02.06.08
b-ball rotes rathaus in berlin
Today we had a b-ball session at the rote rathaus... was great fun and we have been proud to beat some local kids twice in a row - and they looked really pro and dangerous :). Thank's to everybody who participated (folks from imedo, absolventa, misterspex, iven&hillmann, lakattack)
The location in front of the rote rathaus is really amazing. we play from time to time more ore less sponanously. I twitter playdates, so subbscribe my feed (http://twitter.com/lak) if you want to be informed.
The following image shows air-iven after a shot... I'm pretty sure he consulted a lehrbuch before he came came to the court ;)
Posted by Lukasz at 18:52 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
17.09.06
berlin, paris, munich...
so I left rotterdam on fri 4am in the morning heading to berlin - was flying air berlin.
Farewell with the air berlin crew upon arrival in berlin
There I've spent a day at studiVZ. But not really working with them, mainly doing my own stuff.
studivz from the outside
check my flickr account for more of their pics...
On sat morning I was flying to Paris via easyjet. Not that pleasant. I was trying to catch up some sleep when the stewardess spent more than 5 (!) minutes to very loudly sell a window passanger a chocolate croissant while I was sitting at the aisle. I took my flight picture when leaving the plane and the stewardess was very angry about it and asked me to stop it. hmmm, what do they have to hide? Compare this to the airberlin crew posing for a farewell pic - airberlin, thumbs up! (I also got a bonus card with them, every 7,5 flights I'll get a flight for free, yeah, that's cool).
berlin - paris on easyjet
So, Paris was very nice and inspiring. I had a few interviews during the day with very interesting people and in the evening there was a lafraise party where I had the chance to connect to the lafraise community. More than 200 people have made it to the bar 'Le Sous Bock Tavern' where the lafraise mob took place (check also the lafraise blog) and I had a few pretty good conversations. The atmosphere was great, everybody was nice and open. For me it was not easy since I do not speak any french and not everybody in france is speaking english or does it regularly. But using the hands and some friendly translators it was possible to communicate well. Highlight of the party has been the lafraiseians making a very nice gift to Patrice's la Fraise team.
La Fraise Party Flyer
Nice to be back - Passage d'Enfer in Paris, where our office is located (near Raspail)
I had to leave the party already around 1am since on the next morning my flight was going to munich.
With Lufthansa to munich...
In munich I took part in a 'forum training' from EO, which is the 'entrepreneurs organization' and probably the biggest and highest quality entrepreneurs network in the world. The workshop was very useful and I not only met some great people but also got some inspiration (for example how to organize a few things more efficiently at spreadshirt, like preventing people (including me ;) being late for meetings...). I will probably attend more of their events in the future, so I will make some interviews the next time I'm there.
Btw, I try to spend as much time as possible in the hotel(s) to do my e-mail, calls, conf-calls and other work while traveling. For example skipping the dinner after the EO workshop and not having attended the party at the emerce day. That's pretty crucial at the moment since there is a lot to do at spreadshirt to get it to the next phase...
Posted by Lukasz at 16:21 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
14.09.06
Trip to the netherlands
So I left to the netherlands yesterday (flying air berlin from berlin).
air berlin flying (on time) from berlin to amsterdam...
I visited the spreadshirt netherlands office in utrecht (which is some officespace provided by Emo. Emo is an dutch entrepreneur running a CRM software company called businessbase).
Meindert and Pim in their corner of Emo's office...
Today I was on a panel discussion at the emerce conference in rotterdam. Emerce is the biggest eCommerce confernce in the netherlands, some 1500 people attend it. I was on a panel/ Q&A with Alan Moore, author of Communities Domminate Brands . The session was quite good, the people have been interested in the topic. Should do some good to spreadshirts awerness in the Netherlands.
Rotterdam is great, by the way. So are the emerce organizers. Everybody is very very nice and everything is set up really professionally and convenient. I stay in the 'New York' hotel in Rotterdam, which is really a cool Plaze. ;) But no kidding, rotterdam is really amazing, a very modern city with great architecture. Generally I like the small european countries (n etherlands, CH, nordic...) a lot, they often seem much more civilized and further advanced then the biggies (not to speak of the most parts of the US...). Rotterdam does some great effort to position themselves as a media hub, so if you like to start some media company and have not decided for a location yet... check it out!
View on the New York Hotel...
Tomorrow very early in the moring I head back to Berlin, where I'm briefly at the 'Dreaming Europe' confernce to tell some young europeans why I think Europe is a great thing. The day I'll spend probably at the StudiVZ office or at some wifi hotspot. It makes little sense to go back to leipzig since my day is stuffed with calls anyway and I have to be in Berlin Sat. morning again since I fly to Paris - where I will meet Patrice, the founder of LaFraise. In the evening we will have a Lafraise party which is a great opportunity to train my non existent french.
And, ehm, to make the travel craze complete I'll will spend Sunday and Monday in Munich. Maybe I'll write about it...
Posted by Lukasz at 16:35 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
11.07.06
Sitting at JFK airport, waiting for a connection flight...
Brief (hasty) news-flash:
- got a new notebook, Toshiba portege r200 (or r210?). cool: with the extra battery approx 8 h of battery life, easily enough for a transatlantic flight. Not cool: there is no outlet for a microphone! Has a internal one, though... still I think that's not cool in the age of skype...
- again probs with my camera: left the charger including battery in the ICE train after the worldcup game spain vs. france - so, I'm cameraless now which creates all sorts of problems... bought a new charger but arrived only today when I was already on the plane... here a link to a match video... france just scored the 2:0 vs. spain... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF4CcOQ0mGk
- the innovation with the tagcloud on business cards works! I met forst adoptors of this great idea:
(see original entry at koljas blog)
- will be in the us till next Tuesday... a few days in Pittsburgh and starting Sunday in NYC...
- next Thursday (20th) we celebrate our derby store opening in Berlin... you are invited! Just sign up in the wiki so we know with how many people to plan
- flight from berlin was delayed, so I have to wait 2 h on the airport... a t-mobile hotspot pass is 10 bucks for 24h, or 6 bucks for 60 minutes and 10cent each additional minute. There is no 'fon' router installed yet at the JFK airport
- some funny video from my last visit to pittsburg (Greensburg) - meet carsten, our us-coo as well as tim, an intern (whu student):
- hmmm, that’s it. No more news. Stay tuned, though...
- ps.: thanks to christophe maire for recently helping out at spreadshirt a little bit!
Posted by Lukasz at 18:16 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
05.05.06
ooo next week: paris and hamburg
Spreadshirt has been selected as a candidate for the top 100 fast growing companies in europe by red herring. Also, red herring invited me on a panel on their next weeks conference in europe (Red Herring Venture Market Europe). I'll speak about how to find the next european Skype. Hmmm. Hmmmm. Any hints? Anywqay, I'll be in Paris on Tue evening till Thu morning.
On Thursday I'm at the sinnerSchrader next10years conference in Hamburg. There I will speak about web 2.0 business models.
Posted by Lukasz at 12:26 | Comments (1) | TrackBack
20.03.06
surgery & hospital newbie
So, surgery is over and I feel quite shitty. My right eye is so swallen, that I barely can open it. Will stay like this for probably at least 3 days. Great. Here is, how I look like:
I planned to stay here only till Tuesday evening, but maybe I'll have to make it Wednesday.
The hospital itself is o.k., I have a single room with a TV set and a UMTS card for my notebook.
Posted by Lukasz at 16:23 | Comments (8) | TrackBack
18.01.06
soccerworld
last Saturday soccerworld opened a hall in Leipzig. Soccerworld is a start up running 'indoor soccer' halls. For a few EUR/ person / hour people can play 5on5 indoor soccer.
soccerworld, availabele at www.hallenfussball.de runs such centers in several cities in germany. I met one of
their founders, Jeremy Dogdson, several months ago and I'm impressed by his story which goes more or less like this:
- he started a company with a similiar business model in the uk several years ago
- and sold it successfully
- the buying party had some internal problems & fights, ending up splitting the company in two parts
- both companies went public in the UK and continue to grow
- but none was quick enough to expand international, so 3 or 4 years after selling jeremy does it himself - in germany, which is the biggest european market
I think that's cool. He knows what to do and since the UK guys focused on fighting and getting public, he has/ had the
time to create this market in Germany. Plus he knows all the UK people - his potential buyers. Good to have two of them,
i guess :)
Posted by Lukasz at 17:11 | Comments (0) | TrackBack