolved into an e-commerce enabler that set up the tracdelight.com fashion network parallel to its edelight.de social shopping portal. On tracdelight.de, we link shops such as Amazon, Zalando and others to publishers like instyle.de, stylebook.de and t-online. The Regiohelden description fits.

OG: And, is Edelight still a startup?

PA: After five years, our core business is certainly no longer a pure startup. But since we’re constantly expanding our business model while maintaining the same startup culture, we would still call ourselves one.

OG: How can you tell when a startup has transitioned to a “normal company”?

PA: There’s the danger of devoting all of your attention to meetings and processes rather than market potential and innovation. The people also make a more “well-fed” impression. So we try to stay mentally and procedurally lean.

OG: What’s the web or mobile app that changed your life or work the most?

PA: Twitter and Facebook. Twitter has become my daily news aggregator, and Facebook lets me interact with my network much more authentically than Xing.

OG: Can you briefly outline how they changed your work? Do they only pertain to the company, or your personal communication as a whole?

PA: Twitter is an extremely efficient way to filter key developments. I do it every morning as a kind of start to the business day. Facebook has blurred the line between my private and business lives in relation to my professional network. I can get to know people there not only as business partners, but also in their personal lives (as fathers, soccer players, etc.). Previously, they had only been managers, bloggers, etc.

OG: Could Facebook become a business network?

PA: Yes and no.

OG: Because…

PA: I’m undecided about whether I want to share all my private information with my professional network.

OG: I always say that if something’s really private, you’re not going to post it on the net anyway.

PA: Or it doesn’t interest everyone. If I were to post pictures of my son playing soccer every weekend, it could get on people’s nerves after a while.

OG: CODE_n is a competition for entrepreneurs in the mobile sector. How important are competitions and prizes for business founders?

PA: I think competitions and prizes are important because they help founders reflect on their idea time and again, while receiving feedback from a wide variety of sources. That was extremely useful for us. At the same time, they can be a good source of income in the early days. With justaloud.com [www.justaloud.com], we won around 50k in prize money. That’s helpful, especially at the start.

OG: How important is the PR aspect? Can it attract users, or even investors?

PA: Yes, it’s definitely a factor. Basically, it amounts to a relatively cost-effective but very goal-oriented public relations or communication campaign.

OG: If you were on a jury for a startup competition, what would you be looking for in order to put a startup at the top of your list?

PA: Only two weeks ago, I was on the Startup Weekend jury, and after the idea itself, the most important things are feasibility, and above all the team. And with feasibility, I not only mean an interesting innovation, but also a viable business model.

OG: And what would the team have to look like? Would two technical types like Brin and Page still get money today?

PA: It’s quite conceivable in the current hype. Two techies and one business-management type would be better, though.

OG: There shouldn’t be more initially?

PA: I personally think three founders are optimal.

OG: What do startups really need from the outside – connections, good advice, money?

PA: You can’t generalize about that. I think they should not only be convinced of their idea on paper, they should also be in a position to develop a prototype and test it on the market. Then there’s a long phase where it depends on the stamina of the people. Many teams fail at that point.

OG: Actually, what I meant was external help – do they need advice from angels and VCs or their contacts, or is money from investors enough?

PA: External funding is particularly important for technology companies, of course. But not from the first day onward. That naturally applies primarily to the web environment. If you have a good idea, a working prototype, and usable initial market intelligence, then doors open by themselves. That’s how it was for us. Oh yes – and we also did it that way with Regiohelden.

OG: What role did it play that Edelight became a part of Burda at some point? Were there advantages? Disadvantages?

PA: None really. Burda consists of over 80 legally independent units. We’re one external entity among many. The collaboration with the venture arm (Acton Capital) was very helpful, however, since the team gave us very good support at all times.

OG: CODE_n winners will receive exhibition space at CeBIT in a special shared CODE_n area. What’s your killer tip for startups on how to make the most of such an opportunity?

PA: Heh heh. I’m not telling. Otherwise, the Regiohelden will no longer stand out at trade fairs. Sorry, just kidding… Attention, attention, attention.

OG: So the seedlings that Regiohelden handed out last year grew well – it was watercress, wasn’t it?

PA: At one fair, Regiohelden hired a magician. No one had done that before, and the booth was full in no time. And since Regiohelden also has a super product, it was then possible to direct most people toward the product.

