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Interview

6WUNDERKINDER: “THESE AWARDS GIVE STARTUPS MOTIVATION AND REINFORCES THE FACT THAT WHAT WE DO IS OF VALUE”

Oliver Gassner_November 23, 2011_3:43 PM_Comments (2)

Jessica Erickson, Head of Communications, and Matthew Bostock, Product Marketing Manager, at 6Wunderkinder in a digital interview with Oliver Gassner about the simplicity, functionality and design of good software products, the advantages of a global team and the importance of awards for startups.

Oliver Gassner: Hi Jess, hi Matt, would you please introduce yourself and elaborate on what 6wunderkinder is about?

Jessica Erickson: Hello! My name is Jessica Erickson and I am Head of Communications at 6Wunderkinder

Matthew Bostock: Hi! I’m Matthew Bostock, Product Marketing Manager at 6Wunderkinder. 6Wunderkinder is a Berlin-based startup that produces productivity solutions for individuals, groups and businesses. We believe software shouldn’t feel like rocket science; we focus on simplicity, functionality and design.

OG: Don’t computers kill productivity instead of helping with it?

MB: A computer empowers you with limitless possibility, so when it comes to organizing information it is superior in many ways.
However, you’re right, things can get messy as your information piles up. This is where we come in.
We like to design products that are non-distracting. When you need to organize your daily tasks with Wunderlist, for example, we don’t want you to fight with the tool itself. It should mold around the way you work, not the other way around.

OG: Thanks for being with us during the stress of your launch. I hear you are weeks away from “Wunderkit” and that you are a pretty international team. How big is it and how many nations are represented in your office?

JE: We currently have 25 employees and nations include: Austria, Australia, America, UK, Spain, Portugal, Poland, South Africa and, of course, Germany :)

OG: Is being multi-cultural more of a strength or sometimes also a challenge?

JE: It’s incredibly positive in every way: you are exposed to different ways of working, communicating and it translates into end results, in our case, our products.
With a global team, you have a global approach in your company.

OG: What was the best app or service you saw on mobiles or in the mobile web in the last 12 months – besides your own, of course?

MB: I’d say iCloud. It’s taking the ‘cloud’ to the next level. It’s reshaping the way we view our devices, and the data stored on them. Now you can purchase an iPad, for example, and use it as a standalone device, with your data – if it was present before elsewhere – being pulled down from the heavens. There’s no need for cables anymore, and the world’s a better place for it.

OG: You have set out to put Wunderlist and probably Wunderkit also on all kinds of mobile platforms. Which platforms are you avoiding (and why?) and what is the biggest challenge on the platforms you have developed for?

JE: We want Wunderlist and Wunderkit to be available on the majority of devices and operating systems. We don’t rule any out. For us, our biggest challenge is taking over the design and all the functionalities from device to device so the experience is consistent.

OG: You just got two awards at the t3n Web Awards. What were they for and how important are awards for startups?

JE: We were really happy to win the Beste App National (Best National App) and Beste Facebook-Page (Best Facebook Page). They were both very important and we were up against some tough competition, i.e. Porsche and Red Bull, MyTaxi. We want to thank our user base for all the votes, without them, we wouldn’t have won! These awards give startups motivation and reinforces the fact that what we do is of value.

OG: What do you need as a startup? (Assuming you have a team and an alpha.) Connections? Money? Advice?

MB: Of course, you need a certain amount of money to get your idea off the ground. But, in my opinion, the most important thing is an idea that is truly innovative. You need a loyal team that feels like family to help you turn it into reality. Lastly, you need great angel investors who not only fund you in the beginning but also provide you with great mentorship through every stage of the creation process.

OG: The award for winning “code_n” is a spot at the CeBIT in a special code_n area with other winning code_n contestants. What would you do if you won a free spot at the CeBIT? What would you do to make yourselves unforgettable?

JE: We would provide a demo of Wunderkit and show individuals how to use this revolutionary collaborative platform. We would also provide mentoring for young entrepreneurs, giving them advice on building a business plan while keeping in mind that the world is their marketplace.

OG: Who is your role model: Luke Skywalker, Bill Gates, Brin & Page, Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs? And why?
;)

JE: Marissa Mayer of Google, she’s an incredibly smart woman.

MB: I’d have to say James Yancey. He kept true to what he wanted to do, even though everyone else was doing something different, and in the end came out on top.

OG: Marissa Mayer is indeed someone. (she uses a text-file as a To Do list, did you know? ;) and Gmail for private mail and pine for business ;) ) — If you could name a single startup (based in DACH and in the mobile space) that I should interview, who would it be?
Each of you can name one ;)

JE: I would say Amen, the greatest place to share your opinion.

MB: I’d definitely say Soundcloud. I’m a big music fan and hobbyist, and I simply love what they do. If you want an insight into the future of social music creation and sharing, go speak to them!

