What about young women as entrepreneurs?

Some time ago I thought it is weird to see in the media topics about women entrepreneurship...I thought there is no difference between men and women when it comes to entrepreneurship and we should not be treated as a "different species".

But then...

I entered the entrepreneurship world myself (woman, 23 y.o....also Romanian) and I started to meet more and more entrepreneurs and investors. And yes, they are mostly men! Conferences on entrepreneurship and investments are packed with men. My network of entrepreneurs and investors...they are all men! Everybody I meet from this area is a man!

And then I wondered...

Why is this happening? I am a woman and I really cannot see any drawbacks in being an entrepreneur. But a friend of mine gave me a good answer: "We, as women, do not have examples/ models in this matter!" She also added: "The only few women entrepreneurs I can think of are in the fashion industry. But I would like to see women entrepreneurs on things men are currently masters!"

True or false? Is this the reason?

Was funny to see that by searching on google about young woman entrepreneur (tanara antreprenoare in Romanian), google thought is a misspell and showed me results for young man entrepreneur (tanar antreprenor):

But anyway, even telling google that I am not joking about my search terms, I got as results only a few examples, and all of them in fashion or anyway something related to this. 

So?

If this is the problem, that we do not have examples, then I want to do something about it. Through JADE Romania I am able to organize an event on this topic and I want to do it. I want to discover the few good examples of young women entrepreneurs (under 25 y.o.), show them to the world and have some debates. So...step one...can you help me find them?

This has to change!

Silent party: tune-in your music on your smartphone

When I was younger I was daydreaming about having a club where everybody listens to music in its headphones...to the same music. Advantages?
- No neighborhood noise, nobody outside the party place to complain
- When you want to talk to somebody at the party, you can just turn down the volume...no need to scream
- You can have different rooms/ spots with different music type, to satisfy different tastes in music

Later on I noticed that some places organize silent parties by using wireless headphones. But now, in the app economy and mobile revolution, we got something better: location-based music streamer on smartphones.

Last week, at Next Conference 2011, the winner of the elevator pitch was wahwah.fm and they will soon release their app.

Watch two interviews with wahwah.fm from last week in Berlin:
TechCrunch post
TheNextWeb interview

There are lots of cool stuff you can do with this. Like having DJs to compete on listeners at the same party.
I am so going to throw a silent party this summer! :)

What do we actually want to earn?

We have assisted lately to the valuations of different social networks (and we are talking about billions here) and some argue that this value mainly belongs to the users, to the value they create and share. I have discovered last week at Next Conference in Berlin a new rising social network (www.mycube.com) that promises very desirable founding principles, among which you can also find: monetization for the users in return of the value they create (more info in this article).

Apparently it sounds great for the users, but there is much more behind the obvious.

Beyond people appreciating the new "Robin Hood in town" that would like to share the wealth with all the people and beyond people always willing to earn some extra money, there is some interesting psychology behind it - and here is why I would call it a smart strategic move in the backstage of the business.

I believe that this strategy will reach and motivate three segments of users (contributors, socializers and gamers) in the same time, but for different reasons:

- Earning cubes (that can transform into real money) means that all this becomes a social game/ contest. A dynamic challenge in your circles of connections. And so many other social gaming platforms proved to be successful already (Foursquare, Zynga etc.)

- Earning cubes (that can transform into real money) means reaching a status that you can share into your network - hitting the top parts of Maslow's pyramid. You can see how much you are worth and brag to others too, you can get recognition. And we've already seen that people are more and more interested to measure their influence and make it public in their networks (e.g.: Klout)

- Earning cubes (that can transform into real money)  means that creators of content and socializers can receive incentives/ rewards for their work, knowledge, network. It is important as a user to feel like the time spent came up with a result. Just as good bloggers can monetize their blogs by displaying ads. 

And yes, having the cubes as a different currency than real money makes it even better. That is because it makes people think in a new points system, points that have the same value for everybody and that allows benchmark at international level, while competing and collaborating with your connections....or should I just say: playing together?

Bottom line, what we really want to earn is not money, but THE prize - be that social recognition, appreciation or just the top places in the competition...all in our relevant micro-world. And that's why I believe that this is a winning strategy, due to its behind-the-obvious reasons.

