- seems to be what really trickers me. And I cant really go into detail on the busines impact that I feel I have been a part of over the last 12 months. But Google was so kind (99% or anti trust reasons) to

Remember: I was bankrupt – I had no clue what would happen to my house (where the kids lived with their mother) – I had no control of my portfolio / AND THE WORLD WAS HIT BY THE BIGGEST FINANCIAL CRISIS POST WAR…

It was not really until Friday I understood how much (read on)

Impact EVERBREAD already has

Here is notes from our internal daily newletter (and yes that the level of profesionalism we strive for at EVERBREAD) when Google bought our competitor ITA for 700mioUSD – and chose to mention EVERBREAD IN ALL SLIDES

BIG G BUYS ITA
The entire industry is buzzing about it. After quite some time evaluating the product, Google closed the deal at $700 million, buying out air travel search tech provide ITA Software. The team (500) as well as QPX will be in the hands of the Mountain View search giant, but timing on when exactly that will go live to consumers was not confirmed by Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt. According to Schmidt and Marissa Mayer, Google will try to provide flight information in innovative way and refer travelers to websites where they can complete the booking, but overall, the two Google execs deferred questions on future developments. In that case, Kayak should be a bit worried (as a horde of article already mention that), as well as Bing (Wired’s magazine is priceless – Google Dings Bing….) and Expedia, Orbitz and quite a few of the rest big boys right there.
The FTC and the Justice Department will be looking into the deal to ensure there is enough competition out there. Also, something that you might have not read yet in the crazy article storm – apparently, ITA’s revenue is not enough to require European Commission involvement, which is definitely a good sign for the deal to come through.
Some interesting pieces:
Webcast: http://bit.ly/aiC4ol
Press Release ITA: http://bit.ly/bjDbRo
Press Release Google: http://investor.google.com/releases/2010/0701.html
Tnooz: http://bit.ly/b8kSpl
Search Engine Land (a very, very good piece): http://selnd.com/akyv6o

Simply very hard to understand from a time persepctive (11months) – but obvious when you see your product live…!

At the same time Trade-Shift Happens

Again – I was contacted by people with drive, brains and experiences that is BEYOND NORMAL. And we have been working like mad ants to get our visionlive – here is a guest post from  co-founder Christian Lanng (and yes – I have taken the chairman seat after ending bankruptcy).

Inside the hype machine

Tradeshift has officially existed for 9 months and 4 days and it’s still
hard to understand how far we have come. I keep being reminded whats
possible with the right team, and timing. But had I not met Morten exactly
a year ago and had he not been bankrupt, we would probably never have
developed the idea that became Tradeshift, we would not have had the
focus or time needed.

The idea is really pretty simple, that all business should be able to connect
and trade as simply as people connected on Facebook. To which the
most common reaction have been, are you sure that have not been done
before? And the simple answer is: no – for many reasons.

That does not mean Tradeshift was created overnight (no such thing as
overnight successes exist. We spend the last 5 years before Tradeshift
creating the worlds first p2p business infrastructure in Denmark, and
after that participated in global standardization of the e-business field, so
we had a lot of knowledge with us to begin with, but together with that
knowledge a lot of frustration.

Most solutions in the market, was expensive, poorly designed and typically
only worked with one big partner at the time. So Tradeshift represents our
bet, at a solution to the problem of connecting business online, but this
does not mean we think it is perfect, far from.
@Hartvig Hit the nail spot-on, when he criticized the beta product we
launched in May in Denmark (in Danish: http://hartvig.com/2010/5/19/
tradeshift_%E2%80%93_symbolet_pa_det_lave_danske_bundniveau.as
px) – we had been so focused on getting the fundamentals right (simple,
free, global), that we missed a few points:

• Product / Market fit might differ substantially in your launch market
and target markets

• If your product is hyped it can NEVER live up to the hype, people will
be disappointed get used to the idea

• Don’t be afraid to show the world where you are going, stealth is for
cowards (ML: COWarD$!)

Product / Market fit:
All start-up theory talks about reaching the mythical product / market fit.
And as a start-up you are soon faced with a dilemma, should you design
your solution for your home market or should you aim your ideal market
from the beginning. In the end it’s a matter of logistics and cash. In our
case we choose to go for the big play right out of the box, building a truly
global product for small business invoicing, but we chose to launch it in our
home market first.

• Only 50% of the 20M small business in Europa have an accounting
package or use an accounting package in their business, these
where our starting point (they have no fixed idea how business
software should be and are therefore a good starting point for
disruption)

• Make sure you get localization right, test, test and test some more.
NO translation agency or copywriter can get it completely right, in
the end rely on your users to give you the right feedback (we learned
this the hard way).

• When we launched in Denmark, we launched in a market hugely
different from most of our target markets, more than 70% of the
companies have accounting software, and they expect all invoicing
solutions to work with this out of the box, so instead of disrupting we
immediately felt the pressure to conform to the existing solutions.
In the end this taught us some extremely valuable lessons, and after
the initial backlash we saw that the product had a completely different
reception in Germany and UK, where most small business don’t have
accounting software. Luckily we did not panic and over focused on the
Danish feedback, but we where left with some depressed supporters.

