Abilio Diniz is a Brazilian businessman who once went into a long conflict with his French business partner. He was fighting for control over a big company that he had built from scratch with his father. Abilio was a majority stakeholder but the Frenchman had the controlling interest. The dispute was so bitter that Financial Times named it “one of the biggest international rivalries in history”.

Considering today’s pace of life, is it possible to feel more relaxed, have time for your hobbies, and complete more tasks with less effort? It seems especially difficult for people who run companies. Few of them really feel that what they are doing at the moment is exactly what they should be doing. When they finish their work, they think about uncompleted tasks, when writing an e-mail, they keep looking at those that keep coming in, during meetings, they finish some of their stuff on a computer. On one hand, we raise our life standard, but on the other hand we also raise the level of stress and the number of duties.

How to learn to run a startup?

When I was a kid, I found it difficult to understand why it’s possible that someone who set up a company employs e.g. several hundred employees. I had no idea about how one could earn several hundred zloty, much less manage a company with a turnover of million or billion. There was a gap between me and such people that couldn’t be overcome.

More often than not, when speaking about setting up a startup, other people are surprised. Why this way? IT specialists earn so much these days, why do you want to take such a decision?

These questions seem sensible. Statistics show that only one or, according to other data, two startups out of ten manage to survive.

How important is it to advertise your product while creating a startup? Do you need to participate in startup events? Or maybe you just have to spend money on advertisements?

Emotions during building a startup are pretty well described on The Startup Curve created (seriocomically) by Paul Graham:


The story of Peter Reinhardt, the chairman of Segment startup, shows very well how to look for a product that just sells itself.

Today, Segment employs 150 people, but the beginning wasn’t so easy. It started out with 4 founders who were looking for their business idea.

Everyone is born with some sort of talents but if we judge a fish by how it can climb a tree, it will think that it’s stupid for the rest of its life.

Running a business is very similar. Each business is different, just as entrepreneurs’ approaches towards it.

(więcej…)

Imagine that your IQ is twice as high as Leonardo da Vinci’s. They never calculated it, but he’s said to be one of the most multi-talented people in history. But in this thought experiment, you were born in 5000 BC.

It will be an entry in which I would like to write about a few basic rules connected with creating a great product in your startup. I’ll also write about how the already functioning startups used these rules in developing their own products.

AN INTERVIEW WITH KAMIL LASZUK, THE CREATOR OF MUSICON

I’ve met Kamil Laszuk during the Hardware Massive Conference in Warsaw. It was an event during which several dozen of startups producing various types of equipment were showing their products.