Archive for May, 2007

Three Wise Interns

Published May 30, 2007 job openings , secret stuff 1 Comment

This week three brave men have confirmed that they’ll join Project_Secret_Stuff, as our summer interns. They’re all from the same business school here in London (which has a name that’s impossible to remember), but with different backgrounds and nationalities. I think they’ll do a good job.

Being an intern is not easy, though. Usually you need to work harder than regular employees, in order to get a full-time offer at the end. At the same time you’re accepting a lower salary, since the job is part of your education.

More work and less money… doesn’t seem like an ideal setup. But I’m glad I’ve done it - the experience and network is good to have. For example, I once did a business plan for launching a German bratwurst fast-food chain across the US. In retrospect that feels quite surreal.

www.glissers.com

Published May 23, 2007 surf directory 1 Comment

The surf project is ready to leave the womb and crawl out into the blinding sunlight. I’ve spent a few days testing it out, and it seems like most of the stuff is working ok. But it’s still a closed beta - we don’t know if it will crash and burn when more than 2 people play around with it at the same time. If you want to try it out, just email / Skype me and I’ll give you passwords. I’d really appreciate help.

So, glissers.com is a directory of surf accommodations around the world. The destinations are added and reviewed by our members, who also can book the destinations from the site. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s a product I want myself, since I find it pretty hard to find good surf hostels, surf camps, and B&Bs when I’m planning a surf trip. Hopefully other people will find it useful. If not, I’ve failed miserable. That’s ok too.

Glissers has been built by coders and designers found on RAC (rentacoder.com), and without actually exchanging a single spoken word. All we’ve done is chat with each other on MSN / Adium, and emailin. It’s funny - speaking seems way too intimate. For all I know “Jason” migh be a 56-year old Chinese grandmother, not a 21-year old American dude.

To finish it off: the name comes from “glisse”, which is French for “glide”. “Sport de glisse” is for example surfing and snowboarding (at least I think it is). If you turn “glisse” into an English version, you have glissers. Tada.

Mood Message Marketing

Published May 17, 2007 marketing , random , skype 2 Comments

I added a link to this blog from my mood message in Skype. In 24 hours I got around 55 people visiting the site, only from my Skype contact list.

That’s almost 10% of all the people in my contact list, which is a high click-through rate by any industry standard.

It got me thinking: If someone paid me 2 USD per click, which is not an unrealistic number, I could make 100 USD / day. And move to Costa Rica and stop working.

There’s a big flaw here of course - few people would click on a regular ad. And even fewer people have 600 people in their contact list. But still, it’s interesting.

Blue Swede LTD

Published May 16, 2007 blue swede 1 Comment

I’ve created a limited company here in the UK, which I will use as the legal entity for my different projects. A holding company might be the correct term, but it sounds slightly too fancy, considering it’s a company currently without revenues and with a single employee (me).

The name is Blue Swede LTD. Blue is my favorite color, I’m a Swede, “Blue Suede Shoes” is a great song by Elvis, what else do I need to say. Most people really don’t like the name, but I do.

The Accountant in Cockfosters

Published May 16, 2007 blue swede 2 Comments

I went to see an accountant today, who will help me do my books, annual returns, and personal tax returns. He’ll be my all-around guide in UK’s taxation jungle, so to speak. The setup is slightly different - instead of charging per hour, he gave me a quote for the whole year. It’s more than I spent on my Volkswagen Golf, but I have a feeling the money will be well spent. And for being an accountant, this guy had a lot of humour. For example, he said that the name of my newly founded LTD sounds like a porn production company.

The Summer Interns

Published May 10, 2007 secret stuff 2 Comments

I’ve had 6 interviews today with potential summer interns for the “Secret One”, all of them at Starbucks. The youngest one was 21 years old, oldest 37. Some really good people, some less good. London is a good place for recruiting people from all over the world, there is plenty of local knowledge and native language skills. It’s too bad this city is expensive, dirty, and noisy, and doesn’t have a beach or mountain close by.

.com

Published May 8, 2007 consulting , secret stuff 0 Comments

Yesterday we bought the .com address for our new project, from a friendly Finn living in the States. Today I bought got some additional top-level domains, straight from the registrator, which of course was much cheaper. I’m now working on getting rest of the important domain names, which is a real pain. World domination is not easy.

Re-do. Do right.

Published May 5, 2007 surf directory 1 Comment

I found a designer who seems to be able to deliver good and simple design for my surf directory project. His name is Tahir, and he’s from Pakistan. He made the home page design today, and after some iteration I’m happy about the look and feel.

It’s pretty interesting to compare rates between countries. This is how the designers quoted, depending on their country:

  • India & Pakistan: 125 USD-350 USD
  • Moldova: 250 USD
  • Brazil: 1,000 USD
  • UK: 4,000 USD

    • Just as I do with wine when I’m nervous, I picked the 2nd cheapest option.

    A slightly unusual working week

    Published May 5, 2007 consulting 0 Comments

    I’ve started working on a new startup project in London, together with a good team of investors and developers. I can’t yet tell exactly what it’s about but will do soon. My focus is user acquisition, which means marketing and BD. Since it’s so early days, it’s mostly about market research.

    So far I spend about 3 days a week on this project, and the rest of the week on my own projects. It’s a great mix.

    Status: the global surf directory

    Published May 2, 2007 surf directory 2 Comments

    I’ve been spending some of my time lately on developing the concept and business model for a “global directory of surf camps”. Think of it as www.yelp.com, but for surfers only. Although it’s hardly something that will revolutionize the world as we know it, it is a fun project, and I believe there’s a real demand for this service.
    The development of the site has been coming along nicely, but we’ve had some troubles getting the design right. Right now we have an ad out on rentacoder for a complete re-design of the site, so let’s see what comes out of that.

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