[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
hi I’m Karl and the topic of today would
be to tell you a bit about the
experiences that I’ve had personally
over the past 15 years working with
these different teams and thank you for
the wonderful introduction so for the
sake of the argument of launching a new
business or a new initiative on the
market I’m assuming that you have an
idea and we all have ideas and I’m
assuming your idea is something that you
strongly believe in and with this you
usually are constrained with resources
you either do not have teams you do not
have funding or you have other obstacles
so the question really stands as to if
you have this idea where do you start
and how do you start so with the teams
that I work with in the past
I actually here over the past 15 years
pretty much the same talk all over again
the vast majority of them will say that
they are working on something something
very particular something very special
now this something once launched will
change everything absolutely everything
and once it’s launched once it’s
actually on the market it will literally
feel like riding a unicorn to the sunset
next to a double rainbow while eating
gelato like this this is the case really
so and this is the vast majority of
pitches are here and while it’s
certainly partly true that the startup
life is eating gelato on top of a
unicorn there are of course some
challenges that these teams are facing
before they reach this nirvana so to
speak so
multiple things are stopping them and
while these multiple things are really
stopping them what the vast majority of
people on those teams don’t really
realize is that the world is really
revolving right it’s evolving it’s
changing all the time and just during
this day that we’re sitting here
watching these presentations according
to some numbers roughly 60,000 new
ventures will be launched today across
the planet more than 80 thousand patents
will be filed with unique ideas and more
than 350,000 people will be both born
and roughly the same amount of people
will reach exactly your age so the
likelihood of your idea being executed
flawlessly in the upcoming 48 or 24
hours is actually pretty high and the
longer you wait the higher it will
become so assuming you have this unicorn
idea here and you’re facing you’re
facing your challenges you are always
finding different reasons why not to
execute on this and this happens both in
nonprofits it happens both in
corporations and it happens in startups
and again surprisingly it’s it’s always
the same talk it’s a talk about the
product the product itself is not
perfect it’s not ready we cannot show it
to anybody because obviously it would be
embarrassing if somebody would saw what
we have put together in this previous
let’s say year also we’re waiting for
the budget for the budget allocation
either an internal one either a
foundation that we apply to perhaps a
loan application we filed or we’re
waiting for
that additional one specific individual
who’s really completing the last project
before he can move on and work with us
that very special engineer that
everybody knows who can build anything
which is amazing nevertheless what what
I’m here to tell you and perhaps to kind
of ruin the the surprise here is that
none of these things in my opinion and
in my experience are rarely obstacles
and rarely are these things which are
stopping the teams so what usually gets
into focus when individuals are talking
about their futures they are talking
about these fantastic new ideas is
absolutely the wrong thing so it’s it’s
always to talk about the idea and never
really about the problem underlying that
that idea so if you extrapolate from
this and think of it every idea in the
at least in the startup sense is usually
an answer to somebody’s cry for help in
a way or somebody’s some of this pain
and surprisingly that pain or that
problem that we’re trying to solve does
not belong to the planet it does not
belong to a community it does not belong
to a nameless corporation it actually
belongs to a human being and the good
thing about this is we can talk to the
human beings we can go out we can meet
them we can call them we can ask them if
the problem that we believe exists in
this world actually does exist and if it
does exist perhaps that is enough
validation for you to pursue with the
idea so this very simple question about
how do you experience this problem or
have you seen this in your life
could potentially save you months could
potentially save you years from your
life on working on something that
actually nobody needs even though it
might seem like a fantastic idea
it might not solve anybody’s problem so
consumers when we run with the consumer
research surprisingly care about very
little and this is rather rather
shocking to me personally at least that
in the case of some automotive companies
that I’ve worked with what has happened
is individuals consumers such as her
don’t really care about safety or let’s
say the general safety of off of traffic
enough to pay extra for anything
relating to that and this has happened
over the years actually many times when
we first started talking about more
economic driving start and stop
technologies global research showed that
nobody cares incredibly nobody cares
you’re buying the fifty thousand euro
car and you’re not spending another
hundred euros to have a start and stop
technology so what is astonishing about
this is that while it does solve a
problem it solves the wrong problem it
doesn’t solve we the consumers problem
because when you go and talk to her or
to anybody else who’s actually in your
target market what you end up hearing is
something completely different it seems