The hype machine
Working closely with Morten Lund, you realize that he is a marketing
monster early on, I don’t know if many others in Europe could have pulled
off landing some of the interviews we got early on, in Wired, Techcrunch,
etc. what most people don’t know, is he is able to do this, because he
has a no-bullshit attitude to reporters and journalists and they like that,
and in the end it always comes down to the content, not who made the
introduction.

The dark-side of the hype machine is also very obvious, we where
stunned to see the tweets and some of the news being circulated about
what Tradeshift was and could do (basically we would disrupt the worlds
financial system single-handedly, while creating peace in the middle-east).

As the hype grew you suddenly got caught in a catch22, improve on your
product, so it can live up the hype or release early, and risk disappointing a
lot of people. In the end we took the tough decision to release what we felt
was a very early version of the product.

Today we are very happy we did this, some of the feedback we have
gotten in the last few months have really changed the direction and priority
we have given to a lot of features. Instead of sitting in “stealth” mode
imagining what the world would want from Tradeshift (Did anybody say
Duke Nuke’m Forever?). But we don’t forget the cost, we disapointed a lot
of people, and ironically instead of just shrugging it off, this is one of the
things that drive us today, and our development effort – we want to make
sure that we can deliver on the initial promises (maybe not peace in the
middle-east).

Don’t be afraid
That leads me to the last part, today there is all to often a sort of secrecy
culture around start-up projects, people are afraid of getting whole ideas or
concepts ripped of, in the early days it made a lot of sense, when products
where basically “mail on the web” and it was all about getting that critical
mass first.

As a start-up there is no such thing as getting your ideas spread too early,
and even though we have some very advanced magic going on on the
inside of Tradeshift, I always know that it can get ripped off in 6 months by
the right team, but I’m not afraid since i know how much further we will be
in those 6 months, and furthermore I know we have the vision, the idea of
where we are going, and they do not or else they would be there by now.

Thats also why we put our roadmap (link: http://tradeshift.zendesk.com/
entries/195589-the-next-3-months-of-tradeshift) , out open on the internet
for the next 3 months for everybody to see, that means my competition
can see it too, but in the end they can’t win just by copying what we will do
next, they have to understand why we do it and that takes the vision.

All in all, I’m extremely proud of where we are today, but I still feel we have
a lot of promises to fulfill, that’s what makes the next 9 months and 4 days
so exiting.

/Christian Lanng

Stuff I think you should think (deeplyabout)

TELL IT LIKE IT IS: Ohh finaly someone a Microsoft woke up at gave us a sign that the shark still has teeth – some dude in Cooperate Communication – Frank X. Shaw – did a blogpost that I love (and look at 30min a day). Its outlining how small everyone else is compared to Microsoft (and for startups is scary!! but also a great inspiration) / read here

YOU CAN DO IT: Another very interesting thing is the power of formerly young men – who are now grownups and have a LOT of power in the tech industry. EVERBREAD (announcing big thing within the next 4h) – would NEVER have been where we are if it wasn’t for a post potsmoking surfer called Michael Arrington and his UK work monster Mike B. AND The NYC scene is now booming thanx to many things – not the least Mr Calacanis and C Dixon – who apparently never sleeps. My conclusion: YOU CAN DO IT!!

I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.
I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself, flat on my face,
I pick myself up and get back in the race

Just got back from a MIND-BLOWING

conference – and it takes quite some to blow my mind on conferences – since I do 20-30 a year. But at the St. Gallen Symposium I really saw how BIG you can think – and how WIDE you can execute. Every TOPTOP biz dude from Europe was there – and well thats fine – but more impresive was the fact that 200 students from all over the world was flewn in – and the talks and the debate was SECOND TO NONE.

On top of that – the whole event was 100% organized by the students – and it was better done and better prepared then anything I have ever tried. Take a Swiss armyknife and let it have sex with a PATEK PHILIPPE watch – then you have an idea of the precision and controle and security – AND YET STILL WARMNESS AND HAPPINESS that was spread around here.

Then off course there was an amasing dialogue mostly facilitated by Marc M (check him out) – and I saw presentations at the highest level I have ever seen. Specially my new friend Professor Kishore Mahbubani (author of the book “Can Asians Think ?” (I spoke next to last week at Yale)) and the very down to earth and off course über smart Dominic Barton, Managing Director of McKinsey worldwide. WOW. Im telling you that stuff ROCKED neural networks in my brain.

A huge congrats and thank you to all the students!! And a big thanx to Philip Erzinger for convincing me to go – since I didn’t really wanted to :) – since their pr was simply not good enough. But I love when seeing and trying: is believing. Off course you have argue why the f*** did they invite a crackhead like me… I still dont really get it – But Im feel humble, happy and confused as a 10y old Boy who just go home from 2 days with Open-ended Amex BlackCard in a toy store.

