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Our work in Vietnam Spring 2019

Meeting with the ITP leadership team of the University of Ho Chi Minh City. An impressive presentation where Vietnam is planning to go what innovative businesses concerns.  We also had some great meetings with students, who are very ambitious and eager to learn everything possible about innovative thinking and entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurs Workshop with roughly 20 top startups and scaleups from Ho Chi Minh City. It was great fun to work with these super engaged and highly competitive teams. One of the things that all of them have in common with any top startup in the world: determination to win.

Investors meetings at the Kova facility. We discussed investor strategies, ways to select startups, due diligence processes and post investment mentoring. We also talked about the necessity to keep top companies in the country to not loose the innovative edge to somebody else.

A wonderful and very personal dinner at the Kova house. We enjoyed traditional Vietnamese food cooked by the lady of the house herself. This was an unforgettable evening.

Great discussions about innovative thinking, investment opportunities, ways to stimulate more innovation and getting startups better supported to be able to compete on a global scale. It was an amazing evening with amazing people.

HANOI

The future of innovation in Vietnam, Conference. Great and an amazing diverse speakers, high energy and very ambitious. We talked about the innovation paradigm and the value of going global for the national prosperity and wealth development.

We were invited by the University of Hanoi to speak about the Innovation Paradigm, the value creation for the national economy and what Vietnam can do to create an innovation economy within the country.

Interesting discussions about how to stimulate innovation and making innovation an even stronger point within an economy. Also we spoke about the value of speaking English as a prerequisite to participate in the global economy.

Meanwhile, Marita ran a workshop for female entrepreneurs. The interest to participate was so overwhelming that the initial 12 people roundtable had to be turned into a 70 attendee  presentation and podiums discussion.

Full house at the female entrepreneurs meeting in Hanoi

A very interesting meeting at one of the largest mobile phone providers. The organization is determined to innovate and bring all new ideas to their customers. It is absolutely amazing to see how Vietnam turned from a rather poor country, dependent on donations, just three decades ago, into a vibrant emerging country.


An equally great meeting at one of the top business banks of Vietnam. Also here, business transformation, innovation and moving from an industry follower to an industry leader is an amazing transition. We talked about how innovative thinking is not just improving the status quo but how to get to an idealistic model and back to reality.

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Whats all about this “vision” thing

Do you really need a vision for your business? You don’t NEED anything, it’s YOUR business! But here is what a VISION can do for you.

  1. You don’t “create” a vision for yourself
         Hopefully, you already envision where you want to take your business. And if you don’t have one, ask yourself why you are doing it? Why would you risk your employees careers? Why would you risk your investor’s money? Why would you risk to waste the time of your customers? Why would you jeopardise all the people’s time and money you will deal with?
    But given you have your vision, here is what it can do for you:
  2. Have a vision to attract co-founders
    If you have a very interesting case or cause you may attract people joining you on your journey that you would never ever be able to hire otherwise. You will need top notch people to create an amazing business – any business. You only can get those if you have a powerful and very meaningful vision.
  3. Have a vision for your customers
    Customers get asked to buy a gazillion products every day. Why should they buy yours? There is always a cheaper product around the corner. If not today tomorrow somebody gets up and makes it even less expensive than anybody else in the world. But your amazing idea and long term view of the impact of what you and your exceptional team is doing, will help your customers also tomorrow, next year and the years to come. Customers buy either the cheapest or the most compelling product or service. And if it is your vision to make sure you will be always the cheapest – well than that is your vision.
  4. Have a vision to attract top talents
    As a startup you usually have a very tough time to attract these amazingly smart top talents who seem to walk on water, get things done while others still wonder what the best way would be or try to consult others how to even start. You want talents that are almost impossible to employ by anybody. You look for people, where everybody is afraid of to even train them because they would be hired away in no time. But if you have an impressive vision and show a way to get there, you find the very people you even need to get there. And you find people who know it’s them to shape the organization, it’s them who makes it happen. You may ask: Why don’t they do it on their own? Because what you bring to the party is an amazing VISION that makes them tick. Of course, they will ask to get a piece of the cake – and that is totally ok.
  5. Have a vision for your market
    People in your industry or market should know about you and your amazing business. You will never have enough money to advertise. But your amazing vision will be carried around by media and other people. Let them know how you change the world for the better by doing what you do.
  6. Have a vision to attract investors
    If you have no vision where this business can grow to, why should anybody invest? Why should people risk their hard earned money, no matter how much they have, to put it i your business and not in some of the other 1 million startups around the world? Your vision gives the indication of the opportunity down the road.
  7. Have a vision to attract anybody who matters to you
    There are millions of businesses out there. All competing for a tiny slice of the market. Most struggle to keep their business alive – because why them and not somebody else. Do not use the buzz words of the day – don’t even TRY to be attractive. You ARE attractive when you explain what matters most yo you and why you believe what you are doing is important to many others – more important than what is out there today.