OG: What’s the coolest thing you’ve seen at a smaller-scale trade fair presence? The half-naked samba girls like those at CeBIT?

PA: There were also half-naked people at demxco. I can’t remember the company, though. I haven’t had a positive experience at a fair. Mostly there are big booths of the major brands. So as a small player, you need good ideas, like the magician.

OG: If you were to name a startup (in Germany, Austria or Switzerland, but outside of Stuttgart ;) ) that we should interview, who would it be, and why?

PA: It’s not very objective of me, but Regiohelden are really rocking right now and are set to become the fastest-growing startup in the region. Otherwise, you might want to interview the Startup Weekend winners: PocketGuide (Pocketvillage).

OG: What exactly do they do?

PA: A mobile app for local content. A good fit to CODE_n.

OG: Thanks for taking the time to speak to us. ;)

PA: Thank you for the opportunity. Take care!

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News

SASCHA LOBO: “MAYBE WE SHOULD INVENT A NEW WORD FOR INNOVATION”

Oliver Gassner_November 4, 2011_1:18 PM_Comment (1)

Sascha Lobo chats with Oliver Gassner about the digital public, the reason he wears a mohawk, about OkCupid and co. – and reveals his favorite successor to the word “innovation”.

Photo by Reto Klar, www.retoklar.de

Oliver Gassner: Hi Sascha, rumor has it that there are people who either don’t know you, or don’t have a polarized opinion of you. Would you please introduce yourself to our readers?

Sascha Lobo: My name is Sascha Lobo. I’m an author and strategy consultant. And I find myself in the fortunate and luxurious position of being able to think about the Internet full time, and to publicize my conclusions on a variety of platforms for verification.

OG: What’s the most enjoyable or useful (new) web or mobile thing that you’re using at the moment?

SL: There are several: I’d be lost without Dropbox and Gmail. Shazam brightens my chance encounters with music, and I use Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ for communication, conversation and activation. Siri is fun, but not good enough yet – the German version at any rate. And my blog is still the foundation of everything.

OG: Innovation is overrated, isn’t it?

SL: No, innovation is dramatically underrated. The word itself is smeared and shopworn from excessive, incorrect use, though. Maybe we should invent a new word for innovation that sparkles with the same beauty and utility as the idea it represents.

OG: Is the statement “Germany is hostile to innovation” meaningful, or does it simply have a convincing ring to it?

SL: I can’t say for certain whether it’s true. However, I suspect that the statement is wrong. German structures certainly are quite slow, precise, and almost ponderous. That’s usually a very good thing, but we shouldn’t ignore the fact that it can become a liability in an increasingly accelerated network age. It already is when you consider that hardly any German companies have a truly sure footing on today’s Internet.

OG: Are there any laudable exceptions?

SL: Of course there are exceptions – I would imagine there are in virtually every major enterprise. But on the whole, they still play too small a role, for example in developing new business fields and markets.

OG: I was hoping you might name one. ;)

SL: No.

OG: Is it possible to innovate without making real money in the process? In other words, can there be progress without cash flow and evil, evil profit?

SL: Profit is not evil. Businesses are not evil. Progress without businesses in the market-economy sense would be sad indeed, especially since the digital public is often hosted on private servers. I believe the digital public needs to be renegotiated, precisely because it is structurally different from the conventional public.

OG: Where do you see the platform for such a renegotiation? Or will the Pirate Party ensure that it is created throughout society, in all parties? The (old) “media” don’t seem very suitable, do they?

SL: The Internet as a whole is such a platform, as are the professional media between print and websites that digital citizens often underestimate. We certainly lack a single instance that would permit a focused political discourse. I can’t say exactly what it would look like – all I know is that we need one. And we may be lacking it for a long time to come.

OG: You met your future bride on Twitter, as you recently revealed in one of your SpOn commentaries. So, can Facebook (which I always call “hormone management software”) and ElitePartner call it a day now?

SL: Facebook, no – ElitePartner, maybe. I expect there will always be great demand for dating sites on the net – in future they are more likely to be apps on existing platforms, though. Or they’ll go in a direction that leverages the power of the net in their own way, as OKcupid.com did, with a highly social, but granular, interest-based approach.

OG: And – can we look forward to tweets from the courthouse and delivery room?