Please do yourself a favor and see Mahbubanis talk

There is no direct link to his speach. but for you – dear valued reader – the best part is that you can watch a lot of it online on high def video – here :)

——

Here is a pretty good interview from the programme (with my comments):

Speaking of “the entrepreneur” is always tricky, as there is no clear-cut definition. One way of approaching this problem is to ask entrepreneurs themselves what they think entrepreneurship is all about. Let us hear first from the serial entrepreneur Morten Lund (DK) who covers this year’s topic in a most comprehensive way. He is young, he is famous for having invested very early in the VoIP service Skype, he learnt the ups and downs of entrepreneurship the hard way and he is realistic about the outcome of entrepreneurial endeavours – even those of the St. Gallen Symposium.

Morten Lund, there are a lot of investment opportunities out there right now. You, as an entrepreneur, must enjoy yourself a lot.

I am bankrupt at the moment (I was when I did the interview), so I cannot do a lot, but then, on the other hand, I can help other people start mind-blowing businesses. In a downturn like this, most entrepreneurs move in the opposite direction to the cycle. When everything collapsed two years ago, a lot of people where investing in start-ups they did not know anything about. (Including myself)

How this?

The clever guys, they cashed in two and a half years ago ( I know quite some) and they are now buying up like crazy from all the bankrupt guys (idiots) like me. For real start-ups, like what I have been doing in technology, this time is, of course, amazing. The reason is that this technology is now mature. Both from the consumer side, as people are using computers all the time and they buy a lot online, and from the technology side, where it has become so easy to develop a website or a web service or to rent servers.

For instance, you have the world’s biggest infrastructure at Amazon which you can just tap into with no set-up fee. So those two components, the e-side and the consumer side, work now and the developers and infrastructure are amazing, and then combine this with the fact that you can actually get developers because they have been fired and are much more realistic salary price-wise – that is all together probably the biggest opportunity in technology history.

What is your part in this game?

Imagine how we would have gone to the cattle market a hundred years ago and seen that perfect cow that gives milk, delivers some good babies and lots of meat you can eat. These are all the processes in the game in which I have been for over 15 years, creating companies, and through trial and error, finding those perfect cows that actually deliver (Christian and Assen – dont be offended :). And now, the technology and the people who want to buy and use it have combined in a way that suits someone like me perfectly. And that is, of course, a dream.

Is it the right time for entrepreneurs? Are they agents of change?

An agent of change for me is more somebody who is standing outside and wants to label people like me. But it is impossible to put a label on me. I am not a consultant, I am not an investor, I am not even an entrepreneur, I am many things in one.

So what are you?

I am mostly a guy facilitating a trampoline. I am the guy who dares to jump the crazy jumps on the trampoline and that people try out like a trampoline. I am facilitating a catapult. The best you can do now is to launch start-ups with good people, but you do have to have simply amazing, crazy, smart, good, cool, nice people, because these kinds of people can challenge SAP in one of their niches. But they have to be amazingly smart, hard working, into their stuff and vibrant. And they have to complement each other perfectly. Then, with added luck, it is possible.

What are the ingredients of entrepreneurial success?

Entrepreneurs are executing a vision and turning it into reality. You need a lot of skills in that process – accounting skills, sales skills, people skills, science skills, presentation skills and so on. The entrepreneur closes his eyes and lowers his hands, then uses all he has himself and reaches out to the world for the best of the competences to make it happen.

He has to be smart and trustworthy and socially strong enough to make his thing take off. How many times have you drawn your small ideas on a piece of paper for your friend but they never became reality. It is the entrepreneur who has the (mental) capital to get the idea off the piece of paper and into sales.

It is about skills, but it is also about luck, is it not?

In my world everybody knows that you have to work superhard (and be disciplined like hell). But then remember, there are global opportunities with technologies and the internet, but there is also global competition.

There will be another two hundred start-ups, some in the same market as you, so you also have to be lucky to break through or to find the right people or to chose the right strategy or to find the first client and adapt all of those things as you go along. You always have to acknowledge luck as part of your entrepreneurial success.

And sometime you fail.

That is why I am apparently so interesting. A lot of people tried what I tried, they have been categorised either as geniuses or losers. If you are one of those people in history who actually dares to talk about the fact that you failed, it seems very strange. And Ooh! If you are honest and talk about failure, that seems to be very new.

Do we need more of a failure culture?

Maybe we do have to be more realistic. So when we have an entrepreneur symposium at St. Gallen, we could also have a failure symposium because failure is much, much more likely than success if you are an entrepreneur. But you do not want to talk about it. I mean, eight out of ten seminars fail. It is very important for you to have the courage to say “I will”, “I can”, “I dare to do this”, but also “I can and dare and see that I can fail”. Then you become really strong.

But is the entrepreneur as an individual not massively overrated?

