Diese Woche ist die Kleinanzeigen-App Smazaar gestartet. Von der Idee bis zur ersten Version im Store ist etwa ein halbes Jahr vergangen. Es ist immer wieder spannend zu sehen, wie ein neues Produkt da draußen ankommt. Eininge haben wir in den letzten 12 Jahren an den Start gebracht, wobei Smazaar das mit Abstand beste ist, was wir bisher gemacht haben… Die Website ist ebenfalls unter smazaar.de live.

Der Sportartikelmarkt ist riesig. Mit TEAMSTYLES ist vor gut zwei Monaten ein Shop mit einem minimalen Feature Set an den Start gegangen, der in der Testphase nur den Bereich Trikotsätze für Jugendfußballteams abdeckt. Ein sehr komplexes Produkt, da neben den Trikots auch Shorts, Stuzen und meist auch die Beflockung mit unterschiedlichen Nummern, Spielernamen und Sponsorlogos dazugehören. Und das alles in unterschiedlichen Größen und Farben bzw. mit unterschiedlichen motiven. Aber auch eine sehr emotionale Sache in dreifacher Hinsicht: Sport, Kids und der Fashion Aspekt kommt noch dazu, wie das Video sehr schön zeigt. Das macht die Sache, neben der (perspektivischen) Marktgröße spannend! Wie die Idee entstand ist hier zu lesen.

Putting consumers into the forefront of the strategy process to drive innovation to new heights.

The World Innovation Convention is probably the most exciting Event on Innovation for 2010 and destined to become a gateway for innovators from across key industries and diversified fields. Passion & vision for innovation is the issue at the amazing venue, Seafront Convention Hall Ibiza. The “Strategic Location” Ibiza itself is renowned as the world’s center of erotic gravitation… Here you find the World Innovation Convention Brochure and here the promotion code for a 20% discount. I am earlier in May in San Francisco at the Web 2.0 Expo, so I unfortunately can’t attend.

Foremost industry experts from European Commission, Virgin Galactic, Coca Cola, Mclaren, Philips, Intel, Basf, Pfizer, P&G and many others are invited to deliver latest insights into how these major brands are streamlining innovation to create products and brands that have a mass appeal for consumers.

And here is my Must Read List for (Lean Startup) web entrepreneurs:

1. The Four Steps to the Epiphany – Steven Gary Blank (Customer Development)

The key contributors to an out-of-control burn rate is 1) hiring a sales force too early, 2) turning on the demand creation activities too early, 3) developing something other than the minimum feature set for first customer ship. – Steven Gary Blank

2. Kopf schlägt Kapital (Head Beats Capital) – Günter Faltin

3. The Second Bounce Of The Ball: Turning Risk into Opportunity – Ronald Cohen

I find the decision tree very helpful. It is one of the most helpful tools that I took from Harvard Business School – Ronald Cohen

4. Viral Loop: How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow… – Adam L. Penenberg

…the first full year, they pulled in $600,000 in almost pure profit, and their revenue doubled each and every year that followed. (…) Two years later Hong and Young sold Hot or Not for $20 million. – Adam L. Penenberg

5. Agile Estimating and Planning – Mike Cohn

6. Design Web Interfaces – Theresa Neil, Bill Scott

7. Rocket Surgery Made Easy: Finding and Fixing Usability Problems – Steve Krug

When it comes to finding and fixing usability problems, if I had to choose between awesome analytics that could tell me exactly what my users are doing (but with no chance to know what they’re thinking while they’re doing it) or sitting with one user with the ability to hear what he’s thinking and ask probing questions, I’d take the one user every time. – Steve Krug

8. Crossing the Chasm – Geoffrey A. Moore

9. What Would Google Do? – Jeff Jarvis

10. The Age of Engage: Reinventing Marketing… – Denise Shiffman

Every Marketer must read this book [Age of Engage] – Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google

We all know, people have learned to scroll. They did a long time ago, but still the ‘everything needs to be above the fold’ concept lingers on.

And here’s a dissent comment:

It’s well written, beautifully designed, but not realistic. Nearly all your arguments are invalid and unrealistic in a professional context.

Vor knapp zwei Jahren habe ich beim DuMont/Madsack Venture Day die Gründer und das Konzept von reBuy kennengelernt und bin sofort zum Fan geworden. Der Plattform, die damals noch als trade-a-game unterwegs war, hatte ich in einem kurzen Post das rasante Durchstarten vorausgesagt und ich war nicht der einzige, den die Jungs beindruckt haben. Der Markenwechsel – von trade-a-game zu reBuy und eine zweite Finanzierungsrunde zeigen auch, wie dieses Video, dass die Richtung weiterhin stimmt.

Eric Ries in Stanford: Debunking Myths of Entrepreneurship

A year ago, there was no lean startup movement. The term was known by maybe a few dozen people. Being an evangelist for these ideas earned me a regular diet of funny looks and patronizing comments. At that time, my wildest dreams did not include even a fraction of what’s happened since.

I continue to believe that the explosion of interest in the lean startup has very little to do with me. Rather, I see it as a reflection of a worldwide openness to new ideas about entrepreneurship. Recent economic events, technological change, and the rapid diffusion of information about the old models have combined to help us all realize just how important entrepreneurship is – and just how little we really know about it.

Dazu drei Beiträge, die es in sich haben:

• Harvard Business Review: Is Entrepreneurship a Management Science?
• Methodologist: How to design your Business Model as a Lean Startup?
• Stanford’s Entrepreneurship Corner: Steve Blank, The Customer Development Process

Chic digital merchant Net-a-porter is proving that women will buy a $2,000 dress with just a click of a BlackBerry.

Traditionally designers have shown their spring collections in the fall (and fall collections in the spring) so that store buyers could place orders six months in advance (and magazine editors could likewise prepare their coverage). In the era of the iPhone, consumers can’t understand why they must wait so long for a product they have already seen on the runway.

Nor do consumers appreciate the mixed messages they receive from department stores and fashion magazines: Buyers at department stores generally base their orders on sales figures from the past, hoping to repeat their successes, while fashion editors often gravitate to the most avant-garde pieces, which will make dramatic pictures.

“So you have one industry that was very forward-thinking and one that was very backward-thinking, and stuck in the middle is the consumer who was being told what to buy but not necessarily where to find it,” says Massenet, whose editorial and buying teams travel to shows together. “So by creating a site that does both, we think the place where the time-starved consumer gets her fashion news will also be the place where she chooses to shop.”