(If there are other Leancamp Organizers around: I can make some Video from your events too, if you pay for my flight, place & food

Microdocumentary

Interviews with the guests

some random Sessions

The post Leancamp Stuttgart 03/2014 Videos appeared first on Alex Boerger.

I think they will be gone shortly after they release their product.

I personally will ignore everyone who made promotion for neurs without knowing anything about the actual product. Why should I trust them ever again?

This reminded me to a great southpark episode:

What do you think? Is it a scam? Will I be the only one who didn’t get rich? At least I will save my integrity.

The post Is Neurs.com a scam? Are they stealing your Underpants? appeared first on Alex Boerger.

In the last years I visited some foreign places and always met great people to show me around or even had a couch I could surf.

And since I write for our local startupdigest (a weekly Newsletter with the best events) I got some requests about tips for english speaking people. I’am not the best english speaker, but “bad english” is the most spoken language of the world, so I think its better than nothing.

Frankfurt RheinMain is a very international place, we have the ECB and one of Europe’s biggest airports, so there are many reasons to come and work here.

But I can imagine, that it is quite hard to understand the local habits, because even when most of the people here speak english, they rarely do.

I want to fill this gap, with my skills. I will start to make some videos about people you should meet and events and places you should visit, if you are new, to this area and I hope some people will join me, with their skills.

If you are new to Frankfurt RheinMain and have any question where to go, just contact me. I will try to find someone who knows the answer.

Welcome to RheinMain!

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It took me years to figure out, that I’m unemployable. I’m neither stupid nor lazy. I’m just unable to follow directions.

If you try to reach a goal on a known path, there is always a long line with white collar workers standing one after another. Like at Starbucks. They are just waiting for the next small but predictable step.
I myself don’t believe in predictability. When ever there was a predictable next step, something unexpected happened. And this events happened on personal and on a global level.  When I visit my Grandmother and walk along the main street in my rural hometown, most of the businesses from my childhood are gone or at least, where bought and run by a global company. There is a big shift going on right now.

 Whenever I gave up the responsibility for my live to someone else, aka had a job, first I was excited and had many ideas to make work more effective, then some coworkers tried to slow me down. Most people don’t work most of the time, they just act like they where working. 1st I get bored, 2nd I get depressed and 3rd I quit.

The Entrepreneur-Gene

First I thought “everyone else is stupid”, then I thought “I’m stupid”, but finally I learned that “I’m just different”. Only a small percentage of people are entrepreneurs and there is a good evolutional reason for this: For most of the greatness, of our civilization, we need people who admire and protect the status quo. But on the other hand, we need some cowboys as well. Whenever the environment changes, and this happens all the time, we need people who are willing and able to explore new territory and find new solutions to make new sources of wealth available for the rest. This mixture of protectors and explorers is what makes mankind so successful.

I’m one of these explorers, I wan’t to learn about unknown territory. I want ask questions, nobody has ever asked before. And I want to find new ways and solutions. That’s simply in my genes.

Fail forward

My problem: I never learned how to become an explorer. All my teachers were protectors (thats why they became teachers) and they told me, how to protect the status quo. I had no role model of an explorer.

In 2009 a friend of a friend asked me, for some tips, how to sell coupons and some month later, he asked me to join city deal. Their startup was financed by the Samwer brothers and it took them only 5 month to grow this company so that they could sell it to Groupon for more than a 100 million dollars. WOW!!! This part of my journey was very interesting and I learned a lot, I got the startup fever, but the Samwers were not the role model I was looking for.

2011: My next big step, was my trip with the Startup Bus. It was like a 10 day Startup Weekend, on the roads and in incubators of germany. Here I learned all the basics about the Startup World and wrote my first business model canvas. I learned the how, but I was missing the why. Most of the Startup Scene is just going for riches, but money is not what makes me excited.

In 2012 I got the opportunity to visit the wild wild west, aka the silicon valley. But it took me another trip, to the dessert of Nevada to find a place where I thought I belong… kind of… Downtown Las Vegas? Tony Hsieh (zappos CEO) and his team are building a great community, but Las Vegas is much to exciting and extroverted for me… but it was awesome to see, how live can be.

So I came back from the goldrush and the cowboys, back to good old boring germany and in some ways I like germany much more than before. I like the old culture and history of europe, but I although missed the: “just do this shit” mentality from the US. I want both!

I want to import the best ideas and concepts from the Silicon Valley and Downtown Las Vegas and mix them, with the german culture. I will help other people who have the entrepreneurs gene to find their way to success.