Again, you want to put a label on it, you want to categorise people. There are very few one-man brands in the world. Michael Jackson did it. (But)Everybody would acknowledge that he needed the band to create the music. In entrepreneurship, as well, you have the initial guy who starts something or who finds the team. But entrepreneurship is much more about team work and group effort.

There is a saying that true entrepreneurs are long-term oriented. But your entrepreneurial career does not reflect that in any way.

I would love to have a long-lasting business that I could keep forever (EVEBREAD = Everlasting Bread and is my dream of a such company). I would love to have this green tech company that purifies water of which I would be the proud owner forever. I think we all would love that. But with entrepreneurship you really have to remember that the entrepreneur can take the idea off a table and turn it into some kind of sales or product. The big corporations will then be so happy to buy this when it works, because they know how to make a critical thing huge. That is why they have a big corporation.

They do not believe they can be innovative at the same level, so they want to buy as soon as an entrepreneur has started. And they are much better at the managing game when you get to a certain level. So I get in quick, get out quick, it is true. Because it pretty often happens that you cannot say no if somebody wants to buy your stuff. The entrepreneurs in charge can get a lot of money, and most of the entrepreneurs, me especially, will take this money and do more of what they did before, meaning turning ideas into reality.

In your opinion, what is the best political and social context for entrepreneurship?

Put crudely, the best model for entrepreneurship in history is the model of American society, because it has created the Gates, the Carnegies and most of the biggest companies we know in a very short time. The Americans can beat anyone and every start-up because they always have the best start-ups and the most successful (financial eco-system until now). Talking about the best social model or political climate for entrepreneurship, I think we have been pretty lucky in the Scandinavian countries, but I doubt whether it is sustainable. (China and India will eat us alive :)

You have to be hungry to be a successful entrepreneur. You have to want to prove to the world, especially coming from small countries like Switzerland (and Denmark), that you can do it. The Nordic model makes people too demanding, they are not hungry any more (dinner is served for free no matter how stupid you behave). That is unfortunate, because I love to live here. Denmark is facing some real shit now. It will be very difficult to keep up all these crazy standards of social living.

Are entrepreneurs role models?

Yes, because we think that entrepreneurship is something we want (have) to do. But we forget that being an entrepreneur can mean failure. Successful entrepreneurs are role models, but seven out of ten entrepreneurs are not role models because they fail.

Interview: Johannes Berchtold

40th St. Gallen Symposium

There is something really (b2)big happening

- everything is simply moving into the browser and API’s- and there is no end to the change this will bring to the ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE business as we know it. (Know that we are all onFacebook).

Note: In my humble opinion most new SaaS products you see – is just an idea of putting an existing piece of server-side software or a client application – like Salesforce :)

SaaS

Nothing wrong with that – but its ALL ABOUT THE SOFT PROCESSES. Think of FACEBOOK as the global educator in “stream experience”. Facebook (Twitter) will make demand of change in business software: How-come you are much more updated on your remote friends weekendtrips – then you are updated  on your company and colleagues last efforts – well the answer is simple – the is NO INFORMATION STREAM in you company.

Change an Industry that has been locked down by legacy and time

First Everbread

(Im CEO)- is a VERY deep play in the basic simple idea of redoing something that is so old and important – that time has madde it look impossible to change. But with a team of 35 superbrains and a strategic leader who can really direct a vision into reality – then time and technology has really proven ready to CHANGE. Everbread is in sales dialogue and has signed deal – with all to key players in the travel industry. Why: Because its GOOD – well done – disruptive – and the new managers in the travel sector wants to use technology – not just be in a “thats how we have always done this” job. Everbread only lack the appstore play – until now – other then that its the biggest play I have even been close to understanding.

Second Tradeshift

Every government or Fortune 5000 company in the world can save min 50mio$ pr year – in one days work of setting Tradeshift up – because the long tail of suppliers - 60% are on paper (it costs 16$ for a Gov or Large Company to recieve a paper invoice (KMPG report states)) suddenly can deliver instantly digitally – with seemless integration to existing processes. And basicly no one has to spend their day opening paper invoices and/or retype PDF documents into their ERP system.

Tradeshift has 60.000 hours of code under the hood – and rocks a paradigm (EDI) in its purest form – and maybe even the fundamental idea of how to do accounting. Mr Lanng (speaking at NEXT10 about this very subject!) – the co-founder said something I wonder about nearly every day: “When I was in government – we always tried to jumped the idea of selfservice and go directly to AUTOMATING processes without user intervention.” Think about it – accounting and payment can be done automatically if you setup the right parameters and infrastructure. And the whole idea of a lot of these messages like a credit note – is just legacy – why dont we just do a collaborative draft and agree on it – then the rest is just a process that can be automated when agreed on (the hard part is security and soft processes). This is the real revolution for small business, they can start seeing their business as a network and not as a bunch of administrative processes (they run in the background).