for example in the case of mobility or
automotive she seems to care more about
how she’s perceived as a buyer what her
friends think about her and what affects
her personal wallet instead of safety
instead of global warming instead of all
of these big questions that we are a
social conscious individuals very much
aware of so but then again when I’m
saying these things I don’t really know
what the idea is that you’re working on
and I’m more than certain that most of
these ideas will have or bear with them
some assumptions about
what are the problems that you’re
solving so in the case of her or in the
case of your consumer you should really
go out and ask and really probe and get
to the bottom of it and understand
whether this actually makes sense or not
and the good news and the great news
actually about this is that it costs you
nothing to save years from your life
because you’re literally nothing to go
out and talk to people to talk to the
consumer booms problem do you think
you’re solving secondly when we talk
about the fact that we really don’t have
the product we don’t have the
engineering experience to come up with
applying car or a water carrying device
for Africa for example the thing is that
we assume that we need to present ideas
and products which are ready things
which can be in wait both because once
it’s ready
obviously we built it so people must
love it the good thing about this is
again to ruin the surprise it doesn’t if
if you would pitch this very simple idea
to a caveman and explain that there is
this device that you can build with your
own hands which will potentially help
you scavenge twice this amount of food
in one day or chop twice the amount of
firewood in 24 hours I think it’s a
simple proposition you don’t need to
present him a chainsaw it’s very
unlikely that he will understand the
chainsaw so fast-forward to 2017 today
with the advent of different digital
technologies we have the possibility to
sit here in this room or later in our
homes to just draw our idea as a simple
application as a simple website and
convert it into a working prototype
with a few clicks of a button with a
zero cost
that is today okay perhaps your baton
yours for this but still we’re not
talking about thousands who are not
talking about tens and tens of months of
development work this is happening now
and thirdly when we assume that it’s
difficult to launch these different
products it’s difficult to break through
it’s difficult and most likely extremely
expensive to compete with everybody else
on the marketplace the dirty little
secret of the technology world in a way
or the startup and innovation world is
the fact that most of the products that
we end up launching tonight will exist
so that’s first thing most of the
products that you hear in innovation
news the new cars coming in running
fully electric the new self-teaching AI
and the new home automation systems
these things do not exist the moment
that you are buying them they start
existing when enough people actually buy
them and this is the basis of
crowdfunding I would say and this is
really taking off in the sense that the
vast majority of new products are
actually launched through crowdfunding
nowadays and the good thing here is that
a simple a rather simple digital
campaign or a digital exercise in in
marketing let’s put it this way would
result you with just an investment of 10
euros it will result you the eyeballs of
150,000 people so never before I believe
has this be impossible where just by
spending the cost of in Italy 10 coffees
you would have four stadium full of
people looking at what you have to say
so this brings us to the to the final
point I would say that assuming that you
already are willing and capable of
spending these last 30 years that we’re
spending or talking about
the question of talent and actually
building your product comes to –
question eventually right so you have
these pre-orders you have people
interested you’re solving an actual
problem so what do you do now you still
need that engineer the good thing is
that you actually don’t you really don’t
you have a chance today to get anything
pretty much anything in terms of
specialized knowledge from the global
freelancing community you can post gigs
from very simple Excel data mining tasks
to complex AI programming tasks and you
can get those things done in a very very
short amount of time and with a very
very very small budget and actually this
is something that the vast majority of
startups are beginning to realize and
also the large corporation to begin to
realize so this is why we see so many
products coming in such a short amount
of time to market because it’s really
really that easy and here comes the here
comes the final point in sense that the
only thing that we see while working
with these different teams in terms of
stopping them from bringing those ideas
to market and showing them to the
consumer are actually the team members
themselves nothing really else so if you
have something that you believe will
potentially change either an industry it
will potentially change our market
perhaps it will change your world
eventually and you can outline this not
as an idea but as a problem that needs
to be solved to some specific human
being
using just crowdsourcing crowdfunding
using digital means you can bring it to
market pretty much today and I would
encourage you to really aim for the
unicorns I would encourage you to aim
for gelato that’s always a good idea
and/or actually
another world for that mare and do not
forget while doing this that the end
success of any idea that you present
will be the greedy self-interest of a
single human being so thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
you
[Music]
