Showing posts with label Entrepreneurship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Entrepreneurship. Show all posts
August 28, 2009
Social Incubators: marketing savvy for tech-savvy entrepreneurs
Social Media marketing expands rapidly to new and unexpected terrains. Incubators that are not famous as marketing savvy have also discovered the advantages of blogs, social networks and online communities in attracting and retaining customers. An interesting article sent to me by my colleague Rob published in the National Business Incubator Association Review
May 22, 2009
Entrepreneurial ex-students
After Stefan Fountain, an ex-student of mine and co-author in my paper
Web 2.0: Conceptual foundations and Marketing Issues who made it to TechCrunch with his company Soocial.com, the technology start up Distimo.com where another of my ex-students Remco van den Elzen is one of the co-founders (together with three other University of Twente graduates) also enjoys some very positive publicity in the same blog. The University of Twente has a long tradition of high-tech start-ups and these ex-students are a excellent ambassadors of the entrepreneurial spirit of our University. All the best to Remco and his partners with their venture.
Web 2.0: Conceptual foundations and Marketing Issues who made it to TechCrunch with his company Soocial.com, the technology start up Distimo.com where another of my ex-students Remco van den Elzen is one of the co-founders (together with three other University of Twente graduates) also enjoys some very positive publicity in the same blog. The University of Twente has a long tradition of high-tech start-ups and these ex-students are a excellent ambassadors of the entrepreneurial spirit of our University. All the best to Remco and his partners with their venture.
November 29, 2008
Venture Lab Twente: a new initiative to promote entrepreneurship
VentureLab Twente (VLT) is an advanced training facility for people who take seriously their entrepreneurial ambitions. The mission of the Lab is to help “ techno-starters” and knowledge-intensive businesses to enter the market and succeed. VLT welcomes participants with concrete business ideas who feel that they miss certain commercial capabilities necessary for building-up a successful business.
Participants without concrete plans or clear business ideas are also welcome to join. A particular advantage of the VLT program is that it helps aspiring entrepreneurs to discover viable business opportunities.
At VentureLab Twente, entrepreneurs work in teams to develop a successful high-tech company. Participants receive support from academics, consultants and students from the entrepreneurial University of Twente and the Saxion Universities of Applied Sciences Seminars by internationally renowned trainers, carefully planned personal coaching, access to newly developed technologies, access to a network of international companies and last but not least access to venture capital are some of the elements of the VLT approach.
Those interested can join one of the INFORMATION MEETINGS.
CHECK http://www.venturelabtwente.com/ AND REGISTER NOW!
Participants without concrete plans or clear business ideas are also welcome to join. A particular advantage of the VLT program is that it helps aspiring entrepreneurs to discover viable business opportunities.
At VentureLab Twente, entrepreneurs work in teams to develop a successful high-tech company. Participants receive support from academics, consultants and students from the entrepreneurial University of Twente and the Saxion Universities of Applied Sciences Seminars by internationally renowned trainers, carefully planned personal coaching, access to newly developed technologies, access to a network of international companies and last but not least access to venture capital are some of the elements of the VLT approach.
Those interested can join one of the INFORMATION MEETINGS.
CHECK http://www.venturelabtwente.com/ AND REGISTER NOW!
November 15, 2007
The YouTubbing of Entrepreneurship
In my previous post I referred to the YouTubing of Mass media, the effect of YouTube (and of course of other similar user content exchange sites) on the way the traditional mass media are transforming their business model and actually competing with the video and photograph exchange sites for original photos or video footage made by people who filmed or mare a photo of exciting events with their mobile telephone.
Talking to young entrepreneurs - mostly active in the high-tech / Internet domain - it surprises me to hear regularly that their only ambition creating a new business is to sell it as soon as it becomes interesting to some competitor or investor. In other words the dream of many new entrepreneurs is to repeat the story of YouTube (and many others like Skype, PayPal and Flickr to mention only the recent ones) that made their owners rich overnight after their takeovers by Internet giants like ebay, Yahoo or Google. This is of course nothing new in the Internet world, in the 90s we had many more of such extravagant takeovers of dot.coms that proved to be nothing more than hot air.
It seems that the effects of YouTube on the way young entrepreneurs look to the future of their business are indicative of the new business ethics and ambitions of the information age. Instead of vision the quick buck, instead of strategy just tactics, instead of successful products successful contacts and network.
The problem is that in many cases the new-style entrepreneurs are too fast with the sell-off of their business missing the opportunity to create a really successful business and of course earn a fraction of the money they could earn in this case. A recent example of the very successful Dutch online stock broker ALEX is very interesting in this respect: My Dutch-speaking visitors can read the story in http://www.fembusiness.nl/web/artikelSmal/Oprichters-van-Alex-bedankt-en-tot-ziens.htm . For non-Dutch speakers a quick summary: ALEX was created by two young entrepreneurs back in 1995 as a telephone broker, in 1999 went online and today is the biggest and most successful Internet broker in Holland. Soon after its creation the company was bought by Bank Labouchere (amount unknown), the two entrepreneurs remained as managers after the takeover. A series of takeovers followed: by DEXIA who sold it to the RABOBANK for approx. 50 mil Euro; finally Rabo sold it a few weeks ago to their biggest competitor online broker in Hollabd BinkBank for an amount of 390 mil Euro. The two original owners are not in the payroll anymore. Were they too fast with selling Alex to Bank Labouchere? I do not know the details of this transaction but for some young entrepreneurs it is better to think twice before they quickly accept the offer.
After all not everyone can sell his brainchild for 1,6 bil US Dollars like YouTube but such news make many people think Why he and not Me?
Talking to young entrepreneurs - mostly active in the high-tech / Internet domain - it surprises me to hear regularly that their only ambition creating a new business is to sell it as soon as it becomes interesting to some competitor or investor. In other words the dream of many new entrepreneurs is to repeat the story of YouTube (and many others like Skype, PayPal and Flickr to mention only the recent ones) that made their owners rich overnight after their takeovers by Internet giants like ebay, Yahoo or Google. This is of course nothing new in the Internet world, in the 90s we had many more of such extravagant takeovers of dot.coms that proved to be nothing more than hot air.
It seems that the effects of YouTube on the way young entrepreneurs look to the future of their business are indicative of the new business ethics and ambitions of the information age. Instead of vision the quick buck, instead of strategy just tactics, instead of successful products successful contacts and network.
The problem is that in many cases the new-style entrepreneurs are too fast with the sell-off of their business missing the opportunity to create a really successful business and of course earn a fraction of the money they could earn in this case. A recent example of the very successful Dutch online stock broker ALEX is very interesting in this respect: My Dutch-speaking visitors can read the story in http://www.fembusiness.nl/web/artikelSmal/Oprichters-van-Alex-bedankt-en-tot-ziens.htm . For non-Dutch speakers a quick summary: ALEX was created by two young entrepreneurs back in 1995 as a telephone broker, in 1999 went online and today is the biggest and most successful Internet broker in Holland. Soon after its creation the company was bought by Bank Labouchere (amount unknown), the two entrepreneurs remained as managers after the takeover. A series of takeovers followed: by DEXIA who sold it to the RABOBANK for approx. 50 mil Euro; finally Rabo sold it a few weeks ago to their biggest competitor online broker in Hollabd BinkBank for an amount of 390 mil Euro. The two original owners are not in the payroll anymore. Were they too fast with selling Alex to Bank Labouchere? I do not know the details of this transaction but for some young entrepreneurs it is better to think twice before they quickly accept the offer.
After all not everyone can sell his brainchild for 1,6 bil US Dollars like YouTube but such news make many people think Why he and not Me?
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