But this doesn’t stop here, imagine that all those processes are wrapped into a cloud platform with open API’s (not like the closed EDI and bank networks of today) there is even endless amount of applications to be be build by third parties – and ecosystem that can evolve - a crowd-sourced movement of impact. OK – Im fired up – but Im pretty sure you can see that something big is coming here – off course you have to be hyper optimistic – but there is no lack of that on the team.

Third Hoist (my bizz stream)

Im not involved – but Im a fan – and its not funded – but Im pushing them a bit to take a hard-hitter CEO and then some smart Do$. Here you have a Danish startup with an amassing collaboration system. Oh shit that sounds like the 90′ies – but here is a smart piece of software that can create a STREAM for groups of coworkers. And its done in a amazingly simple and smart way / so that project and companies automatically! creates a stream by putting their – meetings, tasks, events, brainstorms in here… This is so much bigger

Both in Tradeshift and EVERBREAD something is upside down

When 2-5bio§ revenue companies cold call us or contacts us from the webform – despite our very very silent existence – you can feel winds of change – or is it just wind from the CloudService centers airconditioning? :)

MARTIN SCHAEDEL INTERNSHIP SCHOLARSHIP

When I landed in Paris 3 weeks after my bankruptcy I got a facebook message from a stranger – “your friend (my student in entrepreneurship since he was 18) has died in a plane crash pls call me”. Today is a BIG DAY – but I only got through all of this to show @Martin that I meant it when I said persistence is everything in entrepreneurship. Therefore TODAY IS DEDICATED TO the launch of MARTIN SCHAEDEL INTERNSHIP SCHOLARSHIP

UPDATE from a Bankrupt To My Dear: Fam. & Backers & Valuable Readers

(This will be my last post about bankruptcy and how it feels).

Its been a silly tough time since I realized that I had to close my newspaper 19months ago. Being insolvent and bankrupt is no real fun. Personally is has meant that I have been out of cash (as in NO credit card no nothing) – everything i controlled was taken by the government appointed lawyers.

Ive been loaded since i was 26

- when I sold Neo Ideo – with Lars, Jimmy and Thomas. But – let me tell you something. It has been a huge relief and friend$perience*. I had accumulated way to much crap (why the fuck did I have more art than I could have on my walls: wanna be artsy hip’ass) – out of desire to show the world (my mum and my high-school friends?) how smart and fast and brilliant I was. Well now you think – he has to say so. But this is true to everything I have ever done – and true I have been (mostly) :) – putting my money where my mouth was – and ALL OF IT.

REALITY ALERT: Dont even think about feeling sorry for me. I could have had a badly paid job at a restaurant and been fired – with nowhere to go!!!

After the shellshock – and some crap from a couple of people here end there (something that was a dot in the story but was filling 99% of the picture) – I can say now: I’m so happy to have seen whats supposed to be the button. The self pity vanished fast – and I just started charging for what I do (instead of being Santa Claus handing out money to every kind guy with half a good idea. I now had to get involved and charge for my time/network/ideas – (I know it sounds absolutely wacked) – but it was actually much less lonely and now I knew that no one was hanging out just because I had the biggest bag of candy. I had no candy tied to my leg – and a few guys (and girls) stopped calling :)

Note: My Mum was as ever cool: “Morten, dont worry – you got yourself into this stiff – and ofcourse you can get yourself out…” – and yes Im lucky to be born with good genes and such fine psychology.

TIPS TO GET TROUGH SHIT

1) Use your MUM – family and friends
2) Get (stay) in shape
3) Change yourself (u where probably on a wrong track)
4) Blame only yourself*
5) Reject (politely) all the people who want to share problems
6) Remember you started with nothing – so its like coming home

*Morten Nissen Nielsen and Svenn Dam (Chairman and CEO) – whom I trusted in my newspaper venture should take this medicine. I owe them everything – I love them for having me declared bankrupt – otherwise I would have been under management from banks and THEM (I offered them a seat in my board to manage this ship trough the crisis – so they could get the money that I really would have loved to give them). Now they have been blaming ME and EVERYONE around them for all kinds of crap – instead of creating value. But unfortunately I had a call with the Media Mogul number one in Denmark (Jørgen Eibøl) too late. He told me that these guys are driven by revenge and hate – and never kept one single budget in their lives. They dont even care about building value Svenn is on his second 200mioEUR burn with Dansk Bredbånd (a hopeless case) – just crash and burn and blaming everyone around him. Today they get 1mioDKR for the sad job they did at the paper – and the keep blaming EVERYONE – according the them even the official receiver is now a fool… But from my heart – I love them (“Its all about luck” – and maybe some Mental Tai Chi and a good psychologist)- and they where fucking amassing at keeping the agressivness and spirit high. And they found the most amasing journalists (and sales team and logistics team) all people I still admire (and talk to a lot) for producing a FANTASTIC PRODUCT. And if it would have been legal I would have paid them every single € i promised them – EVERY SINGLE ONE. And still today they collected 1mioDKR – whats consideren a LOTTERY WIN in Denmark.

Morten Nissen Nielsen got the special watch I give to super-talents - and I still think he can become a superstar – . I will never talk about this again – its out of my system and I love them.

