Blazing Simplicity

Investor Day CEE 2009 Program - Call for speakers!

2009-08-17T09:14:01Z

We are announcing program for the second "Investor Day CEE" that will be held in Kiev (Kyiv), Ukraine on October 28-29, 2009.

The following program is planned for the second day - October 29.

IDCEE 2009 will be single-track event with 10 panels, 4 keynotes, startups presentations (IDCEE Award finalists) and networking.

The following panel topics has been chosen for this-year conference day:

1. To "Copy" or to "Be Innovative"

Are copycats the working strategy for CEE startups. "For" and "Against" making copies from entrepreneur's and VC's point of view. The stories of success and failure.

2. CEE: The point of view from the Global Venture Capital

Is there still a perception to the region? We will ask global VC and regional entrepreneurs. What VC's are expecting from regional startups and why CEE is not India and China.

3. Getting financed in a New Times

Do you need a capital during the Recession and what opportunities it brings for Investors and Entrepreneurs. How to get funded when the world is changing.

4. Measuring the CEE Potential

What is the current and future role of CEE in European startup scene. Will CEE be next Silicon Valley or India?

5. Online brands: "Getting users for your Web App"

Marketing and building your online brand. How to attract your users and benefit from your web application. Field experience from professionals.

6. The Piracy is dead, long live the Piracy!

The future of legal music, video and other digital content. What was the lesson of the last years? Is it the end of the piracy or just the beginning?

7. The destiny of Print!

What is the future of physical information medium. Are we really about getting rid of paper or using it is inevitable. How could internet entrepreneurs benefit from bridging new technologies and hard-copy form.

8. Finding your Ideal Investor

How the question of choosing the Investor influences startups' life. What are the tips and tricks for finding the Investor of your dreams.

9. Monetization: Making a real money with virtual goods

What are the major challenges when it comes to making money with your services. Why choosing the right monetization model is essential.

10. How we will be using web in the future?

Let's imagine the web of the future and find out how it will influence everyone's life and reflect social behavior and our culture. What are the current trends and why it's so important for the startups to follow them.

Investor Day is a professional conference and startups expo for TMT projects and investors, focused on the CEE (Central East Europe) region. If one of the mentioned subjects fits your sphere of expertise and you want to participate as a speaker - please contacts me through gk at idcee.eu.

Look for startup registration and attendees tickets at the IDCEE website.

On-The-Go Networking Using Free iPhone Apps

2009-03-13T14:47:42Z

As I do networking professionally and attend dozens of industrial events every year, I experience the same problems that everyone else does. For example, I'm not 100 per cent sure who's business card it is after the event (I don't remember people's faces and what they spoke about). The smart guys know how to use a pen or a pencil and are lucky if the business card is "classic style" and has a lot of white spaces that fill the blanks with tags and tasks. Unfortunately, it doesn't help to remember your new friend's face if you don't have enough time and talent to draw a sketch of one's portrait.

Sometimes you will find a photo of a person on a business card. A bit odd, you wonder if he or she's an artist or whatever... For example everyone at the "Kodak company" has their photo on a business card and the business card itself is printed on the photo-paper. Well, you know - it's Kodak!

So, bridging the business card with tags and tasks and remembering a persons face is a challenge. The other problem every professional suffers from is how to get rid of all of these papers and transfer the contact info into digital.

Like others, I use an "Address book" -type program to work with my network contacts and details. My choice is "Contactizer Pro" (Mac) btw. Every time I come back from a conference it takes me about a week or two to get back in touch with all of the people I've met there.

Because I'm a friendly guy I get lots of business cards and experience all of the previously mentioned problems. Additionally, I need to re-enter the information into my Address Book, describe the person, create tasks to follow this new relationship, and so on... It takes a lot of time and I need to use my eyes and fingers to get the info from a card and enter it into the program. I know that some windows-users are happy enough to have special devices that scan the cards and forward the data directly to Outlook, but this expensive device looks awful and not geeky at all.

Being a LinkedIn user helps me to get my connection's contacts info using VCF files so that I don't actually need to re-enter them with my hands. If everyone from your actual network used LinkedIn you wouldn't need an ordinary Address Book. Therefore, you're luckier than I am, cause only 1/2 of my network uses LinkedIn. Let's just say it would be great that everyone would use LinkedIn and Facebook in the near future and we will forget such an artifact as a business card.