Reviewing Next Conference 2011, Berlin on Data Love

Last week I have attended a great conference in Berlin, dedicated to the upcoming trends in business and marketing following up from the huge amount of data that exists today. I am talking about Next Conference 2011, a two-day event on the topic Data Love, where I have been an Official Blogger.

How it felt to be there:

- The venue (Station Berlin) was awesome. Perfect fit and division for all the people there. 

- It was a great networking opportunity. About 2000 people from all over the world (well, most of them were Germans, but you could always run into an American, Swedish, French, Austrian etc.) I met lots of smart, open, creative people there. 

- I was the only Romanian there :)

- I liked the Press and Blogger lounge and all the special care of us, the Official Bloggers (and here you can see the list of all the Official Bloggers and their posts, in an aggregated post by Djure Meinen)

- The organisation of the event was awesome, as I already wrote in their post-meeting survey

- Berlin is a total different side of Germany: young, open, daring, entrepreneurial - loved it!

(here a short video I took, while mingling at the conference)

Key take-outs from the speeches:

- The future is all about bridging real and virtual, putting data into things.
- Not only big companies should analyze their data, but also small companies...and also each of us about ourselves.
- The challenge is now to make the best use of data by visualizing it.
- Privacy of data is still an issue. And also now the monetization - for individual, not just for companies.

#next11 on twitter meant over 10.000 tweets about the conference - see details here! And here are some of the most re-tweeted quotes from the event:
- The biggest barrier to innovation is making excuses (@sarahcuda)
- First of all I am French, therefore I make this in bad English (@rafigaro)
- If you came from Mars, you would think we're worshiping screens here (@undermanager)
- What gets measured, gets managed (@tferriss)
- Tracking is essential for success (@tferriss)
- Your body is an API (@irowan)
- Old thinking + new technology = fail (@jeremytai)
- Old scarcity = resources, new scarcity = attention (@jeremytai)
- It's the revenge of the nerds (@jeremytai)

Here you can watch the video registration of the speeches in the international track: http://nextconf.eu/next11/videostream/ (not all for the moment, but they will all follow soon)

And here some video interviews I took to some speakers and partners:

Mike Butcher, Editor at TechCrunch Europe
"Data is the new black"



Ralf Herbrich, Development Manager at Bing
"The social streams will help us search information about things in real life"



Wolf Allisat, Vice President at comScore
"Data is only loveable when is accurate"



Franziska von Lewinski, CEO at Interone
"I wish that we take many insights from all the data we have and we generate added-value for our consumers"
(and their study - The Retail Revolution)



Olivier Audouze, Global Marketing Director at Total Immersion
"M-commerce is ready for augmented reality"



Mike Arauz, Digital Communication Strategist at Undercurrent
"Visualization tools are becoming important. You need new people with new skills, people with backgrounds in mathematics, statistics, linguistics..."



Jorg Rensmann, CEO at infoMantis
"We take important information and give it to the users on different channels, others than emails and newsletters"



Very good live blogging by Adam Tinworth:
#next11: Boon and bare of analytics
#next11 - Socialising Search with Bing
#next11 #media - New metrics for a new media age
#next11 - Driven to Distraction
#next11 - Social Media for Good
#next11 - An API to your body's data

All in all, I would like to go to Next Conference 2012 and maybe this time with a few more Romanian people with me.

NetCamp 2010 review - insights for online entrepreneurs

Yesterday, 8th december 2010, took place this year's edition of NetCamp - a conference for existing and wanna be online entrepreneurs, organised by Manafu and Evensys team in Bucharest, Romania.

The event gathered more than 200 people with ongoing or planned businesses in the online environment, most of them men (80 - 90%) and very young (age average: 25 y.o.) and some great international and national speakers.

Some insights from the speakers (quotes from their presentations and discussions) that might be useful for you:

Ian Broom - Launch 48
- For inspiration, there are some opportunities trending in online entrepreneurship that you might consider working on as your future business: analytics, geo based business, flash mob (example: Groupon), mobile apps, social games (examples: Foursquare, FarmVille).
- Do your research, test your customers.
- Launch with interest. If your first customers like your product,  they will be your greatest sales force (word of mouth).
- Launch is not the end. Iterate and expand.

Jure Sustersic - Nokia
- There are more people accessing Facebook from mobile than desktop
- We are facing an "app economy"
- Think how your business can benefit from mobilization.

Zoli Herczeg - Microsoft
- Presenting Gartner Hype Cycle 2010

- Cloud computing is good to use for non-flat/ unpredictable usage scenarios because you can use it for how much you want at each time (flexibility).

Hugo Pickford-Wardle - Launch 48 UK
- Solve a problem that others don't know how to solve or that they didn't even know it existed (but it did).
- Envision a perfect world without constrains. Work backwards, until you hit the wow line.

Cem Tunakan - Groupon Romania
- Focus on not just selling a product/ service, but also on connecting people.
- As long as our competitors play correctly, there is space for everybody.

Oana Solca - Romtelecom
- Try on Twitter and Facebook to focus on customer care, not on commercial messages.
- For targeting people knowledgeable about internet services and online shopping and also for building trust, make a partnership with a bank on their online banking platform.

Teodor Cimpoesu - Kaspersky Lab Romania
- Made an online shop on the Facebook page, as a Facebook app (fShop).
- Think how much your online accounts value and protect them not to lose your identity.

Marius Ghenea - serial entrepreneur
- For doing a business you need the right skills, chance and attitude.
- You can contribute with sweat capital, not just money.
- Plan for cash-flow, not for profit.
- Hire less, outsource more.
- Forecast bottom-up. Don't start from market size predicting your share, but from how much you can make starting from what resources you have.
- Start with a service business, then develop bigger projects. You can compare entrepreneurship with playing poker - you start with small sums and while playing you begin to understand the game, then you can come in with bigger sums.
- The FFF (family, friends and other fools) have no clue about your business. An investor can offer you advice and can ask you some good questions to think about.
- For the entrepreneur there is total commitment, for the investor this is partial - is just one more business he believes in.
- While an entrepreneur thinks of his business for a life time, the investor thinks in shorter terms, thinks of exit strategies.

Dragos Novac - online entrepreneur
- Most of online entrepreneurs think as a revenue source at online advertising. But keep in mind that you share your clients' online advertising budgets with online/ communication/ media agencies, and so you get only a small share of it.
- Other revenues sources for an online business: subscription revenues, affiliate revenues, rental of subscribers list, sale of information about subscribers, live events, cobranded spinoff, selling souvenirs, e-commerce, sponsorships.

Bogdan Secara - serial entrepreneur
- A business plan is useful because: it makes you more responsible, you establish your limits, you communicate better, it sells your idea to investors.
- Don't spend too much time on making the business plan.
- There will always be something unpredictable when you put your business plan into action.

Dragos Roua - serial entrepreneur
- You promote your business everywhere you interact.
- You are the promoter of your business. Even if you work with an agency, you are the one giving your ok for a campaign, so you are the responsible one.
- Your personal blog is your ID - it will work for you even years after you started it.

Vlad Stan - serial entrepreneur
- I don't like observers, I like players.
- How to make a good pitch: a creative introduction will make you memorable; the language should be simple; identify the problem of the one in front of you and then tell him your solution - and so you don't sell, but you help them to buy (you should have different pitches for different people); tell how your solution is different than the other existing solutions.
- There are not problems, but business opportunities.
- I cannot work only for money, I should like what I do and inspire others too.
- Think of what do you want people to remember you for at your funeral and so you will know what you should do in your life and don't waste time on other paths.
- If you earn 1.500 euro a month as an employee, in your whole life you make 720.000 euro. So you sell your life for this money....in installments. Being entrepreneur is not like that.

Other reviews of the event:
Quality time
Refresh.ro 

When ideas have sex

This is the name of a great TED talk from Matt Ridley, that I highly recommend you to watch: video link.
It is about the collaboration between individuals to create bigger things that enable the entire development of the society, things that alone we would probably never be able to create.

I met some young ambitious people lately, all infected with the entrepreneurship virus that were telling me they are trying to come up with an idea (or more) that will evolve into a good business opportunity for today's needs. The questions is: how should we get to these good business ideas and how should we make them grow into concrete businesses?

I believe that rarely a business idea will come if you just sit somewhere, trying to come up with something good. I believe good business ideas come exactly when you don't make a forced effort - they come when you read something, when you talk to somebody...in other words, when you have your ears and eyes wide open. So the only thing you need is to be open and to be able to spot opportunities when they are right under your nose.