Its a Rollercoaster – “faster faster”

If you have had the insane luck that I’ve been surrounded by – and consider yourself a human aggressive curious Joe from the countryside – not overly impressed with how things work. And you dare to take a shot at even the biggest structures – then I have ONE VERY IMPORTANT PIECE OF ADVICE. Be sure that the roller-coaster has a lot of speed when you go down – that might take you up faster :). I’m bullshitting – but

*friend$pirience – its UN FUCKING REAL

This is NOT AN Oscars thank you list – I just want to show how many people it takes to try to make a survival. You need quite an army of helpers and people – and since every rule and legal opinion has to be from experts – its not cheap.  And trying to raise funds to buy myself free has also been a WONDERFULL EXPERIENCE. Here is an anonymous list of favours that came in from a circle of close friends and people I nearly dont know (you all know who you are):

C: My lawyer has been unreal
D: My other lawyer – offered free advise
X: An expert lawyer I did not know came by and told me to just use him

S: has given me accounting and financial advise (despite his partners resitance)

S: got me 6months free at the gym

m: for hiring me instantly as a consultant
m: who I used in boards – helped with pocket money loan
j: old friend – just made a cash commitment if I would get a chance to buy myself out
r: showed up with pocket money at my door and a kondi vand
m: sendt me pocket money from Miami
g: whom i met 4 times – just made a cash commitment if I would get a chance to buy myself out
k: whom I met 2 times – made a bailout account in 7h when an oppertunity came
m: who’m a met 4 times – just made a cash commitment if I would get a chance to buy myself out
t: my close friend – just made a cash commitment if I would get a chance to buy myself out
m: austrian drinking buddy – just made a cash commitment if I would get a chance to buy myself out
p: who’m I never met – got me a place to work and live from

l: who bailed out the accountants to do the books for the holdings to stay alive
p: who I owe a lot of money… after today
m: who I owe a lot of money… after today
j: who I owe a lot of money… after today
visby: who I owe a lot of money… after today
m: for giving me 1000DKR without mentioning that day when my card was taken.

m: who sent me 6 bottles of wine

BMW: for transferring the car to another company and not taking everything down so that my xwife has had a car.
Henrik E. – Forstadernes Bank: who trust in me coming back one day. Thanx Henrik!

Alexander the COO of my life: (former BullGuard): Who stepped in (12 months ago) and has been my wingman and survival manager when it comes to paperwork, contracts and my new job – I cant say thank you enough.

Speaking gigs: Lots of companies and organisations have been hiring me to tell my story – and its been a good way to keep up the spirit. And who could say no to go to: Milan, Zurich, Paris, NYC, Tokyo… and talk about they ego and get everything paid for + having lots of inspirering people sending hundreds of emails… (I do have to say that the speech/show is getting GOOD and FUNNY).

As you can read out of this – all these people gave me the the chance to buy myself free via loans – but I will not be out of dept for the next 10years – mentally nor personally. I still kick my self over the small business owners who lost money from the paper and the employees who lost their jobs – the big ones (Companies and top2 management) collected together 150mio+EUR in revenue. And the VAT we paid was an insane number…

Do I regret personally

NOPE – I have more experience than ANYONE I KNOW in my age  - and I have learned a lot about friendships and see the world even more positive than before. And now my kids now the price of taking the train – and THEY LOVE IT. You could also call it the worlds most expensive MBA :)

Will I go all in again – hmm – hope not. But as one of my backers said yesterday: “Im also here next time my friend..” Im out…!

“Im so happy to have my drawing pad back.”

Here is the picture of where a real entreprenuer havev fun and feels alive – I really hope to start building for myself again soon. Not that Im not enjoying building for others and collecting a big fat consulting check….

When I fly I always -

pass out just after takeoff. Some time ago I was on a plane from Tokyo to Copenhagen to do consulting work for a VERY BIG JAPANESE GUY. I had someone very dear in my mind and I was dreaming and crying on the plane…  I’m my dream I was the main carrecter in”Californication”. A sexy lady (now my girlfriend) said ”Hey Morten, I have been thinking about it. I think you are the Hank Moody of your world…”

If you aren’t -

familiar with this TV show let me say that it is not something you would consider as an instant compliment.

Californication is about

a writer from LA with a rather complicated relationship with his life. He is drinking too much, smoking too much, fooling around too much and hurting his daughter and girlfriend all the time. He keeps ending up in strange crazy situations but for some reason he is to me a hero as he tries to be honest about his crazy choices. A heart-driven fool…

”What do you mean”,

I asked the lady a little offended, because this guy is really not a man a woman would spend more than a night with.

”Well”, she said. ”You fool around in your world, you smoke, ok, you drink, but you fall in and out of love all the time with  people , with situations, with companies and with ideas. You manage to look at the bright side of life and although you have been going through a very tough time lately I have not seen you smile and laugh so much since the day we met.
You are a Hank Moody because you try to be honest and stay in contact with yourself although you do not always know who that is for very long – neither do the rest of us.”