So when your new friend is a proud user of LinkedIn or Facebook there is a mobile solution and a free applications that helps you to "get connected".

I love to use "LinkedIn App", it is pretty quick and helpful to find people on-the-go. I can read their bio and professional experience details before actually meeting them. The one thing I actually hate in both "big" LinkedIn and iPhone App is that they don't give an option to bookmark the profiles and do private comment's on them before you add that person to your network. It's probably "ok" when I use browser version - I can just copy the address of the profile somewhere and remember it...

The first method of on-the-go networking is to use LinkedIn App and search for a person you were just talking with. You need to enter his email together with a short comment on what you've just talked about (it could be useful for yourself as well, believe me :-) and send him a connection request.

The disappointment of LinkedIn is that if a person will not answer this request - you probably will forget them even faster. At the same time it could be recognized as an advantage if someone unknown just wants to spam you.

The second method is to use a "Facebook App" that is more friendly and you don't need an email address to add somebody to your "friends list". You just need to search and click "add". You can send a Facebook message right away also, with the same comments on what you were talking about. Facebook App actually gives you even more friendly possibility to take a group picture of you and your friend at the event venue and to send it. Maybe he or she will like this... Maybe not!

But my favorite way of doing networking on-the-go is by using Evernote App. This gives you a great opportunity to solve the problem of remembering the person and to get rid of the need to save his business card.

As you may well know "Evernote" is a great Application that helps to organize your handwritten notes and texts in the single app available for different platforms. I have Evernote on my home Mac, on my MacBook, and on the iPhone. All of the data is synced over the network so I don't care where from it was originally posted. The additional solution is the "Optical Character Recognition" (OCR) that Evernote does on the server-side when you upload a photo (a picture), doing it so that you can search the text inside the taken picture.

So how will Evernote help with on-the-go networking? I create a "Snapshot Note" with "Evernote App", take a picture of a business card or a badge of a person I'm speaking with, and add his name, tags, and all of the additional info I want to. I could also add his photo, but unfortunately that would be another note, cause Evernote allows you to take only one pic per note.

Then when I'm updating my contacts from the event, I just need to search for specific info I've entered before or to check all the entries. As Evernote lets you create multiple notebooks you can just add the new notebook for the current event and then go through all your notes for this event.

Off-course "OCR" accuracy depends on the quality of the photo, and all experienced iPhone users know that iPhone cameras suck :-), especially when taking a pictures of small things like a business card. The pics usually turn out blurry. Evernote promotes "Clarifi case" for iPhone 3G that makes close-up photos incredibly crisp. I'll buy one as soon as I become rich enough to buy an "iPhone 3G". Until that wonderful time I'll be a happy user of a good-old "iPhone 1".

Krums vs. "news corpse"

2009-01-17T12:11:47Z

Another instant internet celebrity named Janis Krums recently appeared while twittering the "Hudson US Airways plane crash".

jkrums: There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.

This message appeared at twitter, together with a picture taken by the iPhone even before the news companies even located the plane in the river.

Via @Scobleizer: RT: @MacSmiley BBC just reported how Krums photo zipped around the Web to millions before news orgs could even find the plane in the water!!

According to the NyDailyNews.com Krums had managed to snap the shot and post it on the TwitPic.com while being on the nearby ferry.

Can you say "revolution?"

BTW apparently the same story "before iPhones" happened in my hometown of beautiful St. Petersburg in the year 1963. You can take a look at the picture. The same like in "Hudson story" everyone survived.

It Was a Good Year, Sad it Ended in Septemeber...

2009-01-03T12:16:06Z

Upon toasting the incoming "New Year '08", I was confident and sure it would be a great year. Everything was looking up, I had just collected the funds for one of my projects and planned several trips for each of the 12 following months worldwide to represent my company at professional events.

The trips stopped in the summer, because we experienced insufficient funds and growth stopped. Later I discovered that these were good times, because the need to cut loses appeared. Being behind on the bills became the norm. Personal income decreased and because of the dollar/rubble exchange rate, I started to pay exorbitant interest for my loans based in USD.