SL: No. I publish my private life only in very small doses. The announcement of my upcoming wedding on Facebook and Spiegel.de was rather an exception.

OG: So the “Sascha Lobo” we see on the Internet is a carefully designed fictional character?

SL: Not quite. There is a media-based side of Sascha Lobo and a more private one (and others, including simultaneous combinations). There may be more overlap than I sometimes care for, but they do indeed differ in the end. Nevertheless, they’re all me. And that’s why I reject the “fictional character” moniker. It’s misleading and too often used to negate responsibility for a person’s actions in the media.

But I will admit that I work with strategies related to myself personally (above all communication strategies).

OG: You probably get this question all the time, but the picture of you on the dust jacket of your book Wir nennen es Arbeit: Die digitale Boheme shows you without your trademark mohawk. When presenting the book at the Frankfurt Book Fair, you were wearing one. How did that come about?

SL: I’ve been wearing a mohawk since October 2, 2006, one and a half days before the Book Fair. The haircut, which I still really like, is a part of my communication and media strategy. It’s so obvious that I don’t think there’s any point in denying it. At the same time, the mohawk is a bundle of social experiments that I might just write about – someday. Actually, I combined this haircut with a suit already in 2002. My reasoning behind it was this: Authors at the Book Fair tout their books on the Blaues Sofa of the ZDF, the German public TV network. Holm Friebe and I were invited to present Wir nennen es Arbeit. A hundred hours of video material are then edited down to a best-of compilation for broadcasting. The authors who make the cut are either very famous, very good-looking, or have ridiculous haircuts. It may be nothing more than conceited nonsense, but it worked – and that’s the case more frequently than we’d like to think.

OG: Europe is a copycat, the United States are innovative. Right?

SL: Europe does strike me as less innovative in the small and often overrated world of Internet startups. But I’m no expert in the field, so I’ll keep my opinions beyond that superficial assessment to myself.

OG: What do you personally need to be creative?

SL: If only I knew. I dance around my creativity the way a shaman dances around a campfire to influence the weather. I achieve a basic measure of creativity with the most obvious tools that you can read about anywhere: serenity, a lack of anxiety, relaxation, study of the subject, talking to friends and holders of qualified opinions, white wine, and time pressure. But the peaks – creative achievements that I personally consider satisfactory – come about in a completely erratic manner for me.

OG: Would you care to predict what the net’s next big thing will be?

SL: The cloud of course, real-time Internet and “big data” will be the next big things in my opinion. But that’s not necessarily an unusual view – it’s totally middle of the road.

OG: Can you even still remember what life was like without a phone and the Internet in our pockets? Has life become better? Simpler? Or more complicated?

SL: Yes, I can remember, but it was in my childhood and early adolescence, and I had to look after little more than myself back then. So I’m personally very grateful for all of this digital networked stuff, otherwise I would have had to pack it in, in just about any field. I probably would have ended up bitter from persistent failure due to forgetfulness. But that’s a personal perspective. We shouldn’t forget that people also managed to accomplish quite a bit before we digital types came along – to understate things massively.

OG: And finally, let’s – as you suggested earlier – invent a new word for innovation. What would it have to sound like?

SL: Being my special field, I’ve given that some thought. My new book Wortschatz, which is coming out on November 1, 2011, is exclusively about new words. But in this case, the word already exists. It’s called “progress”.

OG: Then we’ll start using it immediately. Thanks for the interview.

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News

HANSJÖRG LEICHSENRING: “I BELIEVE IN A FUTURE OF PAYING BY MOBILE PHONE.”

Oliver Gassner_October 31, 2011_2:04 PM_Comments (2)

Hansjörg Leichsenring, a passionate banker and blogger, spoke to Oliver Gassner about the joy of innovation (or lack thereof) in the financial sector, PayPal, Bitcoin, and his views on the Occupy movement.

Oliver Gassner: Hello, Mr. Leichsenring. Would you please be so kind as to introduce yourself briefly to our readers?

Hansjörg Leichsenring: Hello Mr. Gassner, certainly. I’m 51 years old, a banker by profession with over 30 years of experience in the industry, and I’m currently active as a consultant and blogger with a couple of further tasks and topics.

OG: What are the topics that you cover that currently interest banks?

