On Quality and Quantity in Start-up Processes

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From Quality to Quantity

The issue how to quantify quality is an old one. In antediluvian times it used to be a common place that you cannot e.g. map quality on straight lines, because quality is a multi-dimensional category whereas quantity is one-dimensional. In business such philosophical qualms are generally perceived as academic and irrelevant: In HR and marketing for instance, where the “quality” … Read More

“Sharing is Caring”? Why Rifkin is Wrong

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Picture depicting two open hands with a heart lying in them which is covered by coins

In his much-acclaimed book The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons and the Eclipse of Capitalism, palgrave mcmillan 2014, Jeremy Rifkin declares the internet economy and its key ambassadors the millennials to have dethroned capitalism for the sake of the new “World Wide Web” – inspired economic model.  According to Rifkin, “openness”, “universal access for … Read More

Smart Tech VCs do not Invest in Brands

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Smart VCs do not invest in brands

There are times when you really wonder… Four days ago, I read an article on hackernoon.com on “The Value of a Brand for Tech Companies” by Cameron McLain, principal at Hummingbird Ventures. The gist of this article is that tech start-ups and VCs alike should embrace the idea, that brands constitute an important value for tech start-ups worth of being … Read More

Tech-Revolution IIoT?

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Pic of French Revolution with Pic symbolising IIoT instead of French flag

Being a historian of science by education, it amazes me to find most of my contemporaries in the venture business so at ease with detecting with an abundance of certainty “next big things”. How they manage to identify “tech revolutions” within their immediate vicinity or forecast the lives of the generation to come remains a mystery to me. I wish … Read More