I don't want to sound desperate and miserable. Not more than others, anyway. This post is not going be another "Merry Crisis" holiday post, but I would like to say a few words to share my projections for the year 2009.

Recently I read the interview with Richard Branson in the russian business daily newspaper "Kommersant". In the year 2008, Branson launched "Virgin Connect" in Russia (Wi-MAX network), and started selling space trips from "Virgin Galactic" in Moscow.

He, as many other successful entrepreneurs is very optimistic about future revenues in Russia, even though there is a crisis he thinks that "Russia will not be as badly damaged as western states". From the other side, Branson thinks that "it's very bad that for the past two years Russia and the West haven't become closer, but have become even more distanced from each other...". I fully agree with both statements and with his major quote that "Wealth is gained during good times, and the empires are built in hard".

That's exactly the point. So, I'm quite optimistic about this year and lay great expectations for it. To speak from my experience it's easier to be more productive and creative when times are hard and you are starving. So the big time is coming.

Are you ready?

P.S.

Little Red Riding Hood was walking in the forest and chanced upon a wolf.
The wolf said: "You now have only two choices: merger or acquisition".

The World that Torrent won!

2008-12-07T13:10:59Z

As I mentioned in my previous posts I was born and raised in Russia. It's a great country that I admire, strictly for strong guys like Tony (who is helping me with this post) and myself. Russia is a country where official iPhone sales have failed and with a very low "Mac" penetration level...

Most of the Moscovites have already bought the illegal iPhones before the "2-nd" one officially arrived for the cool price of 24 thousands rubles ($900) for a "8Gb version". There is still no "$200 alternative". Previously, the "illegal version" of "iPhone 1" in Moscow and St.Pete cost around $650. While traveling by the Moscow metro I found that all the moscow ladies have at least two of them, and were trying to manage the iPhone keyboard with their long-nailed fingers... The second iPhone has been brought from the states like a "slave", began to sell for a price of $2000 just the same week it appeared in USA for $200. I have my "iPhone 1" which was legally bought in UK while being there but then "jailbreaken" and used in Russia. Speaking about the rich, I'll never go mad and buy this product for $900.

So, Russia just a few years before was a country with a rich and almost free digital consumption. Everyone was able to buy a hot movie for the price of $2-3 - almost anywhere. At last the new year of 2006 came and all of this monkey business stopped. The government closed all of the major pirate shop chains.

The minority started buying legal DVD's and brand-new "Blue-rays" but the rest "ex-pirate" customers have moved to the IP-networks and torrents.
Wiping the disc distribution from the streets, the government has completely destroyed the "monetization model" of the pirate-industry. The IP-Networks and Torrents have expanded the illegal sharing process even more than before - no need to pay 3 bucks and trip over bums in the metro.

Now Russians have access to the home IP-network full of stuff and nobody can force the IPS providers to shut it down. The official advertising of ISP says "new films and music free every day...".

I've already seen initiatives launching online music marketplaces, selling content with "WMA-DRM". I was a bit confused that there was so many music authors on those sites, that it's ridiculous to think that they have legal rights to sell the music.

Additionally I'd love to point out that movie downloading is still not considered a crime in Russia. There have been lawsuits against some "schoolboys" in small russian cities already, but it looks more like a showcase. The government is focusing too much attention on bootleg -CD's, because it's easier to control. The digital content is out of any kind of control.

So, it's not surprising that Apple launched the "Apple Store" in Russia with only "iPhone Apps" and no movies or music. It's not accessible and available for Russians. The only chance for law-obeying users from Russia to use the "Apple Store" is to cheat Apple by giving them a fake US-based home address and using a gift-cards to top-up the account or US-citizen credit card details - sounds as a total stupid joke to try something illegal to be legal. There is still a legislation problem that Apple has faced by coming to Russia.

From Russia With Love!

Finally Torrents. Sometimes Torrents are used just as a transport - for a rapid delivery of copyright-free content or an "Open Source". I'm not a lawyer, and not sure about what the current situation is concerning the use of Torrents in the States and Europe. Therefore, I know that they are widely used even when illegally recognized.