HL: I provide consultation in traditional corporate strategy, with a special focus on retail banking and sales strategy. At present, I spend a lot of time talking to banks about innovation, social media and better customer service.

OG: You had a blog post in which you explained that innovation is not a central point in banking. Could you please sum up the core argument for us?

HL: Banks shy away from risk by nature. Managing risks is also one of a bank’s most “natural” tasks. Unfortunately, (most) bankers see innovation primarily from this risk perspective, which then leads to an innovation avoidance strategy.

OG: But then you nevertheless did find innovative bank offerings. Which of those approaches impressed or surprised you the most?

HL: I’m fascinated by innovation rooted in customer value that provides banks with a powerful way to differentiate themselves. Personal financial management is a good example of this (even though I’m a bit biased in this respect, of course). This is a real win-win situation, since both the customer and the bank stand to profit from it.

OG: How does a good idea differ from a true innovation?

HL: Steve Jobs once said that you don’t have to invent anything, just observe with care and do a better job of copying and adapting. Innovation is the implementation of a good idea. There are many ideas out there, but bringing them to the market and the customer is what I consider innovation.

OG: The streets are currently filled with anger directed at banks. Are the demands of the Occupy movement justified? Does something need to change?

HL: No, and yes. In my opinion, it would be appropriate to direct the anger more toward politicians than banks since they don’t seem to be able to think past the horizon of the next election, and they would rather resort to populism than properly tackling the existing problems. The national debt was not accrued by banks. And that banks would fully exploit their scope for action is not only nothing new – it is also perfectly legitimate. The mission of policymakers is to prevent abuses, and to do so as proactively as possible. They have not succeeded in doing so.
But banks also need to change: in recent years, they have been putting their good reputations on the line, along with the trust of their customers that took decades to build. And all that simply because of supposedly mounting profit demands by the capital markets that I frankly can’t make out. New thinking must also take hold there.

OG: Some say that retail and investment banking must be separated. Someone else said to me recently that a division must be created between lending and trading, because much stricter rules apply to lending. What would be your approach?

HL: In my student days, the Glass–Steagall Act was repealed in the United States. At that time, investment banking and commercial banking were strictly separated. We Europeans always argued that our system of universal banks was superior due to its distribution of risks. In principle, I still consider that to be correct. In future, however, it will be necessary to provide a more generous and consistent equity capital foundation for financial transactions. Joint concerted action by all countries will be crucial in this regard.

OG: In your opinion – and feel free to focus on the banking field –, who is currently the most creative in the web and mobile sectors? And why?

HL: Do you mean people or companies?

OG: Preferably people, but companies will also do.

HL: With regard to companies, I see Apple and Google way ahead internationally in terms of creativity in the mobile sector. Time and again, they come up with new ideas rooted in customer value. In terms of banking, I consider PayPal to be a pioneer. They cleverly combine payment, discounts and localized services and are very pragmatic.

OG: PayPal was criticized heavily for freezing the Wikileaks account, despite the fact that legal proceedings had not been instituted in any country. Diaspora – an alternative to Facebook and Google+ – only just had its PayPal account enabled again last week. Does PayPal need to play “bank cop”?

HL: Every (serious) bank in the world continuously serves as a police on behalf of governments when it comes to issues such as money laundering or KYC (know your customer). That role arises from regulatory obligations. U.S. banks may sometimes be called upon to go a bit further, as in the case of PayPal. That certainly is debatable. Nevertheless, all banks have the right to terminate a customer relationship.

OG: What will change in society, the web and the mobile sector in the next two, five, or ten years in terms of our money? Completely mobile payment without bank cards? Virtual currencies such Bitcoin? Or even Wörgl stamp scrip for everyone? Are all major currencies set to collapse – as some predict on a yearly basis? Or will the rise of the Pirate Party lead to an unconditional basic income, and a thorough restructuring of the job market and tax system?

