Ready to be an entrepreneur?

Apostolos Apostolakis, co-founder of e-shop.gr, Greece’s Amazon, shares from his personal experience.

(Video courtesy of: TedxTalks)

Cell phones, as they once were

Old cell phone commercial showing, unintentionally, a glimpse at the first iPad prototype …

(Video courtesy of: mathwiz20 YouTube channel)

Location Based Spamming

” Imagine walking past a shirt shop with two friends and glancing at the garments in the window. Suddenly your mobile phone pings with a message. 

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Buy two shirts from the shop, runs the text, and you will receive a 20 per cent discount; buy three and the discount will be 30 per cent.” (Financial Times, 10 Feb 2013)

Why on earth would I want that? 

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Hooked.

There were two pieces of news connected with Facebook this week: Bloomberg reported that Facebook was developing an app that would track your location and let everyone know where you were at any given time.

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The app would run in the background of your smartphone, even when not opened. And the catch - you would not be asked if you want to be tracked or not.

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The next 5 year plan: results  In June 2010, then Russian president Medvedev, has sent his first tweet from Silicon Valley. The Russian tech startup scene has been active since the 1990s and can be hardly called young (Yandex has been launched prior to Google) but what we are witnessing now, since that first presidential tweet, is an attempt to organize itself as an industry (first Russian Startup Index released, RusBase launched etc.). Almost all ingredients are in place (hot startups, large talent pool, a local VC network, Government support, large test market etc.) now we just need to see results …  (Photo courtesy of: AFP)

The next 5 year plan: results 

In June 2010, then Russian president Medvedev, has sent his first tweet from Silicon Valley. The Russian tech startup scene has been active since the 1990s and can be hardly called young (Yandex has been launched prior to Google) but what we are witnessing now, since that first presidential tweet, is an attempt to organize itself as an industry (first Russian Startup Index released, RusBase launched etc.). Almost all ingredients are in place (hot startups, large talent pool, a local VC network, Government support, large test market etc.) now we just need to see results … 

(Photo courtesy of: AFP)

The daily deal model: time to pivot or close shop?

LivingSocial recorded a loss of USD 566m for Q3 (having been valued at USD 934.5m in Q2 (source WSJ), it is a loss of 60% of its value. Groupon has lost 82.88% of its value since going public. 798 daily deal sites have shut down in the second half of 2011, according to Daily Deal Media. Prominent investors like Marc Andreessen are exiting their Groupon holdings. About 69% of merchants are not doing business with Groupon for the second time … . 

I am not here to give advice but I thought this video about a startup band pivoting all the time in order to survive might be a good hint …

(Video courtesy of: Dennis Lavrenyuk YouTube channel)