The year of the pivots

After I learned about so many concepts in the US, 2013 became my year of the pivots. I knew, that I will never have a job again! And I knew my Goal: “I want a business, where I can work with nice people and that gives me the freedom to travel around the world and meet awesome people.” but I didn’t know how I can achieve it.

In some ways I felt like a cowboy, especially because of the lack of resources I faced in the middle of my trip. I hope the worst part of my track lays behind me and to stay in Cowboy speak: at the moment I start a shop for shovels

Lean Startup was an awesome tool on my way, but I think I found some weaknesses for people like me. To make a real Lean Startup, you need at least some resources. I had a time, where I only had my skills, my old equipment and some resources I could lend from my friends. At first, I made my projects cowboy style, because I had no other choice, but now I do it, because its fun.

I’m a Cowboy Entrepreneur

and I’m already thinking about a concept for “Cowboy Startups” based on the works of Eric Rise and Ash Maurya. If you are a cowboy entrepreneur, please join me.

Here is a good article, that made me think about the cowboy startup: http://klinger.io/post/69794653694/why-lean-startup-sucks-for-startups

The post I’m a “Cowboy Entrepreneur” appeared first on Alex Boerger.

Topics discussed in this videointerview with Chris McCann

• How StartupDigest was founded
• The Business Model (outdated) – “Silicon Valley VIP Recruiting”
• Working and finding Work in Silicon Valley
• Society of knowledge
• Books & Gutenberg
• Scaling a Business
• Where to get VC (Venture Capital) Money
• Is the Siclicon Vally Goldrush a Bubble?
• Failure is not a bad thing
• How to start a StartupDigest?
• Will you sell Startup Digest? -> he did about a week after the interview
• Most interesting Startup

Much has changed since I visited Chris McCann in September 2012.
StartupDigest was acquired by the Kaufmann Foundation and I`m a curator myself. Join https://www.startupdigest.com/digests/frankfurtrheinmain to get the hottest Events around Frankfurt/Germany

If you join any of the Startup Digests, you can get the awesome Mails with the best Blogarticles from the StartupScene curated by Chris himself.

This Interview was part of my Project “From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg“

The post Chris McCann (Startupdigest) talks about work and money in the Silicon Valley – From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg appeared first on Alex Boerger.

Diving deeper in Gutenbergs history I became aware of many similarities to todays startups.

In 2012 the local Newspaper (Verlagsgruppe Rhein-Main) gave me the opportunity to visit the United States to find the next Gutenberg. (Ok, they wanted to know, how they could adapt their business model.)

But here I go. I met and interviewed some really interesting people, and in the next weeks I will publish these interviews on YouTube and this website.

• Occupy Gutenberg (A printed magazine for OWS)
• Occupy Livestream (Live-Broadcasting from Occupy Wall Street)
• Everyday Rebellion (Documentation)
• Startup Weekend San Francisco
• Chris McCann (Startup Digest)
• Howard Rheingold (Media Literacy)
• Downtown Project Las Vegas (Zach Ware, Kim Schaefer, Tony Hsieh)
• David Weinberger
• Jeff Jarvis (Web-Journalism)

If you want to watch one of them please subscribe to my RSS or Newsletter

PS: I neither got an interview with Gutenberg nor with Marc Zuckerberg. If you can help me the next time, just let me know.

The post From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg 2012 appeared first on Alex Boerger.

at the moment we started to plan a Startupweekend in Mainz

http://swbay.startupweekend.org/
https://twitter.com/swbay

Interviews with
https://twitter.com/siddiquiahmed
https://twitter.com/teamMBH

Location
http://devbootcamp.com/

The post Startup Weekend in San Fransisco appeared first on Alex Boerger.

Ash Maurya, author of running lean was interviewed by Paul Herwarth

Questions answered

• What is the Lean Canvas?
• Difference between Business Model Canvas and Lean Canvas
• Brick & Mortar example for Lean Startup

https://twitter.com/ashmaurya
http://practicetrumpstheory.com/

https://twitter.com/pherwarth
http://rhein-main-startups.com

Full Talk:

The post Ash Maurya in Frankfurt (Running Lean) appeared first on Alex Boerger.

At the moment I try to find ways to use video to scale businesses and how small companys can use lean startup principals.

If you like you can follow me on Twitter or subscribe to my RSS-Feed

The post Hello world! appeared first on Alex Boerger.