OG: Thanks for your time.

JE: Thank you Oliver! Please stop by when you are in Berlin next time.

MB: Pleasure, Oliver. All the best.

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Interview

NICO LUMMA: “MANY GERMAN STARTUPS ONLY TARGET THE GERMAN MARKET”

Oliver Gassner_October 25, 2011_9:42 AM_No Comment

Nico Lumma, Director of Social Media at Scholz & Friends in Hamburg, Germany, has been blogging for years and has not really been offline since 1995. Lumma chatted with Oliver Gassner about co-browsing, CloudFlare and Kindle Fire.

Nico LummaOliver Gassner: Hello Nico, please take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers.

Nico Lumma: Hi Oliver, My name is Nico Lumma, I’m 39 years old, I haven’t been offline since 1995, and I’m the Director of Social Media of the Scholz & Friends agency group. I’ve been blogging about everything that interests me at  http://lumma.de since 2003.

OG: In the past twelve months, what was your biggest personal discovery on the web or in mobile communications?

NL: Hmm. Evernote and Spotify, but they’ve both been around a while already. So Google+.

OG: Do you have good ideas, or are you an innovator? And – what’s the difference?

NL: I’m not sure how to answer your question. I have good ideas – sometimes fantastic ones –, I innovate, and above all, I’m an initiator.
But I see that as a collaborative process, not as something individuals do in private. And depending on who’s involved in the brainwork, I take on different roles. Numerous factors need to come together for a good idea to become a good business idea. Overall, I would say that the team constellation is important, and that focusing on the essence of the idea is crucial – especially in the initial phase.
Of course, how quickly you can reach critical mass also matters, because the best business idea is useless if the market isn’t ripe for it.

OG: Why do most internationally successful web and mobile applications currently come from the U.S. – and only rarely from Europe?

NL: I think the question is more one of where the focus of a startup lies. Many German startups only target the German market, whereas Dutch or Scandinavian ones have an international focus from the outset because of their small domestic markets. Startups in the U.S. have the advantage of a larger network of founders and greater ease in reaching critical mass.
The fact that innovations are met with less skepticism in the U.S. than in Germany is certainly also relevant.

OG: In your opinion, who are currently the most creative people on the web and in the mobile sector? And why?

NL: I have a bad memory for names, so I’d rather mention companies – and thus teams – that I consider to be highly creative.

I really like Flipboard, because they have a completely new way of presenting information. I also think companies like CloudFlare are exciting because of their reinterpretation of the old CDN theme. But the biggest surprise for me was the Amazon Kindle Fire and the cloud-based Silk browser.

OG: What do you personally need to be creative?

NL: Space. Space to think, to let my thoughts wander, and to goof around.

OG: Does today’s agency landscape offer that space? Or does everything have to be lean?

NL: You have to work for that space time and again. At the moment, I get up a little earlier than usual to have time for myself and sort my thoughts before the kids wake up and I drive to the agency.

OG: Is a home office environment better for creativity, or do you need to be surrounded by people?

NL: A home office is nice from time to time, but I prefer being together with other people and thinking out loud – that’s the most inspiring.

OG: OK, psst, we promise we won’t tell – what’s the Next Big Thing on the web?

NL: Co-browsing – looking at the same things on the web with others in different locations.

OG: There was once a tool that took everything you surfed past and posted it to a kind of Twitter. Something like that? Or more like screen sharing, or the functions in the G+ Hangouts?

NL: More like Google+ Hangouts with screen sharing, for the web and mobile. It could be really great for shopping together, having fun, and for educational purposes.

OG: And finally, two fundamental questions: iOS or Android? Facebook or Google+? And why?

NL: Definitely iOS for me, because I think it’s more intuitive, and above all more beautiful. Otherwise, Facebook and Google+, but with different usage scenarios. Facebook is becoming increasingly private for me, while I use Google+ to curate information.

OG: Thanks for the interview.

NL: You’re welcome.

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Interview

GUNTER DUECK: “Steve Jobs had a kind of emotional intelligence – for machines”

Oliver Gassner_October 7, 2011_10:34 AM_Comments (4)

In his years at IBM, the thinker and author Gunter Dueck earned the nickname “Wild Duck”. We spoke to him about IBM’s innovative power, the sense and nonsense of business plans for start-ups – and about Steve Jobs, of course, who unfortunately left us far too soon.

Oliver Gassner: Hello, Mr. Dueck!

Gunter Dueck: Hello.

OG: What do you consider to be the biggest development on the web or in mobile world over the past twelve months?

GD: Well, the constantly increasing hype about the iPad, which has a lot to do with the now cheap flash storage; now all we need is LTE (Long Term Evolution) everywhere…

OG: Will LTE-enabled tablets save the publishing houses, or is that wishful thinking?