A year ago we were asked to make a "Due Diligence" of "online media marketplace" project focused on Russian-speaking Americans. The idea was to sell the national content over the internet directly to the Russian speaking population abroad. I stopped evaluating the project when I've discovered two points. The content already uploaded at the market place was up to date (the TV-shows that were broadcasted yesterday were already uploaded) and it was illegal for sure. The content was in "DivX" so no "DRM" and no hardware "boxes" that protect content from illegal distribution. Buy cheap and stolen - is a story of well-known "AllOfMp3.com".

The one other point that I've mentioned while searching this question, is that the major screen copies (called CAM's) are made in Russia. Just check the torrents of new films, it says "Russian Cam". It's interesting that somebody takes the english sound (that is easier to record for sure) and puts it in the russian video. I've never seen somebody with a camera in the cinema, and I'm quite sure that whoever appears with a camera in the theatre will be cheerfully beaten to death by the cinema owner before the police will arrive. So it's much easier to record the movie by the cinema staff themselves.

Starting with a credit card

2008-11-22T13:07:45Z

Since of the economic meltdown begin, the question "how-to-start" your business is more important than ever. While managing the tech business and doing the seed investments in the web services, I'm worried about the startup fund-raising question as is nobody else.

"Venture Capital" has reduced the amount and number of investment deals rapidly. This is due not only to future risk, but also to the fact that VC's returns has decrease dramatically already in Q2 this year.

Additionally VC-firms experiencing problems making "capital call's" from the committed investors for the first time since 2004.

If you have a brilliant idea that could become a great business today, there is still a chance to pass the due-diligence, which is now a very high priority for every venture firm and even the small angels. You'll be never sure that the venture capitalists will produce the money themselves when the "capital call" will come up to date.

Even when the economy had its best times, many of young tech entrepreneurs started on their own, when they failed to raise early capital. I know exactly that "YouTube" and "Facebook" started with credit money from their personal credit cards. They succeeded, but all of the stories that you read about are about the winners. We will never know how many entrepreneurs failed and dug a big hole with credit debt.

Of course it's not the business of innovators to risk their money. I know a better example of young entrepreneurs who were already successful and rich before they raised the money.

To risk your own money or somebody else's? To risk the credit money, the credit you will pay whether you succeed or not - thats the challenge. When you start with your own money or personal credit, in other case, it's the illustration of your complete dedication to the project and it's objectives. Sometimes, therefore it could also be an illustration of your total stupidity...

Based on my experience, I've never faced the fact that I'm sorry that I haven't invested or haven't participated in a specific project, that eventually succeeded. Sometimes, I'm sorry that I haven't made a copycat of "Facebook" or "LinkedIn" in Russia. It's against my morals, but it seems that nobody judges the winners. "Vkontakte.ru" (russian copycat of "Facebook") has millions of users just because they do not have stupid unethical beliefs. Nevertheless the same applies to child porn and drug dealing...

What I remember, that I was several times sad about some of the investments that I made. For example, I'm sorry that I started three projects this year just before the economic meltdown. These projects are already dead or near death because the funds have stopped coming.

From my point of view, it's better "to" than "not to" risk. I started my own business with credit card money. It was very small money, but the only option I had at that time. The sums that are available for russian citizens are funny. I have a credit line of up to 20 thousand dollars. This is a small amount in comparison with the average american citizen. For example, my brother who lives in California told me that as a student, he has more than 100 thousand available from credit cards that the banks have sent to him just like junk mail. It's hard to believe from my side... Here we need several trips to the bank with dozens of documents to receive something like 5-10 thousand and there is still a risk of refusal.

Additionally, the banking regulations in Russia are an evil for normal people. Today the government is going to pass the law of criminal offense for credit fraud. This is not a surprise in a country where every young man aged 17 is obliged to play the national game with the Army Forces Dept. The game rules are: you choose between starting a degree, going to the army, pay a huge bribe, or go to jail for rejection of serving the country. The officials call this action game "serving your country". I call this making slaves from your citizens, but that's a topic for another post.

One of my senior employees (named Alexey) always wanted to be a partner in my business, but his private assets never allowed him to buy a share, and I wasn't allowed to offer him a stock option. When the economy switched on life support, I offered to sell him a share with personal credit at a lower price. The money he could bring into the company was useful and he accepted this proposal with cheerful glee.

