The winners of venture leaders 2015 are already a few days in the US. This is an exciting and an important time for the entrepreneurs. But what is happening in Boston and New York during this trip? Dennis Just, CEO of Knip, shares his diary with us – exclusively released at Startwerk. If you missed the first part, you’ll find it here. Dennis, take it away:
We had tough two days at the beginning of our business development trip. Being jetlagged and having jam-packed calendars and crazy people around you with amazing energy results in joy, fulfilling conversations, long nights and dark eye rims.
Dennis Just, CEO of Knip
But the main focus in the first days was on understanding entrepreneurship the US way and get a grasp of legal differences to our central European systems. We still found some time to explore Boston by jogging along the Charles river and sailing around the historic harbor. Feels like a real team here already!
My personal main take-aways of the first two days in the US:
It is a tremendous market with a high mobile adoption and people that love to try out new things. As long as you have the right product for the right customer – you will be successful. Do not get blinded by the comments you get. Everything is amazing, so great and awesome at first, and in the end, people do not respond to your follow-up mail. Reflect the conversation, divide everything that is said by three, and you know what will really happen.
The venture leaders participants during a small break.
The legal system is just so different from what we know and how we interact in Switzerland and Germany. The US has more lawyers than engineers – for a reason. To sue people and force an out-of-court settlement is a common thing.
«Harvard and Cambridge are where the supermen and superwomen study. You will never reach their level. They build the new Facebooks.» That is just a dumb statement and a misbelief. People here face the same challenges, and they also put on their trousers one leg at a time. If you want to build an amazing business, you can do it wherever you want with any type of background.
One more sidetone to all startup founders: If you build the right team around you, it just does not matter if you are in the office or not. Things are developing without you – maybe even better when people feel responsible.
Cheers,
Dennis