GD: I think that many people now read on-screen. As a writer, people ask me almost daily to urge publishers toward eBooks. On the other hand, people no longer read that many books; I feel that quite clearly. Digital natives prefer a snappy speech on YouTube – something new is on the rise!

OG: Was Steve Jobs innovative? Or driven? Or a “good” manager from the “Wild Duck” perspective?

GD: Jobs gave a lot of thought to what enthusiastic people would want from a computer. That they don’t crash, that they are easy to use – stuff like that. He was the only one who didn’t make any compromises in this area. He had a kind of “emotional intelligence” – but for machines! And he definitely had a talent for attraction. Most techies don’t have it. They don’t comprehend it, and regard it with suspicion (because techies are usually verrrry introverted and tend to be embarrassed in front of audiences, for example). And since they don’t consider it to be quite kosher, they can hardly copy Jobs’ success – even though they read about it every day in the paper, while shaking their heads over it.

OG: Guy Kawasaki recently said that Apple was planned as a kind of anti-IBM back in the mid-80s. They also had that Orwell commercial back then. Has IBM and the rest of the IT world learned anything since then?

GD: Tough question. People always accuse IBM of having missed out on the “consumer front”. But IBM caters to enterprise customers, and understands them very well – in that segment the company is uncompromising and even attractive! It’s very hard, if not impossible, to have several such corporate souls. The critics don’t understand that point – that it’s too hard to be everything to everyone. Our political parties in Germany are trying that right now – what can I say?

OG: In that case, it was of course appropriate for IBM to sell its consumer division to Lenovo. To come back to Steve Jobs: in his “stay hungry, stay foolish” speech, he put his success down to the fact that he failed more than once: as a college dropout, and the first time around as the CEO of Apple. Both experiences opened new perspectives for him: calligraphy, design, Pixar and Toy Story. Is it still OK these days – for managers and regular people – to explore interesting sidelines and learn from mistakes?

GD: Mistakes! Ugh, don’t use that word in my presence! You have to see innovation as an exploration of the unknown, not as something you can do correctly or incorrectly according to a timetable. Personally, I ONLY learn while exploring! Enterprises today don’t understand that, and neither do lenders who expect start-ups to submit a business plan. These days, it’s best if I stay in the basement until I’m done exploring. Not that that would work for the pharmaceutical sector and the like…

OG: I’m aware of who I put that question to, and I find it reassuring that the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t do its research in the wild. What distinguishes a good idea from true innovation?

GD: An invention is not an innovation. Leonardo already had the idea for a flying machine (albeit some time after Icarus). But so what? You not only have to perfect the technology – you also have to build airports, set up an air traffic control system, invent luggage carousels, and get the whole system to work at a ticket price of €49. Taking that initial idea and adapting it to reality is innovation, so we can define innovation as the remaining 99.9 percent of the work.

OG: What would you require from a startup instead of a business plan before you would be willing to give them 100,000 or a million euros?

GD: I would study the new entrepreneur as if it were a job interview, and I’d ask myself a hundred times whether I trust him to handle it, whether he knows what to expect, and whether he has a realistic perspective. I’d want to be sure he’s a good innovator.

OG: Your output in terms of books and lectures is impressive. And you even used to hold down a “normal” job while working on them. What do you personally need to be creative?

GD: In life, I’ve often seen things going fundamentally wrong. And that’s when I need to take a stand. I can write well, and so that’s what I do – to disseminate “my idea” or “the truth”. Now it would also be good (as an innovation) to sell those truths so that they change our lives. I’m still working on that.

OG: Would you be willing to predict what the web’s next big thing will be? In Abschied vom Homo oeconomicus, your predictions regarding mobility were spot on.

GD: And those about China, India, wage dumping, burnout and 2.0 weren’t bad either, right? And now? China’s economy will catch up with the U.S. around 2015, and that’s not very far in the future. But the exact timing doesn’t matter: China will continue to grow for a long time, and the world will experience a new phase of growth that will encourage innovation. The direction: the internet will become the world’s “operating system”, followed by growth in new and specialized fields such as medical, bio-, genetic, solar, nano-, and other technologies.

OG: And finally, two fundamental questions: iOS or Android (or Blackberry)? Facebook or Google+? And why?

GD: I have a Blackberry because it’s the only device that supports IBM mail. So I haven’t yet had a choice. My Blackberry is fairly new, and now that I’m no longer with IBM, I’ll wait until LTE devices are available and then get myself an iPhone 6 or whatever. Or an Android, we’ll see. I’m not dogmatic – I choose according to the features I need. And to answer your other question, I have the feeling that Facebook is more friendly and appreciative, while Google+ tends to be sober and critical. So the choice is a question of your personality. That’s why the front between the two is so fundamentalist. I personally feel more comfortable with Google+ because criticism and tough arguments (and rudeness, unfortunately) benefit me more than being “liked”, although that’s also nice. I’m on both platforms.

OG: Thank you for your time, Mr. Dueck.

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