SIME

It took me a while to get the video online; I'm currently here in the Finnish countryside, barely within the reach of the interwebz (and the trip isn't on my Dopplr, shame on me!). Converting the video from an "obscure digicamera format" into something that is reasonably sized and compliant with online video services took a while.

But here it is: Fruugo's presentation and interview from SIME08. Janne Waltonen of Fruugo gives a talk, and then sits down with Ola Ahlvarsson for a brief interview.

Fruugo talk in SIME by Taneli for http://tane.li from Taneli Tikka on Vimeo.

If you have read all the interviews available concerning Fruugo, then there isn't that much additional substance offered in this video. There are a few bits and pieces of stuff thou. This Arctic Startup post from before the appearance on stage has most of the info:

http://www.arcticstartup.com/fruugo-to-arcticstartup-on-tomorrows-pr-lau...

Janne Waltonen doesn't launch a product or service, but rather talks about the upcoming launch, without showing any previews at this point. Audience is being asked to participate and get in touch - always a good idea. In this context the "witness the Fruugo launch" -headline was a bit off, but I'm sure it is being placed there by the conference instead of the company itself. Janne does a good job in mentioning right at the start that they don't actually launch anything right now.

One of the funniest answers to "do you online shop?" - question is "I think it's boring" ;) highlights one part of the existing problem for sure.

Ola also brings one good point to the table in the interview by saying that if somebody is a retailer that's selling only in a few countries, then Fruugo sounds like a rather good prop in expanding the market to additional areas. Certainly sounds like an opportunity many might go after.

Fruugo seems very careful in trying hard not to oversell and hype, but instead bring the expectations down and keep a cool head. I have the feeling that it won't be easy for them to pull all of that through. As Janne says on stage; it takes a lot to come up and build anything new in online shopping.

The startup I'm currently heading, www.runtoshop.com, is also in the online shopping space, more specifically in the social shopping space. We don't consider Fruugo to be a "head-on primary competitor", but then again we haven't seen what they have got "under the hood" yet. Sounds like the business models and concepts have a supporting fit for each other.

Looks like we (the public) still don't know much about Fruugo, and will have to wait until January'09. Then again that's only about 45 days away, not much of a wait, or is it?

After seeing the video, what do you think? Did they give a good impression, or was something amiss? How does the story continue from here?

I'm at SIME here in Stockholm. Day 1 over and done with. One of the best takeaways from the first day was seeing Morten Lund speak about angel investing, serial entrepreneurship and startups.

Pic: SIME poster in the movie theatre wall, taken with my iPhone.
Lovin' the title "Archangel Investor" there ;-)

You can probably get the presentation from someplace in the web later. However here's some of the stuff that he said:

- "I mostly f*ckup all the time"
- "you have to be prepared to f*ckup"
- "nobody wanted to invest in me" (said in an interview afterwards)
- You can't do this if you plan to do money, you do it because you have to do it, your nature drives you to do it. (can't remember the exact quote here")
- "5 guys can set up a global business nowdays"
- "It's crazy that you don't even have to be smart; you just have to DARE and that's enough to succeed"
- he has 10.000 readers in his blog (no idea about the timespan here?)
- he has invested in about 90 companies, founded many of them
- he just lost 40 million EUR (or something like it) in a media venture gone bad, about 2 months ago. Quote: "I was crying, self-pity"
- One of the key messages: "We don't have a f*cking clue" (repeated several times on where all of these ideas are coming from etc)
- Most important thing in succeeding as an entrepreneur: "gut feeling"
- Top 3 bullshit list: "it's all bullshit"
- and from about a year ago: What's really important? : "I think sex is really important".

Here's an interview of him, good stuff:

Morten Lund from SIME on Vimeo.

Now there's a whole lot in there that the VCs could learn from. How can a really successful investor talk 30+ minutes about investing without ever mentioning any of the same things that the VCs mention? It looked pretty easy - it's like Morten Lund is living in another world when compared to the VCs. I would argue that he IS doing just that, and succeeding because of it.

Altgate recently had an excellent post on why Venture Capital is broken, go check it out and think about it in comparison to what Morten is saying there:

http://www.altgate.com/blog/2008/11/venture-capital-is-broken.html

What else is going on in SIME then? Well this for example:

PIc: SIME poster about Fruugo in the movie theatre wall, taken with my iPhone.

Fruugo is going to be there on stage tomorrow. Perhaps not "telling all" but certainly telling more than they have up until now. I'll be there to cheer and clap them on!

www.muxlim.com has "did it again" first by being the star of the show at SIME Copenhagen and then winning the nomination for the SIME Awards in the category of "Best Internet Strategy".

Image: Mohamed El-Fatatry speaking at SIME Denmark
Source: the SIME blog at: http://blog.sime.nu/

And as you might remember Muxlim just recently won the World Summit Awards Nomination.

Muxlim is soon starting to be one of the most awarded new startups around in Finland. I think "they had it coming" and they certainly have some momentum building up. Gratz to the whole team, again!

There has been some enthusiastic tweets and blogposts about Muxlim's stardom in Denmark. Here's one by Mads Kristensen. He is saying:

There was one thing, I saw, which stuck with me: Muxlim.com - the worlds largest online community for muslims. Mohamed El-Fatatry, the founder of Muxlim Inc, gave an inspired talk about how they have created this big community for everything related to a muslim lifestyle.

It's nice to see some excellent buzz developing around Muxlim. The funny thing is that with a bit over 2 million monthly uniques Muxlim has just barely scratched the surface of their 500+ million strong market. So no need to go all like Alexander the Great: "When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer."