My most recent blog post dealt with fake problems (and corresponding fake solutions). Today I want to direct my “spotlight” (kindly notice a dose of self-irony here) at fake reasoning and fake explanations. In today’s newsletter “Pioneers’ Breakfast” by the excellent German special interest magazine t3n the reader is invited to read an article on the allegedly inexorable surge of … Read More
Startups Fake Problems Revisited
My post on Monday raised the contention that many pitch decks invent or magnify problems in order to make their “solutions” appear more impressive. I also stated this was an issue particularly pertaining to Germany and less so to start-ups in America, China, France, or the UK. My third claim was that over there, investors operate on more solid empirical … Read More
Think Before You Pivot
Today I just want to quote a recent post by @andrewchen from @a16z which I really liked. It’s from an interview Andrew gave to @AdamRisman from Intercom an (ex) start-up I also truly like. The podcast can be listened to here: https://blog.intercom.com/andrew-chen-on-growth. The pivoting passage I want to quote goes like this: “Adam: You’ve consulted with a lot of growth … Read More
Problems & Solutions: Footnotes on German and American Pitch Decks
The way start-ups are generally supposed to pitch is to present to investors an industry’s problem to which they can provide an, ideally unrivaled, sound, and singular solution. There is hardly a deck that does not follow this rhetoric. And for good reason so. What is problematic though is that, in continental Europe, or, to be more precise, in Germany … Read More
“AR/VR Shows Signs of Advancement – and New Worries”
Movie, TV, Live-Events, Education and Gaming are the fields which proved most disappointing as target branches for AR & VR technologies whereas manufacturing, automotive, real estate and retail give new hope. PerkinsCoie’s Survey Industry insights into the Future of AR/VR – AR/VR shows signs of Advancements – and New Worries of March 2018 shows that gaming’s lead position has suffered … Read More
Aspirational Marketing 2.0
For years on end, celebrity endorsement has been celebrated as the ultimate kick for consumer brands seeking to unleash mass desire. From Borg/ Federer & Rolex to Ronaldo & Nike the strategy was straightforward and – indeed – quite successful. It went like this: If a superstar with mass appeal in sports, entertainment, or whatever publicly praises the brand and/or … Read More
3D & VR Entertainment – Nice, But a Blue Ocean it is Not
I just learned that Zuck’s Oculus Go, which will hit the market today, may finally allow Facebook to arrive in the hardware world. Apart from a super reduced user interface, prime visual performance, and, yes, price, Oculus Go achieves what made Apple great as well: combining excellent hardware & software with good and more or less mutually exclusive content (via … Read More
Facebook/ Cambridge Analytica: Pseudo-Pivoting and Hypocrisy at its best Window Dressing on All Sides
Okay. I really do not like social media in general or Facebook in particular. Not because of “data”. Also, not because of tax evasion, “ruthless lobbying” or quasi-monopolies. These may be serious issues, but public authorities could be active in these fields if they wanted to. What I genuinely do hate is the way social media i) corrode human thought … Read More
Gender Preferences in Tech Start-ups
With #metoo #kalanik and #jamesdemore increasingly becoming issues of the past, well digested if not forgotten (Travis Kalanik is now CEO of #tenonehundred), there is general concern, That white male arrogance, misconduct and scant regard for women is emblematic of the global tech start-up culture, and the abovementioned debates will have produced no lasting effect on how this global tech … Read More
Start-up Cost Structure
Founders Seeking Corporate Exits should not Waste their Cash on Sales & Marketing In 2011 the Startup Genome Project defined four types of internet start-up: The automizer, the social transformer, the integrator and the challenger. These types do have their value but somehow, they do not respond to my needs as an investor. One of several other keys which don’t … Read More