FlorianDargel

Entrepreneurship in Germany

Interesting discussion prompted by Tom Coates (via Hebig) on where are all the start-ups. I could say a lot about it, and plenty of earl stage VCs worry about where the next crop of start-ups will come from...but that's another post. The following has been languishing in my drafts folder for some time, but I think the attitude is not unusual.

Barbequeue with friends, kicking around ideas, talking about what's happening in software and technology. What was striking was that the outlook was always very technological (in a sample of two ;-). Designing the perfect product seemed always more important than selling it to customers. Case in point: delicious library, a software to manage all your books and other media, with integration in Amazon web services as secret sauce. Two person outfit, 9 months development. Sentiment: how dare they turn& ;over $40k $56k of sales on the first day, and over $200k in the first week of trading when you cant even share your lists ?! Clearly not release worthy ;-). Me, I'd always rather have an extra customer than an extra feature delaying a sale.

PS: I've since seen that there is a windows equivalent: MedianMan

Peugeot 307 for sale

I’m selling my car. If you need a reliable, economical car in the golf class but better looking, the look no further. All details after the link, or contact me directly (florian (a) foundersunited dot de).

London beats Paris to 2012 Games

 

 

Best tank in the world

  According to Channel 5 the German Leopard 2 tank is the best in the world.  British telly is really amusing at times – it’s unimaginable to have that on a German station….

BT Communicator Helpline 0870 242 0635

is useless so far – can't get my BT Communicator account to work. Nor do they feel compelled to be more pro-active after the 3rd call about exactly the same problem, something about “sending a flag to the mainframe”.

Bloggers to go backstage at Live 8 in Edinburgh

Dave Sifry writes:

"up to five bloggers will be given the opportunity to fly to Edinburgh and back with the Live 8 group"

I'm already in EDI, can anyone join the action?
Link: 50 bloggers to go backstage at Live 8.

Case of Mad Cow in Texas Is First to Originate in U.S. - New York Times

We advise a diagnostics startup that developed amongst other things a test for BSE that can be carried out on the living animal, allowing early detection an therefore the potential eradication of BSE instead of the current "after the horse has bolted" post mortem approach. Now it turns out the Case of Mad Cow in Texas Is the First to Originate in U.S.( New York Times):

The cow that was found last week to have mad cow disease spent its whole life in Texas, making it the first domestic case of the disease, the United States Department of Agriculture said yesterday.

That really has set the cat among the pidgeons. Apparently there is no mandatory testing for BSE in the US. The Authorities rely on " voluntary cooperation" for such matters. Uahh, Burgers, anyone?