HL: In a few years, it will still be important for customers to entrust their own money to banks. In this respect, it will be interesting to see whether the new entrants rely on cooperation with banks or open their own institutes. I personally believe in a future of paying by mobile phone. Cards will ultimately be “out”. But the transformation will not happen overnight, in the same way that the euro check only gradually disappeared in this country. I don’t anticipate a currency collapse, or “free” currencies. Bitcoin demonstrated just how quickly speculators come to dominate such developments. Government supervision would certainly be preferable and safer. The Pirate Party still needs to develop its own positions on many issues, especially economic ones. Transparency is good and important, yet it’s a basic condition and not a catchall solution. Nevertheless, it is certainly going to breathe fresh air into politics, as the Greens did in their day. And a restructuring of the tax system has definitely been overdue for some time…

OG: Is the model of the basic income proponents feasible – abolishing all subsidies and tax breaks and levying 50% VAT instead? Subject to gradual introduction with an increasing basic income, of course?

HL: Hardly. A higher value-added tax puts a disproportionate burden on lower incomes. But we should recall tax models à la Kirchhoff and Merz. The abolition of subsidies and tax breaks would also be helpful. We need to get away from political lobbying, but a precondition for that would be politicians with the appropriate expertise…
The welfare state is a great thing. I’m also a believer in a social market economy. However, I sometimes think Ludwig Erhard would roll over in his grave if he could see what policymakers have turned it into. We urgently need more personal responsibility. The government has above all a subsidiary mission, and it cannot “save” everyone.

OG: OK, we’re not here to talk about competent politicians ;-) – And to wrap up: what is the biggest misconception that non-bankers have about banks?

HL: That all bankers are dull, numbers-driven people that lack a sense of humor. Many are, but certainly not all of them. Most are just normal people.

OG: And on that note, thanks for the interview! ;-)

HL: Thank you too!

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Interview

BILL LIAO: “In Europe it’s not OK to fail so people end up not taking enough chances to explore new territory.”

Oliver Gassner_October 21, 2011_8:18 AM_No Comment

XING Co-Founder Bill Liao chatted with us about Steve Jobs, Coder Dojo, and why he sticks to his waterproof Samsung mobile phone.

OG: Hi Bill, would you please introduce yourself to our readers?

Bill Liao: Hi Oliver and Hello dear readers :) Bill Liao is my name and among several things I am variously known as an entrepreneur, diplomat and author.

OG: Can you detail the entrepreneur part a little for us?

BL: Well I first became an entrepreneur at the age of 27 when I quit my day job and founded my own company teaching engineers how to sell. I then went on to become part of the team that took Davenet Limited public in Australia and have been part of 7 IPO’s total. The most recent was XING AG where I was Co-Founder alongside the Founder Lars Hinrichs in Hamburg. I am also a great believer in lean startups and have written a book on the subject called “Stone Soup – the secret recipe for making something from nothing”.

OG: What is the web or mobile innovation of the past year? What changed your personal life most?

BL: I think that the most striking innovation is a recent one where Apple has chosen to integrate Twitter into iOS5. This is the first time a social network has been integrated into an operating system. Knowing that this was coming I redoubled my Twitter efforts. At SOSventures we also invested in Storyful.com. I also created a conduit for my Google Plus content to be rebroadcast on Twitter. Storyful is an interesting innovation because it finds stories on Twitter then helps human journalists to curate and verify those stories.

OG: Is Twitter here to stay or will it eventually go the way of Altavista andMyspace?

BL: I really like Twitter and so I hope that it stays and I use it every day. I no longer use facebook every day nor Linked in nor even XING but I use gmail, g+and Twitter every day. Twitter is much faster than all the other news streams because the messages are so short. I just hope they start to deal with all the spam.

OG: Why did XING fail to make the jump to a global scale? Was it good to concentrate on DACH at some point?

BL: XING always needed to serve its core users best and the core is Germany. The problem with the early days of XING was that it was very hard to get the balance between serving members and also existing in an eco system where many corporate partners wanted to have a white label copy of XING. We were distracted by that and that meant we did not internationalize fast enough although we did do well in some other countries than DACH.

OG: Was Steve Jobs an innovator, a genius or just posessed?

BL: On the couple of occasions I met Steve he occured as pretty brusque and he had a posse of very smart people with him. I think Steve inspired devotion amongst those he worked most closely with, especially talented people like Andrew Ives and he kept these people close him, it seems. He was very good at spotting a technology somewhere and applying it to an existing problem he was trying to solve. Also he had very high standards yet a resolute eye on keeping costs down I think from Apple’s first near death experience. So very smart but not posessed.

OG: So Jobs is no role model for managers? He made his money on the back of very talented people? Or is it possible to be human and have high standards at the same time?