Ohh my God…,

I thought, it is going to be a very long flight – more than the scheduled 11 hours. But then i started to rethink…

Dear valued reader of this mental hygiene blog of mine, I am not good at writing long  well structured articles/essays. I am no good with long sentences, long relationships and keeping focus for too long. I communicate with the world through Twitter (140 carercters) and I get a lot of my info from Twitter as well. I am a super ultimate consumer of information and personal relations, words and ideas and I like to be fast, passionate and juicy about everything I do. I love to go all in – and that’s something I can prove :). I want to be a man of action and you could say short sentences. So for me to write this article/essay is overcoming a barrier and it is not a natural thing for me. Act Don’t Talk is my motto –> 2.0 Act Don’t Think or  Act Don’t Write :) …

The reason

for bringing the Hank Moody story up is because he is a kind of a guy who seems to go with the flow and no matter how much he screws up he seems honest and able to continue on the destine road of his. And in that way I have to agree with thr srxy Lady.

I have been investing in and starting up companies for more than 17 years and even though I am no more than almost 38 years old I am quite a veteran within this area. I have a pretty good, almost animalistic instinct for good people and kicking off ideas into businesses and I am willing to go very far too implement these ideas if I believe in the people behind. And then it happened last year – BANG – One of these ideas made me go personal bankrupt and it is now 14 months ago. You can read about the whole story on my here on my blogpost the-day-i-woke-up-without-arms-and-legs – its hardcore – but to me more hearthcore.

What I want to share with you

is that ever since that day I have been smiling more than ever. I am a bit afraid of telling people how I feel as they could consider me a bit loony (well I am). But I have to be honest and even though I lost more than 50 mio. euros I am more optimistic about life than ever. I feel free and although I do not own a credit card and my kids and their mother probably have to move out of the house they live in and Im inviting myself for dinners all the time I feel an unbearable lightness about life and my situation, which kind of embarrass me since I read about guys committing suicide for less money that I lost and that makes me rethink…..

Im no longer thingking about what Jet Plan to buy, it is no longer an option buying art for all the extra earnings on investments, it is no longer cool to show the size of your dick by showing up a charity shit. And I love that I don’t have to spend braintime on inventing crazy holidays just because ordinary was suddenly not good enough – no more swimming in champagne at fancy clubs. You end up killing and loosing yourself, if not literally then mentally – when the speed is too fast… To go bankrupt is probably the biggest eye opener to me  ever– it  has set me free and I do not need to hide my insecurities behind a speed, funds, material shelter of goods and staff and more and more unuseful crab. Going bankrupt has shown me more about myself than I had ever dreamt of and even better – it had shown and taught me for real – not just as a political correct cliche – that success is not earning money in itself. Success might be about understanding money as a tool to develop and changing the world. A tool to make people work and inspire  and motivate themselves and others.

Money and loss of it -

should never lead to suicide, ugly divorces, loneliness and mental loneliness. Money is like love energy and should be used and looked at the same way – with respect and mutual understanding. Money has to be reflecting the users values and personality and should be used wisely and with integrity. If you spend your money wisely and with respect and follow your gut feeling – then you might get closer to the right track i think.  It is not about the money but about the energy in it. Money is dangerous stored energy. Be honest about who you are and what you know and do not use people unless you really use them. Money is nothing – did you ever see a company build itself? Right – it’s the people, people, people.
My friend was maybe right  – Maybe I am the Hank Moody of my world – I live and breath it, and sometimes I screw up but I get back on the horse – I never give up on my dreams – and I am proud that although I have had everything and now have nothing I am happier than ever feeling more successful and on page with the soul of the world…

With EVERBREAD and Tradeshift

- taking of like space-rockets – I feel that my focus and salesman-skills channel in ONE DIRECTION and I actually add value. I see results – I feel that people around me grow and get more energized – and therefor I have a much better feeling about myself. I have tried being 100% confused about my 8-90 startups – and not into any detail. But now – that I have to perform as a CEO and Adviser – I see how much you can do with attention and focus – how many small errors I can find just from using my experiences. I’m not bullshitting you – dear highly valued reader – I LOVE IT. Off course – both project are HYPER DISRUPTIVE in their industries – and its not a boring butter cookie factory – but I love being into the details and MOVE A WHOLE TEAM and ORG forward. Its a very new and strange feeling for me – but I feel that I found my role here.

Should I ever be so lucky to get free and out of bankruptcy – I will lock myself into only doing One major thing and max 2 small side geeks.

RETHINK -

your own success parameters all you other Hank Moodys out there.. And remember Im always very liquid – I have the love of my 4 kids – that’s all that matters. Think about it … :)

Note: This essay was printed in German Focus magazine 11 months ago – and is only mildly updated.

This piece of art I have ever seen – it goes directly to my system – scary and yet an ever discover-full voyage in between your mind and your eyes.

Civilization by Marco Brambilla from CRUSH on Vimeo.