You can only lead a market if you can actually ‘envision’ where you want to lead it to. And a very personal super positive ‘side effect’:  You even have a MUCH more fulfilling life if you know what it is that you really really really care about and make it happen — no matter what, and no matter how impossible it may appear. In the end it makes the difference between LIVING or just EXISTING.

@AxelS

 

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Global Trade for every Startup

One of the big hurdles for entrepreneurs trying to grow fast and go international, are trade rules, currency considerations, trust, transaction financing, dealing with letter of credits and much more. Global trade for startups is virtually impossible. After getting global four times with our previous businesses, we decided to make it easy for all young entrepreneurs to go international. We started to design a global trade network, leveraging latest blockchain technology, smart contracts and our own global business know how.

Most super growth tech companies were still too slow

When we look back in time, Facebook demonstrated an unbelievable power of growth, yet it was too late in Asia. The same goes for Uber, Tesla and others. On one side conservative investors argue about speed to go international. Yet later stage investors argue about missed opportunities. Conventional growth techniques just did not allow mach faster growth than the current world leaders showed.

We don’t want to support monopolies, but….

Amazon for instance had a great chance to go global without anybody copying it right way. However new contenders like Alibaba do not stop taking market share bit by bit. That means monopolies find their contender quickly and that is a good thing, because we need diversity and options. But maybe it’s a good idea to give fragile startups an opportunity to go international even faster and then learn to defend their innovation at a later stage.

Blockchain based global trade for startups

Global trading platforms are the most used example when blockchain technology get’s explained to industry executives. However global enterprises can’t just rip out their conventional IT system and replace their gigantic databases with a blockchain. Nobody even knows if a slower blockchain would hold the load. That is very different with startups. Their problem in international trade is the initially small volume. For a blockchain however just right. Bringing thousands of startups quickly on a centralized system would be a nightmare. But using a self regulated decentralized solution a great opportunity. Building out interfaces to adopt the blockchain by a startup is easy – for enterprises a life long project. Making global trade rules standardized through smart contracts can be very easy adopted by a startup that has no real rules today. Just creating all the smart contracts for an enterprise would be a complex undertaking with lots of risks and liabilities.

The Society3 Blockchain would allow technology resellers in any corner of the world to safely buy and sell innovative technology that also comes from any place in the world. Tokenized businesses where anybody can trade anything makes the business much more valuable and much easier to conduct.

What does that mean in reality:

  1. Instead of creating, negotiating and working based on tens of pages of a distributor or sales contract written in many languages and considering many currencies, we invented self executing contracts that define the trade process once and for all. If adjustments are needed in future situations they will be adjusted for future deals as well.
  2. Instead of trying to understand the other trade party and developing some vague sort of trust, all players on the trade platform are authenticated and clearly identifiable. Trust development is taken over by the system.
  3. Orders can be placed by anybody and send to any trade partner. The fully decentralized trade model does not need any “distribution organization” in between. The blockchain and the corresponding user interfaces take care of the transactions and processes.
  4. Shipments are  made by the companies (startups) using any of the freight forwarder who docked onto the platform. Tracking and processing of all documents are taken care of by the blockchain and the corresponding self executing contracts.
  5. Delivery can be made to business partners or directly to end customers. Payments are made in crypto currency and every party takes care of the conversion of crypto into the respective local currency and back.
  6. Smart contracts keep track on both, the order flow and the shipment flow in digital form. Tax and customs documentation can be either printed when necessary or also digitally transferred.
  7. In case of a return due to a defective product, the same process goes reverse.
  8. Transaction cost is covered through miners getting paid for their job in tokens and only over time there maybe a small fee in the sub % range necessary to keep the platform up and running.
  9. Producer, customer, shipper, customs authorities and any other participant can be rated and that way develop reputation over time.
  10. The system provides unparalleled transparency due to its decentralized management at lowest possible cost.

Never before it was so easy to sell and buy products from all over the world to all over the world. Most of the expensive and delay causing intermediaries are reduced to one: the decentralized blockchain.

If you like to be part of the Global Trade System project, influence functionality and beta-test the first version of the GTS as soon as it comes out, please join the group and apply for the project.

GTS Project Application

Application link will be available soon

 

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Buzz for startup members

Too less traction, no marketing budget, slow growth… the biggest challenges for every entrepreneur. Now, all together we can change that. And here is how we are going to do that.

AS AN ENTREPRENEUR

As founder of an innovative business you cannot get enough traction. Even for well connected people it remains to be a challenge – our planet is simply too big. Getting help from friends, existing customers, supporter…. is a big deal. Every comment counts. This is why we developed a very simple tool called BUZZ. You simply provide a catchy image, a good text for your friends to post – obviously they can change the text any way they want – and simply share it with their network. A good Buzz can easily add several thousands even some million incremental reach.

 

AS A SUPPORTER

In today’s digital world, most of us are well connected. “Having connection” is no longer a privilege but a standard. And now getting some news from innovative companies is something most of us enjoy getting. Connecting the dots: share what you find is interesting with your connections help your connections to be up to speed in terms of innovation and helps the innovative companies to get the word out faster.

With a tool called BUZZ, all you have to do is push a few buttons to share things that YOU think are interesting with your network via LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. Not every day but simply when it is interesting.

For supporter all it takes is to get to a URL like this: and start sharing. Soon we will provide buzz campaigns for the most innovative startups from around the world so we all can help them get some additional traction.

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Compete successfully with enterprises as a startup

competing successful with enterprises - Society3

Once in a while I meet entrepreneurs with amazing ideas but they don’t know how they could compete with even the largest enterprises.

I started my first company from scratch with $20,000 and needed to compete with 3 other businesses, each $200 Million to $1 Billion in revenue – 10 years later we were market leader on a global scale ($5B in revenue)

My second company was a little more different

I started my third company right after the bubble burst and competed with two other competitors who had $70 Million and $68 Million cash in the bank from pre bubble rounds – I started with $500,000 – 5 years later we were close to acquire one but let go because the due diligence made clear there is nothing we could gain – being the market leader already.

Here is how we compete:

1) In each case we developed a disruptive business model. We completely went of the beaten path and redefined sales channels or we made payments in very different ways, provided transparency were was none, service integration in the pricing and so forth. It was the market that forced the competition to follow us and compete with us – or loose it.

2) I never competed based on technology, product functions or any of those short term win or loose features. I learned: “The best product never wins”. However we did have great technology because we had great engineers – yet it was not the winning factor in the end.

3) Business is done between people. I knew I can win more customers when I have a nicer team – and I always had a stellar team. :)

In retrospect: all big winners won with a superior business model and amazing teams.

Obviously I don’t know anything about your business and therefor it is hard to make more specific suggestions – but look at your business model and your team before you even spend a millisecond on your product when it comes to competing for market share.

A good read to make sure you can handle such a problem is the question to find great founders

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