BL: Hey that’s a bit unfair. A great manager gains the greatest potential from the team he works with, and I am sure Steve did exactly that. Also he made far less money than the aggregate Apple shareholders most of whom are pension funds the beneficiaries of which are very happy to any return these days. I think to have high standards is a great expression of human integrity.

OG: What is the difference between a good idea and an innovation? And how do you make money from an innovation?

BL: Ideas are worthless good or otherwise invention, creativity and innovation are only worthless ideas to begin with. They need a story and they need execution to become valuable. Most of the time this involves a lot of trial and error. You make more money therefore by iteration than innovation. Just as lone heroes only win in the movies lone ideas only win in fiction as well. Innovation and inspiration someone told me are also inversely proportional to formality. I do wish Steve had iterated the ipad keyboard more though :)

OG: I understand “execution” (and I think: “iteration”, too) – can you put a little detail in the “story” part? Maybe using XING, the iPhone or Facebook as an example?

BL: A story has three parts – Crisis, Struggle, Resolution. And the best stories have a counter intuitive component. Some surprise. The pain that Steve saw was that mobile devices were fiddly to use and he knew that he could make a device that was cleaner and friendlier. The struggle was in back rooms at Apple for years to come up with the right combination for a minimum viable product to test on the market for real in a very crowded industry. The resolution was the sheer surprise and delight of using the iPhone for the first time. It was breathtaking how different and yet how intuitive it was. The iPhone brand still carries all of the story in its DNA and the surprise that a computer company could make a great mobile device still has not been beaten. The iPad is also a similar story which most people do get. The iPad’s most valuable feature is its day long battery life and yet the competitors do not see that because they focus on the wrong parts of the story.

OG: How come most online and mobile innovation seems to come from the US? Is Europe just a (talented?) copycat?

BL: I am convinced that it is because failure is far more celebrated in the US. In Europe it’s just not OK to fail so people end up not taking enough chances to explore new territory. Steve had some notable failures that would have gotten him fired many times in Europe. So Europe tends to try to refine what someone else creates. The problem is that it’s much much harder to copy something that someone else has spent a decade innovating behind closed doors because you don’t have the deep understanding of the complexity that underpins the simplicity.

OG: Well, Jobs was in fact once fired from Apple ;) – Would you dare to predict the next big thing on the web. Or easier: What should people invest in?

BL: Jobs was fired but by a CEO who came in late with big corporate ideas from a totally non innovative industry. In Europe Jobs would have been fired probably every month… Buy Apple stock it’s still cheap from any perspective. :)

Still looking to the future mobile, local, social, useful, fun are all the elements of inevitable things going forward. Investable stuff is that which an endure by the way as it’s even harder to predict what you might quickly make a buck on. So it’s best to hang in there because what the company is doing is going to be sustained.

OG: OK, let’s say: the next NEW big thing on the web or in mobile would be…? A social-local-mobile gamified something?

BL: What has mobile technology not yet solved for you? That’s the place to look. What little daily pain has not yet been catered for? I think the way we learn has huge potential. Look at www.coderdojo.com. It’s a new way to learn how to program computers and its free. No it’s not for investment of money and yet as a parent it may be a great way to invest time with your children if they are bright and inclined to learn logic.

OG: Thanks, I’ll check it out with my 11-year-old.Finally two questions about religion: iOS or Android (you partly answered this already as you seem to do this chat interview on an iPad) — Google+ or Facebook? And why?

BL: Android drives me nuts so I have an iPad but I do not have an iPhone. I have an old waterproof Samsung mobile phone because I like the long battery life.

I think Google+ is really well thought through and Facebook I find very tiring to use. So Google+ is my preference combined with Twitter.

OG: Thanks a lot and let’s hope Twitter survives in the Facebook-G+-Wars.

BL: Well, the wars are not between Facebook and g+ plus by the way. The war is being fought in the cloud. Amazon vs Apple vs Google vs Microsoft – they are the only players. Facebook is connected to Microsoft and Twitter to Apple. Will Twapple beat Amazon or Macebook who knows and its fun to watch. Amazon’s silk browser is the only real threat I see to the iPad. Stay tuned :)

OG: Actually silk made me think about getting some *pad, too. We will watch along with you. Thanks ;)

BL: Thanks :)

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