The Bank approved credit for Alexey and we agreed on a deal. On the date he arrived with the proper sum of money, we had a splendid conversation concerning the company future. I had a strong feeling that he had doubts about the deal.

The next morning I was awakened by his call, he wanted to cancel the deal and meet again. When we met he told me a story... He had a friend in the USA (named Philipp)
who graduated from Harvard, and when he was a student, another guy (named Mark) offered him a web business. The problem was that they needed money and they didn't have any. As the project was too risky for investors, the only chance for them to raise capital was to borrow the money from the bank. Philipp refused to borrow money from a bank. Later he understood that he refused to be a co-founder of Facebook...

Aleksey said that by telling me this story he want's to show me that he properly understands the risk to lose his chance too, but he won't take the risk now and that's why he canceled the deal. It's his decision.

Let's Start From Monday

2008-11-15T13:18:22Z

How often, when you plan to change your life entirely, do you promise to start from monday. Whenever you decide to quit smoking or loose weight and start going to a gym from monday you failed, and "Mondays" come and go over months and then years. It is still good enough if "the door is open" and you can implement the changes you desire and you look ahead with aspirations, even if you have failed to start from monday, you still have a dream, whatever it is...

I got a call from my friend who does not work in the Internet industry. The following story is from an anecdote, but his story is not funny...

Two entrepreneurs who were friends, met for lunch

- "How has the crisis affected your business, buddy?"

- "I've terminated all of my employees to cut expenses, but they still go to work..."

- "That's ridiculous, but I have a business idea for you - just charge them an entrance fee to come to work!"

Two weeks passed and they met once again

- "So, how is your business? Was my proposal effective?"

- "Yes!"

- "Did they stop going to work?"

- "No!"

- "Did they pay you at the entrance???"

- "Yes, but they are cheating me!!! They come on Monday morning and leave on Friday evening!!!"

My friend told me a quite similar story. He has a problem finding money to fuel his car (an expensive one). He has recently terminated most of his staff and is going to continue to do this in order to reduce expenses. Some of his employees have started to work for free.

Now the economic crisis in Russia is a shock and a panic for the majority of people. I usually reply to my EU and US friends who ask "how is it going in Russia?", that Russian people are always in crisis - so they are prepared. Maybe now they are not as prepared as before...

The crisis in Russia, unexpectedly began in the Fall of this year. For the past five years there was fantastic economic growth, real estate prices were soaring, and consumers were spending money like there was no tomorrow. Moscovites had the feeling of being on top of the world, as they were contemplating their next "Lexus" or "Infiniti" purchase.

Now the business radios are reporting that there are up to 30% staff reductions in reputable companies. Food, real estate, and retail are facing problems with operations. What is bad news for me is that a great number of establishments have stopped accepting bank cards. For example, I was dining in a restaurant and then the waitress said "Oh, we have a problem with the machine...". Always bullshit of course, but I've never seen the machines stop working as often as now and just when you need it the most. Ridiculous but true, restaurants are protecting themselves from possible bank liquidity problems.

Two days ago, I was meeting a friend of mine and he told me that he had lost two million rubbles ($80k) from his business bank account when one of the banks crashed a month ago and he has no expectations of getting his money back.

I called my friend who works at this bank now (it was already bought by the other bank and works as usual) - she said that it just can't be true and maybe there is just a delay. However, I'm experiencing strong problems in my own business (particularly in sales). I don't have a clue about what I would do if all of my money vanished from a busted bank.

When the money came to this country capitalist consumer discipline did not evolve and develop. For example, the mentality is that if you have money today - spend it now, don't wait until tomorrow.

The Russian society was lost between the soviet and capitalist transition, and it also was not receptive to both the East and the West, but pretended to become a major player in the world economy.

The Putin's wealth epoch was crushed by Bush's economic crisis and left no chance for the country's economy to maintain steady growth and prosperity.

Looking out at the always grey and dreary St. Petersburg sky, today is Saturday, what should I start from Monday? ]]>

MindMap: the Cure for Depression

2008-11-10T17:14:17Z

Tired of the financial crisis or hearing about it? Are you facing real problems (like me) and need to change your business-models or even your life-style?

Usually when something fails and we are obstructed from achieving our personal goals - we are stressed and frustrated.

