„There’s no magic formula for great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff how you would like to be treated.” Richard Branson

Gunnar Holmsteinn, COO of QuizUp, gave us some inspiring insights about the topic “Culture” in the latest lecture of “How to start a Startup”. Before I share some impressions of the lecture a couple of words about Gunnar:

The Icelandic born entrepreneur was founder and CEO of CLARA previously, which is the first Icelandic startup that existed successfully. After this exciting event, Gunnar spent a couple of months in the Silicon Valley and worked for the acquiring company, Jive Software. In 2014 when he started working for QuizUp, the startup had about 40 employees and was struggling a bit with the growth of the company. He gave us some incredible insights how he handled this situation and how valuable a company culture can be. 

As an introduction, Gunnar showed us three different perspectives to take into account when outlining a company, specifically here QuizUp:

#the feature – they are going to be the Trivial Pursuit of the 21^st century -> their north star

#numbers – making the company transparent and interesting for investors as well as employees

#soft-touch/emotional part – the network effect they are creating with their vision

When he started working as the COO, he interviewed all employees and asked them about what is going well (highlight), not so well (lowlight) and topics that are not talked about (nolight) in the company. He analysed the current situation and started leveraging the “lights”. For instance, the QuizUp Camp was initialized, a two day event once a year outside of Reykjavik where all employees are participating. Basically, it is a huge brainstorm and socializing session to reflect the past and the future of the young company. In this way, the nolights and typical lowlights of the startup are considered and discussed. Especially the fast growth of startups make it more difficult for them to keep their traditions. That is why Gunnar puts emphasis on the personal fit already in the job interview. He talks about the values of the company, asks how the applicants interpret them and makes sure that not only their skills match to the job requirements, but also their character.

One story that inspired me very much concerned the following value:

“Wait for Nothing! Risk something!”

QuizUp has just started a cooperation with an American television show. They are going to make a Quiz, which users will use during the show on a Sunday evening. That means a lot of traffic and requires a robust IT-System, because they are going to have millions of active users at the same time. A situation they never had before – something venture! They decided to grab this opportunity of cooperation because they believe in their vision. In order to achieve goals you have to risk something – sometimes the entire company. 

“Hopefully it’ll work!”

Another value that Gunnar talked about a lot and which is the basis for highly performing teams is trust. One measure they introduced are the so-called “Friday-feeling-meetings”. During the afternoon in the chill area, the team members are talking about things that made them happy, sad or angry and share stories from their personal life or the job. Sharing these basic emotions and opening up like that creates a team spirit and trust. Moreover, employees are welcome to bring their family along for breakfast, lunch or even dinner. Very unique, I would say! 

However, many of these attitudes are strongly connected to longer working hours. Nevertheless, people who decide to apply for a job in a startup know that they are rather working to change something in the world than working just for the money.

Gunnar shared an incredible view on teamwork with us, a philosophy that he is creating at QuizUp which is unique and a way of modern leadership which improved the company day by day.

Thanks for the inspiring lecture and if I could have pushed the “feeling button” after the lecture, I would have gone for a happy smile :-)

„If I was down to my last dollar, I’d spend it on public relations.” Bill Gates

In one of my earlier posts, I referred to a street art in Reykjavik, which basically had the intention:
“It’s about the way you climb a mountain and not the size of the mountain what makes it to a unique experience!”

People don’t want to hear the story about how many summits you reached, they want to hear how you reached them – the story behind! Everyone who takes off to the challenge decides to find his own path up to the summit and that makes every story unique. That’s what the PR wants to hear from you, the stories how you became an entrepreneur, how you came up with the idea, found the right co-founder, managed the first pitches, raised the first money and so on…

“Story is everything! It makes you different!” Paula Gould

If you listen to successful people, you’ll notice that they talk about their story like a storyteller. They came up with their ideas by coincidence – e.g. “There was this international convention that took place in San Fransisco (…) all the hotels were sold out (…) we decided to turn the house into a bed & breakfast for the conference (…) we pulled three air beds out of the closet and called it …” a sort of Brian Chesky tells his story about Airbnb.

Making the people curious and wonder is one thing, you also have to differentiate yourself from the competitors. Do not just tell them that your product or service is ten times better, tell a lifesaving story where people can see themselves.
Once again, PR is about network, so get connected to the people around you who have the power to influence certain blogs, magazines or twitter and develop your network to come to light in public.
If you think you can’t handle this or you are not the networker, try to find a co-founder who fits this position or get a PR firm.

“Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like”
Brian Chesky

Here we are again on the frequently –probably- most asked questions when talking about startups: “How do I get started?” & “How to raise money?”

It seems like the lectures start to repeat themselves, but these are the starting points most first-time entrepreneurs are struggling with. However the lessons learned are:
Keep things easy and manual as long as possible, e.g. have a simple landing page for your business where people can see what you offer and how they can reach you. Stay in contact with your first customers and make them happy, build a relationship and listen to them!

They are worth more than millions of page likes, because they know your business and how you might improve things. As I mentioned in the blog post last week, these are tasks, which don’t scale in the first place. The value of a relationship is not scalable.


Concerning the topic raising money for your venture, I’d like to keep it as short as possible.
Bootstrap as long as possible and avoid unnecessary capital from people you don’t know.
With every Dollar you get you share or sell equity. That simply means pressure on your shoulders. The more people get involved the more effort for you, because they are interested in the process, reports, status and how their money is doing – basically the whole business! In addition, remember you are running a marathon not a sprint…

In the end, I just want to share one statement with you which I found inspiring. Many successful entrepreneurs and business people talk about it and everybody got this feeling already in his life. Some more, some less. Maybe this talk helps you to find yourself closer to the ‘more’ part:
Getting lucky is a skill!

„Do you know what is so special about this place? Almost the entire country is on Facebook!” Bala Kamallakharan

“How to build products users love – when you don’t have any money!”

&

“Doing things that don’t scale  – while thinking internationally!”

These were the two main statements of our latest lecture. Guest Lecture by Haukur Gudjonsson,

Founder of Bungalo.com and self-proclaimed “Viking Entrepreneur”. 

The startup Bungalo.com is probably one of the best examples when talking about building something from scratch. Haukur launched his company around the same time as Airbnb and both focus on “a house renting platform”. The substantial difference is the valuation which is probably related to the location of the company’s launch. Airbnb was founded in the Valley, full of entrepreneurial knowledge, incubators, high potential growth rates for startups and of course a lot of venture capital. The other one was launched in faraway Iceland, not very famous for its startup scene , barely experienced people in the venture business and not to mention no capital for these crazy ideas.

However, Haukur was smart and travelled to the US and Canada to explore the startup culture and learn about tools he could use. He got support from other experienced entrepreneurs so that he was even more motivated and focused on his project when he returned to Iceland.

“Wherever you see big problems, you’ll find opportunities for companies to improve it!”

Airbnb is a huge competitor, so he set his focus on places Airbnb would not go for. Remote places, bungalows in the middle of nowhere for people who like silence, natural landscape, being away from city life and mainstream places. Locations where you could meet the real locals and enjoy your vacation with family and friends. It took him a couple of years but he was persistent, believed in his startup. He learned programming within 3 months because he could not raise the money for an IT employee or web-designer. He took matters into his hands, started calling owners of a bungalows and asked them to join his project. He used Facebook as a marketing and feedback channel for customers.

He mentioned several times that you actually do not need money to launch your idea.

 “Just do it!”

was the lesson learned again! Grab the chance of the internet to connect with other experienced people, go to meetups  to ask for advice, work in co-working areas to meet other entrepreneurs or go to the Valley if you have the opportunity!

An inspiring lecture by Haukur with just one thing that was thought-provoking. When I asked him whether he would accept a takeover bid of let’s say $3 m he simply said “Yes!”. You probably ask yourself: Why not? Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snapshat, rejected a $3 BILLION offer from Facebook. Think about it and have a look at the interview with Bloomberg ;)

In the second half of the lecture, Bala talked about his vision of Iceland - a unique place on earth where you can test things in a way you could do nowhere else on this planet!

His post and the whole blog gave a new perspective on things by the end of 2011 for many entrepreneurs and interested people. He opened a door for visionaries who saw the future and believed in something. He couldn’t really quantify the outcome of his posts. Of course, he measured click rates and views on his blog. However, he did not get any revenues out of the post but he keeps doing it. His aim is to build sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems in Iceland, providing a platform where people get support in form of mentoring and Venture Capital - simply something people were looking for!

He created a yearly event next to his blog which he describes as “A Woodstock For Startups”! Or in Paul Graham’s words:

“The recipe for great work is: very exactingtaste, plus the ability to gratify it."