Oliver Thylmann’s Thoughts

There we go. I met the founders at this years DLD and was at once thrilled by the idea. I somehow think it will work, without even fully knowing their business model. Firt business model will be getting loads of traffic via blogs like mine.

What is mymuesli? It’s a site where you can mix your own cereal. That’s it. Go with corn only, add a bit of banana and apple or something more exotic, your choice. And if you order now, every sixth package is free! So go and order and tell me what you did

Rock on guys! Great startup and a nice site!

Update: First order is out. You can find my mix right here.

I just found it on Gründerraum. The entire thing was student project in 2004 and they have the patents it seems and are now looking for a producer. But what did they do?

It is very simple, and has nothing to do with the Web… well not at first sight. They developed a Coaster that has a pressure sensor in it and through this sensor and wireless technology it can alert the bar that your beer is empty. Right on! Above that you can put some features into them of course. Let’s hope it takes off.

Great video that Bob Stumpel posted on his Web 2.0 blog. You can view it here. It’s a panel moderated by Guy Kawasaki with lots of different entrepreneurs talking about how they started, what their business models were and are now, what the good and bad sides of founding a business are and why you just have to work yourself through the ups and downs.

Great stuff to listen too and a good mix of sites that partly didn’t or still don’t have a real business model.

Holtzbrinck Ventures, who are building up an impressive portfolio (plus Webnews.de) in Germany, have started something new called “Fast Forward” and I really like the idea. It is something that is really needed in Germany and might push things a bit forward.

The idea is simple. You submit your business plan, or rather a shorter one, focussing on the market potential, the founding team and how to use the money or rather what kind of money you need in the next 12 months. The goal is to have a proof of concept with the 150k of course.  That obviously means that they won’t fund a biotech startup with this kind of money.

The money will be given as a loan to the company and will only convert into equity (at a discount to account for the added risk) with the first round of investment.

What I really like about this is that it helps Holtzbrinck Ventures get a foot in the door in a market where business angels are more and more becoming an alternative for companies that are looking for money. With a timeframe of 3 weeks until investment, a good founding team with a few good numbers and a good case might be able to move really fast with this.

So congratulations to Holtzbrinck Ventures. Good move! (source)

This sunday I read the June Issue of Business 2.0 and the title story is “How to Build a Bullet Proof Startup”. I am happy to report that we are doing rather well based on the list. As an example, we beat their specs for getting an office by a big margin: we are paying less than market rate, got the place renovated, don’t have any commitment on the timeframe, and have just enough room for now with over 100 square meters blocked for us on the same floor.

For now, I am not sure we are bullet proof, but things are progressing nicely.

On and by the way, the system above to read Business 2.0 online rocks. Thanks Loic for the pointer.

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