One of the main advantages of starting a new company in Eastern Europe is the natural affinity of this part of the world with Web 2.0. More specifically the complete lack of vowels. While most start-ups struggle to find a catchy name, I can open some local newspaper and pick one.
I guess this is why so many entrepreneurs opt for Czech names: Dopplr (the new social network for frequent travelers) stands for "Your flight will be delayed" in Czech and wdgtbldr (Peter Yared's new company) translates as "JRad 3.0" in Czech (and Polish, Slovak and Croatian).
I thought long and hard about the name for my next company and I was not sure whether to call it Datr.com or Zetr.com. But then I came up with a non-Web 2.0 name with plenty of vowels. And therefore as of today I've become the Founder and CEO of Good Data Corporation.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Name of the Next Startup
Monday, July 30, 2007
My last day at Idoox/Systinet/Mercury/HP
I said, “No, I’m never going to leave Hewlett-Packard. It’s my job for life. It’s the best company because it’s so good to engineers.” It really treated us like we were a community and family, and everyone cared about everyone else. Engineers—bottom of the org chart people—could come up with the ideas that would be the next hot products for the company. Everything was open to thought, discussion and innovation. So I would never leave Hewlett-Packard. I was going to be an engineer for life there.
Interview: Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder, Apple Computer
My feelings are very similar - Systinet (now part of HP) was the best company I ever worked for. But it's time to move on and tomorrow will be my last day at Hewlett-Packard...
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Dynamics of Bubbles...
I am member of Linkedin, Plaxo, Facebook and Flickr. I was member of Friendster but I never joined Orkut. I was invited to join Quechup but I don't plan to join Bebo, MySpace or Unizr. There is no point for me to join WorkItMom! or YummyFriend but I could possibly join BOOMj.com - the Lifestyle and Social Network for Baby Boomers and Generation Jones.
The market segmentation of social networks is happening very quickly. And very soon there will be one social network for every living person on the earth. I guess it's the right time to re-read one of my favorite books: Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages...
Monday, July 23, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
Vuth Sem, Entrepreneur
A few weeks ago I became a banker and I started to loan money to a group of young entrepreneurs. And Vuth Sem is one of them.
I never met Vuth and I don't think I will ever have a chance to meet him. But I hope my $25 will help him to buy a piece of a new motorcycle. And the new motorcycle will make enough money to repay my loan. And make even more money for Vuth and his family. And if you want to see more people like Vuth to succeed and get out of poverty please join me at Kiva...
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The ATM Mile
Flying involves very little exercise and this is probably why the Prague airport arranged for us - frequent travelers - the following run: the ATM Mile.
Almost everybody who lands in a foreign and non-Euro country needs some cash. But in Prague you should bring your sneakers as well. All four ATM machines (see picture below) are clustered in the far-flung and deserted corner of the airport. So if you don't want to waste your time put the running shoes on and run. The benefits are clear - you will get stamina and cash at the same time. I am doing this exercise a few times a week and it really helped me to get in shape!