Me, Mylself, I

“I keep having this dream where I’m stuck in the bottom of a drill – I can’t jump high enough to catch the top and get up… ”

U don’t have to be clairvoyant or a numeric healer to understand that dream. For me the important part has been to cope with the fact that I’m a failure and forget about my cosmetic aware nercicistic self – AND MOVE ON. It did not take that long for the awake me and I make a small sallery and pay my bills partly from talking openly about my bankruptcy and working for EverBread where no one gives a shit. But apparently the deeper part of me is not really coping with the situation since this dream keeps comming… Its strange but maybe its also the key to entrepreneurship:

1) FIRST

You r a failure since u don’t take the NORMAL CARRIER ROUTE -

2) SECOND

when u get successful (and loaded) u r once again A VERY DIFFERENT KIND OF FISH but with self-confidence.

3) THEN FOR SOME YEARS

U learn the new lifestyle – rick – successful – kind of admired. You start talking way more then you listen (be very aware). You start being late for to many friend meeting… And You try to find out who u are – and build whatever you can with this weird self-confidence from money: – family, friendship, companies.

4) AND THEN

( if did not give up at STEP 1,2 or – became a coke head at 3 (still haven’t tried that kind of dope – it would be like reverse Woody Allen on downers). And if you really go all in to feel the kick from building something and you dont just sit on the money (or a stupid real estate portfolio). THEN IT HAPPENS -> SOME go bankrupt – and start over again. (then GO TO 1).

No Matter What Step you are at – Its About People

As always its about PEOPLE and the values inside yourself – and if u want to build a big vision or a big company u HAVE TO HAVE the ability to atrack people and talent that is way over your head – ITs CALLED SALES – sales of your vision. A term that seems to be eroded from all businesscards I have received over the last 5 years (I just checked).

No Matter What Step you are at – Its All About Sales

As an entrepreneur: Every day you have to sell your idea, your product and your self. And dont try hide behind it – with endless development or launching without called clients – following up – or even worse – A VIRAL STRATEGY and MEDIA. Call client and partners… EVERYONE AND HIS DOG.

It Takes A Lot Of Self-confidence

I had endless love in my childhood from everyone around me (parents, neighbors, teachers (even those with bad teaching skills, friends and Mentors) – and I now even have the unconditional love from my kids on top (and a incredible patient girlfriend). And that’s more I could ever dream of – so when I’m awake and have control over my brain I’m proud and happy. And I do sales and get a no every day.

BUT BUT BUT there is some unfinished business deep inside (its cosmetic – and its about some people (the first in my life) who fucked me over – and its about my personal brand and integrity) – something I haven’t been able to connect too and analyze – even though my shrink has given me a credit-line (but we mostly talk about sex anyway ).

I will keep fighting – and I feel stronger then EVER – just have to fix that dream part – Standing Stuck down that drill.

FlopStar – refers to Morten Lund to rock GeeknRolla, April 20, London

After this reboot of my business life (and personality) I have really learned many things that are obvious to others – but ofter new to entrepreneurs.

If you are an entrerprenuer you are braking new ground (even the German VCs who are copying as if the where chinese hifi producers in the 1980′ies). You are figthing so hard to get in front of the clients – to be innovative – to break trough – that it can be really hard (nearly impossible) to absorb knowledgge from your surroundings – aka listen to people with lots of knowledge . NOTE FOR NON ENTREPRENEURS: Despite what you hear – it always starts with NOTHING – only human capital (PEOPLE) and an idea. Then comes product, money, clients, cashflow…

I have realized that – being a serial entrepreneur – the thing you naturally and unfortunately forget is: TO LOOK BACK and LISTEN TO THE ELDERLY. Its clearly because most elderly will tell you: ITS NOT POSSIBLE to do what you want to do. But my lesson over the last 18months is that you have to listen. You have to force yourself to listen and suck knowledge out of people who have exspeirience in the business you are about to enter. Consider it presales. (Hard Core Entreprenuers will say: We dont give a fuck – we are groundbreaking) – but never the less try if you can.

WHY AM I POSTING ABOUT THIS

I have always tried to have people in the board who could advise me – but it has never worked – mainly because I have been an idiot who thought I knew better… But in the last year I have been very KEEN on having board members who can support and help. Now – in the bankrupt version of me – I have been operational and not an OWNER – and I have had to listen and digest and iterate. Its highly likely that my lack of self-confidence due to my circumstances (no one has felt it ;) – has been a key. I can conclude that it has been SO EFFECTIVE and I CAN REALLY RECOMMEND IT :).Find older people with heavy industry experiences and LISTEN.

REAL WORLD EXAMPLE

In london Tuesday I had a chat with a travel industry veteran, this was our second chat – he is a big kahona. And he gave me an advice that I could implement INSTANTLY on our Everbread business model – and WOW it worked. Conclusion: Listen – feel your advisers – make them comfortable – and then SUCK the 20+ years of experiences into you bizz.

Two days ago I