It usually increases our anger and disappointment, and as stress is high pressure, you feel tired and drained and it influences your daily life. So, should one buy antidepressant pills, or maybe try something new - how about "mind mapping"?

A mind map is a sort of graph or a diagram that represents your thoughts and ideas in words and items. It links to an arranged radially around a central key point. "Mind maps" are used in science and business to structure, classify, and visualize. I will mainly speak about it's other useful proposes such as problem solving and decision making.

Usually pressure causes stress, external problems cause frustration and fear causes depression. All of this is bad, but it needs to be fixed.

We fear the unknown, what we don't understand or see, and it could be psychological. Fortunately, unconscious fears can be reduced by writing them down and visualizing them. This is where "Mind Mapping" will help, especially when you need to find a solution for your business or family.

Sometimes the solution is hiding just inside of your mind and you just need to dig a bit to find a proper decision. Hopefully you'll feel better. It has been tested by me dozens of times!

I try not to use "Mind maps" to just generate and classify, when I need to make a list of things or structure a presentation or document, I use ordinary outlines.

By the way, along with fixing your mood and presenting ideas in a radial, non-linear manner, you can experience an unorthodox brainstorming approach of "mind mapping", and generate a really brilliant idea.

Mac vs. PC Business Plan Writing

2008-11-10T17:11:54Z

Last week I prepared my oldest company strategy writings and business plans for the next five years. The majority of the financial writings was done by one of my colleagues, who has great fundamental financial knowledge and a miracle "MBA" degree. Everything was looking quite nice until I understood that we are not just different guys, but we were using quite different platforms - I'm a Mac. And this is not just an ideology...

First, I faced a problem with the proper opening of his Excel files using my Mac. It's important to say, that my colleague is an Excel guru, so he always uses Excel and employs more expectations on it and on concrete digits - I'm a more strategy and art guy. Upon opening the Excel file, I experienced problems waiting for "MS Office 2008" to go through it. The time it took "Mac: MS Excel" to load the file gave me the ability to prepare the entire tea ceremony and make several phone calls.

The second problem appeared with a document file. When I tried to send it in PDF, my colleague protested and insisted upon receiving the proper "docx" version in order to see all of the proofs (changes) and most importantly, working with the document structure.

When I was exporting Pages to "docx", the content appeared at the document titles but was corrupted in the electronic document view of "MS Word". I was tired of converting and receiving bad user experience from my colleague. Due to the short amount of time left to finish the documents I switched to "MS Office for Mac" and started to compose the document there.

When I needed to send my document to the other colleague who has an older "MS Office" version, I switched to ".doc" format and then I copy-pasted his corrections to the "docx" version. The "doc" file was always 10 times bigger then "docx".

Finally after all of the corrections I tried to open the finished file in "Pages". I then tried to finish the layout of the document in Word, but I faced many well-known problems (from my "Windows experience"), i.e. when you want something and don't get what you ask for. So after several hours of trying to deal with decoration in "Word", I switched back to Pages and made all of the final designs in one hour.

I call this process cross-platform-business-writing-juggling. So I have a question. I pay a lot of money to "Apple" and know a lot about software and technologies (I'm not just another lame person) and my subordinates are nice guys. But why should we do this juggling instead of focussing on the document contents, after we've paid so much for hard and soft equipment? One other reason to change the industrial standards, and it's not just a "MS" evil, I know that Pages and Numbers are quite different things, but there must be a chance...

Obama Wins the "Facebook Election"

2008-11-06T17:04:54Z

The Guardian calls it "techno-demographic appeal". The proven truth is that an Obama was chosen mainly by the young americans (nearly 70% of the vote among young Americans under 25), so we could say, that Obama was selected by the "Facebook generation".

It's interesting to know that Chris Hughes (age 24) - one of the Facebook co-founders has been chosen as Obama's key strategist. It's important to mention that Chris has never been involved in politics before.

So, it's one more proof that social networks and the web itself just can't be undervalued in today's business, politics, and life. Could it be a revolution?

]]> While most of the world is focused on the fact that the first "black" American president has been elected, I can't stay away of how it was done. The methods chosen by all the candidate were really "2.0", from social networking sites to podcasting and mobile messaging, but Obama's victory was due to the fact that he focused on young americans and minorities with a great online support ever.