[Applause]
hi I’m Karl and the topic of today would
be to tell you a bit about the
experiences that I’ve had personally
over the past 15 years working with
these different teams and thank you for
the wonderful introduction so for the
sake of the argument of launching a new
business or a new initiative on the
market I’m assuming that you have an
idea and we all have ideas and I’m
assuming your idea is something that you
strongly believe in and with this you
usually are constrained with resources
you either do not have teams you do not
have funding or you have other obstacles
so the question really stands as to if
you have this idea where do you start
and how do you start so with the teams
that I work with in the past
I actually here over the past 15 years
pretty much the same talk all over again
the vast majority of them will say that
they are working on something something
very particular something very special
now this something once launched will
change everything absolutely everything
and once it’s launched once it’s
actually on the market it will literally
feel like riding a unicorn to the sunset
next to a double rainbow while eating
gelato like this this is the case really
so and this is the vast majority of
pitches are here and while it’s
certainly partly true that the startup
life is eating gelato on top of a
unicorn there are of course some
challenges that these teams are facing
before they reach this nirvana so to
speak so
multiple things are stopping them and
while these multiple things are really
stopping them what the vast majority of
people on those teams don’t really
realize is that the world is really
revolving right it’s evolving it’s
changing all the time and just during
this day that we’re sitting here
watching these presentations according
to some numbers roughly 60,000 new
ventures will be launched today across
the planet more than 80 thousand patents
will be filed with unique ideas and more
than 350,000 people will be both born
and roughly the same amount of people
will reach exactly your age so the
likelihood of your idea being executed
flawlessly in the upcoming 48 or 24
hours is actually pretty high and the
longer you wait the higher it will
become so assuming you have this unicorn
idea here and you’re facing you’re
facing your challenges you are always
finding different reasons why not to
execute on this and this happens both in
nonprofits it happens both in
corporations and it happens in startups
and again surprisingly it’s it’s always
the same talk it’s a talk about the
product the product itself is not
perfect it’s not ready we cannot show it
to anybody because obviously it would be
embarrassing if somebody would saw what
we have put together in this previous
let’s say year also we’re waiting for
the budget for the budget allocation
either an internal one either a
foundation that we apply to perhaps a
loan application we filed or we’re
waiting for
that additional one specific individual
who’s really completing the last project
before he can move on and work with us
that very special engineer that
everybody knows who can build anything
which is amazing nevertheless what what
I’m here to tell you and perhaps to kind
of ruin the the surprise here is that
none of these things in my opinion and
in my experience are rarely obstacles
and rarely are these things which are
stopping the teams so what usually gets
into focus when individuals are talking
about their futures they are talking
about these fantastic new ideas is
absolutely the wrong thing so it’s it’s
always to talk about the idea and never
really about the problem underlying that
that idea so if you extrapolate from
this and think of it every idea in the
at least in the startup sense is usually
an answer to somebody’s cry for help in
a way or somebody’s some of this pain
and surprisingly that pain or that
problem that we’re trying to solve does
not belong to the planet it does not
belong to a community it does not belong
to a nameless corporation it actually
belongs to a human being and the good
thing about this is we can talk to the
human beings we can go out we can meet
them we can call them we can ask them if
the problem that we believe exists in
this world actually does exist and if it
does exist perhaps that is enough
validation for you to pursue with the
idea so this very simple question about
how do you experience this problem or
have you seen this in your life
could potentially save you months could
potentially save you years from your
life on working on something that
actually nobody needs even though it
might seem like a fantastic idea
it might not solve anybody’s problem so
consumers when we run with the consumer
research surprisingly care about very
little and this is rather rather
shocking to me personally at least that
in the case of some automotive companies
that I’ve worked with what has happened
is individuals consumers such as her
don’t really care about safety or let’s
say the general safety of off of traffic
enough to pay extra for anything
relating to that and this has happened
over the years actually many times when
we first started talking about more
economic driving start and stop
technologies global research showed that
nobody cares incredibly nobody cares
you’re buying the fifty thousand euro
car and you’re not spending another
hundred euros to have a start and stop
technology so what is astonishing about
this is that while it does solve a
problem it solves the wrong problem it
doesn’t solve we the consumers problem
because when you go and talk to her or
to anybody else who’s actually in your
target market what you end up hearing is
something completely different it seems
for example in the case of mobility or