Go out of your comfort zone and contact/ meet new people, different people, subscribe to some cool RSS - and don't just listen/ read, but try to build on insights and think out of the box. Spot business opportunities when your friends talk about the difficulty of finding something nowadays, according to their new needs. Or when you discover something in a more developed country that you think it can be a trend in your area soon too.

And then, when you have the great idea, you should not stop being open to others. Maybe you can do it alone, develop it into a great business plan that will work out just well. But there are more chances if you keep talking to people and keep reading because the idea will be able to develop in ways you could not imagine on your own. Bring on board other's point of view, expertise and creativity. Together we grow (as we use to say in JADE).

And don't be afraid to share - is very difficult that somebody can steal your initial idea and develop it in the same way you would do. I was asked a few times if I am not afraid to discuss about my business idea with other people I barely know. No, I am not afraid - because I worked a lot on the entire concept, I have already chosen the suppliers and negotiated with them...things that somebody that only hears about the brief idea could not develop it in the same way I would. But in the same time, I had the chance to incorporate some of their ideas coming up from mine.

For example, today I discovered a foreign website that stands for a good purpose and is very simple. I saw immediately the opportunity of building something similar for my country, adapted to the local specifics. I am not able to develop it alone, I need a team of people with different skills. An initial idea is to go to Business Organisation for Students (where I am Alumnus), tell them the idea (since it is something relevant to students) and see if I can make a project team. I will try and I will see. Maybe in some months, this can be spinoff and can turn into a real business.

How do you get new ideas and how do you develop them?

The old Europe is slower

Q: If US would be a person, how would this person be?
A: A young entrepreneur, an innovator and influencer.

Q: If Europe would be a person, how would this person be?
A: An old conservative business man/ politician who speaks many languages.

Trying to obtain a seed funding from private sources for my potential startup, I discovered that there is a huge difference between Europe and US when it comes to the investments side. And yes, the interested investors I have found so far are from US, and not Europe, even if my business will be here.

US gathers lots of Business Angels and VCs, usually organised in groups/ associations. They are easy to find and they are well connected, sharing their knowledge and experience with other entrepreneurs/ investors. Europe...let's say that is a bit behind when it comes to this. The numbers of investors increased lately, but they are still kind of unorganized and they still lack a good networking - a.k.a they are limited. This might be because Europe is fragmented in terms of culture, language, economical situation and so on. And Europeans seem to be more conservative than North Americans.

In other words, there is a lot to do regarding the development of the private investments side in European entrepreneurship. The initiative should come from entrepreneurs and investors themselves, from media (especially those who organize business events), from universities - but can also come from any person interested in entrepreneurship by trying to build some projects to encourage this development. I am personally interested in this kind of projects and I will try to use my network and knowledge, and especially my passion, to contribute to "bridging the gap". I've already found some good options - let's see how it will go.

Meanwhile, I share with you some good articles on this topic:
- Rise of the European SuperAngel
- The future of early stage investing in Europe
- SeedSummit brings Europe's seed investors together for the first time

A Ferrari for a business idea

I am always curious to hear people answering the question: "What will you do if you win the lottery?".

Most of them usually answer "buying a car, a house, going on holidays" (or variations of these). Very few say they will make a bank deposit with a part of the money. But I never heard personally somebody saying "I will start a business". I hope I will hear it soon, though. And more and more often.

There is a great push in media and education today to encourage entrepreneurship, so maybe soon this mentality will become more common. I know we don't need a world of entrepreneurs only, that we also need people who like to be just employees to run the businesses. But we need the appropriate people - those that spot opportunities and those that have the money - to invest their time, skills, relations, money into generating new businesses.

And just as a funny fact - the sum I need to open the business I plan right now is just 1/3 of the price of a Ferrari. In about 3 years I can generate enough profit to buy a Ferrari, and meanwhile I also create a great place for the community, offer some job opportunities, add some money to the state economy and I have a great satisfaction of creating/ innovating/ growing. Or I can fail - in the end entrepreneurship is a risky thing to do.

So if you have the money (win the lottery :), would you spend it on things like fancy cars or invest it in businesses?