Category Archives: Entrepreneurship

Kickstart Entrepreneurs Weekend "MBA"

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It started with everyone introducing themselves and talking about the motivation to attend the event. During the rest of Friday’s evening we discussed several topics, most of them for which I expect you get a full course while doing an MBA. Each topic was covered in a 1-hour round with plenty of time for questions and discussions, which was cool.

At night we had dinner with Paulo Laureano, which I’m a big fan (go Siteseed 3), with discussions around starting security startups, taking capital from the gov. vs from banks, etc.

Saturday was a bit heavy with all the giants we had to cover (Finance, Accounting, etc). Lunch was at the beautiful restaurant at the top of the Tivoli Oriente Hotel, and the nice weather allowed for a terrific view to the sea (I felt like living the life of a rich person there).

The evening was full of very interesting material and the way MV talks helps to chew, the sometimes otherwise dead boring topics.

In the end it made me realize a lot of things. Maybe the most important one: you really benefit from knowing BA stuff. It is really useful. It is not like some people say: “what you don’t know you can learn on the way”. Or, let me rephrase that, you can learn on the way, but you will be learning from your own mistakes, and that’s not the easiest way of learning.

Meaningful Work

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I was going through some old files on my laptop and found this notes on “Meaningful Work”.

“A job is way to make money. A calling is a way of life.”

To find meaningful work, you need to know what work means to you. What does work mean to me?

1. discipline (you have to work every day, get up early, etc.)
2. sacrifice (sometimes things are not what you expect, sometimes people are mean, sometimes people are stupid, etc.)
3. creativity (you can create things, design new things), perseverance (it takes perseverance to meet the work goals), etc.
4. personal fulfilment (if you can manage to do things that are appreciated by others, if you’re recognized in your work place as being knowledgeable, trustworthy, on-time, smart, etc. then you will feel this fulfilment and you’ll feel good).
5. having fun (I have to enjoy what I’m doing, that’s an important part of the job)

I once said to a bunch of high-school kids in a speech I gave that work is not the thing that will decide if you’re happy or not. And I still believe that. If you have the right conscience and energy you will be above work, you will be in bliss.

Remember to play.

Pay attention to your dreams and fantasies. Dreams can help us to uncover those aspects of our being that have not yet found expression in our lives.

http://www.yoursoulswork.com/meaningful_work.htm

Meeting the Founder of VCS.de

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SciSys acquired last year VCS by paying €16.64 million. Today I got to meet Prof. Dr. Klaus-G. Meng, the company’s single founder, that started VCS in 1981.

He told the initial history of VCS, how he started the company, etc. Basically he knew how to receive a signal from satellites and designed a receiver that was capable of monitoring the signal. Back then this was great technology. The European Space Agency was using paper prints that came out every X number of minutes so going to a system where they had live feedback of the signal on a TV was considered something very useful. His first client was precisely the Agency but soon after Lufthansa and other big companies were interested as well.

The first thing I asked was: wasn’t this easy enough to be done by other companies? Did you had strong competition? He said no because it was a niche market. The bigger companies were interested in bigger markets like medicine, etc.

He ended up doing a tour with us through the office, which was brilliant! The building used to be an abandoned school and maybe that’s why it is so functional inside. There are rooms for 1, 2 or 3 persons instead of an open-space, which reminded me more of a university environment than a software company.

Programmers and Designers: The demand is there and increasing every day, let’s work together.

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Via bittbox, an interesting article about the relations between programmers and designers. I totally agree with the author. When we understand what we can learn from others we get along a lot better, and that applies not just to software.

“When working together across both the design and programming disciplines, the best results and happiest clients are directly related to how well the (sometimes deceptive) design/programming companies work together. The best way to move forward and stay ahead of the game is to find a reliable partner, be it programmer or designer, that is willing to wear your hat and even go to meetings with you when needed. Once you develop a relationship, which most do eventually, it’s easy to get comfortable in your situation. This is one of the major reasons designers and programmers are so baffled by one another. No one interacts and shares knowledge, they just do their part and that’s it. This isn’t constructive enough to satisfy me, sorry.

Designers and programmers should be constantly looking into new ways to help each other out. And if you’re a small and growing company and have the demand, hire someone to compliment your team. Your designers will learn 100 times more information from an on-board programmer than emailing an outsourced “friend.” The same goes for programmers. Having one Graphic Designer on board could save you thousands in outsourcing, and teach your team priceless information about the layout in front of the code, and how the scripts manipulate what the user sees. Website interfaces should be designed for usability and accessibility, and that involves both what you see, and the programming that powers it. Make an effort to understand your complimentary discipline.”