automotive she seems to care more about
how she’s perceived as a buyer what her
friends think about her and what affects
her personal wallet instead of safety
instead of global warming instead of all
of these big questions that we are a
social conscious individuals very much
aware of so but then again when I’m
saying these things I don’t really know
what the idea is that you’re working on
and I’m more than certain that most of
these ideas will have or bear with them
some assumptions about
what are the problems that you’re
solving so in the case of her or in the
case of your consumer you should really
go out and ask and really probe and get
to the bottom of it and understand
whether this actually makes sense or not
and the good news and the great news
actually about this is that it costs you
nothing to save years from your life
because you’re literally nothing to go
out and talk to people to talk to the
consumer booms problem do you think
you’re solving secondly when we talk
about the fact that we really don’t have
the product we don’t have the
engineering experience to come up with
applying car or a water carrying device
for Africa for example the thing is that
we assume that we need to present ideas
and products which are ready things
which can be in wait both because once
it’s ready
obviously we built it so people must
love it the good thing about this is
again to ruin the surprise it doesn’t if
if you would pitch this very simple idea
to a caveman and explain that there is
this device that you can build with your
own hands which will potentially help
you scavenge twice this amount of food
in one day or chop twice the amount of
firewood in 24 hours I think it’s a
simple proposition you don’t need to
present him a chainsaw it’s very
unlikely that he will understand the
chainsaw so fast-forward to 2017 today
with the advent of different digital
technologies we have the possibility to
sit here in this room or later in our
homes to just draw our idea as a simple
application as a simple website and
convert it into a working prototype
with a few clicks of a button with a
zero cost
that is today okay perhaps your baton
yours for this but still we’re not
talking about thousands who are not
talking about tens and tens of months of
development work this is happening now
and thirdly when we assume that it’s
difficult to launch these different
products it’s difficult to break through
it’s difficult and most likely extremely
expensive to compete with everybody else
on the marketplace the dirty little
secret of the technology world in a way
or the startup and innovation world is
the fact that most of the products that
we end up launching tonight will exist
so that’s first thing most of the
products that you hear in innovation
news the new cars coming in running
fully electric the new self-teaching AI
and the new home automation systems
these things do not exist the moment
that you are buying them they start
existing when enough people actually buy
them and this is the basis of
crowdfunding I would say and this is
really taking off in the sense that the
vast majority of new products are
actually launched through crowdfunding
nowadays and the good thing here is that
a simple a rather simple digital
campaign or a digital exercise in in
marketing let’s put it this way would
result you with just an investment of 10
euros it will result you the eyeballs of
150,000 people so never before I believe
has this be impossible where just by
spending the cost of in Italy 10 coffees
you would have four stadium full of
people looking at what you have to say
so this brings us to the to the final
point I would say that assuming that you
already are willing and capable of
spending these last 30 years that we’re
spending or talking about
the question of talent and actually
building your product comes to –
question eventually right so you have
these pre-orders you have people
interested you’re solving an actual
problem so what do you do now you still
need that engineer the good thing is
that you actually don’t you really don’t
you have a chance today to get anything
pretty much anything in terms of
specialized knowledge from the global
freelancing community you can post gigs
from very simple Excel data mining tasks
to complex AI programming tasks and you
can get those things done in a very very
short amount of time and with a very
very very small budget and actually this
is something that the vast majority of
startups are beginning to realize and
also the large corporation to begin to
realize so this is why we see so many
products coming in such a short amount
of time to market because it’s really
really that easy and here comes the here
comes the final point in sense that the
only thing that we see while working
with these different teams in terms of
stopping them from bringing those ideas
to market and showing them to the
consumer are actually the team members
themselves nothing really else so if you
have something that you believe will
potentially change either an industry it
will potentially change our market
perhaps it will change your world
eventually and you can outline this not
as an idea but as a problem that needs
to be solved to some specific human
being
using just crowdsourcing crowdfunding
using digital means you can bring it to
market pretty much today and I would
encourage you to really aim for the
unicorns I would encourage you to aim
for gelato that’s always a good idea
and/or actually
another world for that mare and do not
forget while doing this that the end
success of any idea that you present
will be the greedy self-interest of a
single human being so thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
you
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