Marketing

Last Friday, I was at the 2nd Web.Start conference organized by Initium in Zagreb (Croatia).

Like last year, the two main themes were technology and business.

Although I only attended the biz part (day two), there was a lot of opportunity to meet interesting techies, entrepreneurs and VC’s active in this region - and of course to catch up with old friends.

The line-up of presenters included Yoav Leitersdorf (YLVentures), Reshma Sohoni (Seedcamp), Patrick de Laive (Fleck), Jim McGough, Andraz Tori (Zemanta) and many others.

This provided for a good balance of entrepreneurs and VC’s talking about what it takes to get a successful startup running in Europe (and especially Eastern Europe and the Balkans).

Is building a highway to London really the only way?

I think not - but I do think starting to focus more on business than technology per se and getting some local biz traction are a prerequisite if one wants to get something globally notable off the ground over here.

Overall, a good and well organized conference - congrats to Berislav, Ivan & co.!

This region is definitely hungry for web conferences - it’s time we organize a good one in Slovenia, too!

The philosopher appeared in front of the Hotel Imperial and attracted a crowd by his actions. He removed his coat, folded it, laid it on the sidewalk, placed his hat upon it; then he drew a small rubber band from his pocket. He broke the circle with his fingers, and, stretching the elastic to its limit, held it above his head.

“Gentlemen,” said the philosopher, “and pardon me - ladies - I did not see you. In this little piece of elastic there is the philosophy of life and living. When it is stretched to its full length it represents the strained life; when relaxed it is the simple life.

“Appearances, ladies and gentlemen,” said the philosopher, stretching the elastic until it threatened to snap. He allowed the rubber to relax with a snap and chuckled.

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Here are some recommendations from the last couple of months:

Malcolm Gladwell: Blink
About “the power of thinking without thinking”, an excellent read about the decisive first few moments of looking. Available at Audible (audio book).

Fisher, Ury, Patton: Getting To Yes
A really good book on negotiation - getting the other party to agree without being at an unfair disadvantage that could haunt you later. Also available as audio.

Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point
Good marketing read about how little things usually make a huge difference. Also at Audible.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Black Swan
Fairly entertaining read about the impact of the highly improbable. Summary: Gaussian distribution sux for most cases. The ideas Taleb describes are interesting and useful, but DO NOT get the audio book as, adding to the writer’s very noticeable self-confidence, the narrator makes the whole thing sound terribly big-headed. I later heard Taleb speak at a conference and I was shocked at how nice the guy actually sounded :).

Buckingham, Coffman: First, Break All The Rules
Great book on effective management.

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Since Montenegro’s independence and the news of the highly lucrative .me top-level domain name assignation, a lot of people have been standing in line in hope that they’d be able to register their kiss.me, sex.me, call.me, find.me and whatnot.me domains.

Go home, people - GoDaddy’s got the contract with the government of Montenegro (here the contract in Serbian … ukhm … Montenegrian? - published last month).

This explains the mysterious delays in getting these domains to the market - I have been trying to get some news (in vain) from the people at nic.me for the last couple of months.

Yup - domains = $$$.