Category: Ecosystems

Quick update: Taking on a new challenge in the fintech industry

It has been exciting 2 years at the helm of my startup incubator Stark Founders. Without doubt this has been the most rewarding but also dynamic part of my life. Must admit my previous 3 year tenure at Rocket Internet has prepared me well for this rollercoaster as some of you might know. 🙂

Looking back, I have extended my understanding of technology and business ecosystems, venture capital, business modeling and marketing with focus on B2B/B2C cloud based products, IoT and nearshoring outsourcing. I can say for sure that what I loved the most were the entrepreneurial minded tireless people I met on the way.

Several companies later (including one exit), it was time for a change. Me being me – why not experience a whole new industry? Since few months I am part of the amazing CrossLend team sitting in the futuristic Sony Center at the heart of entrepreneurial Berlin.

So what do we do?

Undoubtedly money is the rocket fuel for business growth. Lending in the form of SME, mortgage or consumer loans is an essential vehicle to maintain consumption of goods and services. CrossLend provides a solution to redefine the lending economy as we know it for both consumers and business. With its unique securitization service it allows to convert loans into bonds and thus gives investors access to asset classes unavailable before while enabling financial institutions to grant more loans.

Unequivocally identified as a truly innovative company, I am really happy to be leading the digital effort at CrossLend. And for those who want to join our amazing technology team feel free to apply through our careers site. We are looking to grow our team of product managers and engineers with financial services background.

PUBLISHED ON Posted on in Categories Ecosystems, News, Stark Founders
Tags , , , ,

Technology Series – The opening of Gigafactory 1 surfaced some impressive facts about this engineering wonder

So what is the Tesla Gigafactory besides clearly being a factory?

As its name implies, Gigafactory is an insanely big factory (actually is going to become a lot bigger), and it will produce batteries for the electric vehicles of Tesla Motors. That is not surprising considering the massive volume of around 500 000 vehicles per year that Tesla wants to produce towards end of the decade. This ambition is steered by Tesla’s mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy and to achieve that goal, Tesla wants to produce electric vehicles in sufficient volume to force change in the automobile industry. This apparently was not feasible to do using existing battery manufacturers so the true entrepreneur he is, Elon Musk decided to build his own factory. In his own words Elon said: “It has to be big, because the world is big”.

And while the plan was announced in 2014, last month the first part of the factory had its grand opening! The event emerged quickly in the press but then somehow got lost in all that sports events and probably holidays rolling out. For those of you who want to enjoy the video of the grand opening, here you go. Below I have put some interesting facts announced during the event.

  • The Gigafactory will be powered by renewable energy sources, with the goal of achieving net zero energy.
  • The factory current size is just 14% of its planned size. This article gives a good idea of construction progress with new sites starting already.
  • When complete, 93 Boeing 747 jets would fit inside, or in other terms 50 billion hamsters. 🙂
  • Design improvements allowed to increase initial battery production capacity per year from 50 GWh to 150 GWh.
  • When the factory is complete it will produce a higher amount of lithium-ion batteries than the world produced in 2014. And Tesla wants to build several of these factories.
  • In order to fit the maximum machinery in the factory and increase production speed, the engineering teams had to reinvent the battery production process.
  • The result: the factory strongly resembles a modular integrated circuit and claims a 5-10x increase in production capability. In Elon’s words: “… revitalising manufacturing”.
PUBLISHED ON Posted on in Categories Ecosystems, Events, News
Tags ,

Technology Series – Is Ruby dying?

For those not into programming Ruby is a programming language. Ruby on Rails is a software library that extends Ruby and contributed hugely to its stellar adoption.

Many famous platforms are based on Ruby – Airbnb, Twitter, Basecamp, Kickstarter. Ruby programmers are probably the most tightly knit community of all programmers. But what is actually happening with Ruby.

There have been plenty discussions on the topic but they have intensified since 2015. If we discard the opinions of the hardcore proponents and opponents, it seems that there may be some sentiment in the direction, why would otherwise so many developers be asking this question.

Some arguments are based on counting the internet searches for each language, others on repository counters (repositories is where the programming code is kept), third on more or less established indexes.

Rankings
I actually looked at the popularity index TIOBE. Although it clearly shows that Ruby spiked in 2009, and then gradually faded away, it re-captured some positions in 2016.

Tiobe index ruby

A striking fact though is the adoption of Ruby is way under Python, PHP and Javascript, and ranks just above Delphi/Objective Pascal. If you do not believe me, check the ranking. That was quite a surprise for me.

Tiobe index of programming languages

No longer the new kid on the block
Besides, many of the comments I read point out Ruby is no longer the new kid on the block. So in a way it has lost some of its initial momentum, and that tendency is not being helped by the surge of interest for Python and Node.js software development.

Availability
May be the worst part is that good Ruby developers are hard to find and when you find them they are already working on an exciting project.

High cost
When you snatch a top notch guy, it usually comes with high price tag. Although many new business consider RoR as their first option, the cost combined with lack of available developers, makes them consider other options soon after.

Bottom line
I do not want to sound like I agree with such a strong statement but I see indications pointing to a decline. In my humble opinion, this is mostly thanks to the maturity of PHP and Javascript that bring a horde of skilled developers plus fast and feature rich frameworks. Still, many languages and frameworks have managed to recover and build on their community and the Ruby one is probably the best of all. Also no language dies out suddenly, especially with such a substantial codebase and famous companies using it.

If you happen to be into programming, what do you think?

PUBLISHED ON Posted on in Categories Ecosystems, Random Thoughts
Tags , , , ,

Entrepreneurship Series – Featuring Rustem and his Robo Wunderkind

I came upon something truly inspiring. As usual I check few interesting startups each week. Lately I do it mostly in the IoT, B2B SaaS and Ecommerce/marketplaces space. It is not easy, with all the rest going on, so is really a matter of discipline to stay relevant and follow the trends.

During one of these sessions I met Rustem. This guy told me his story and it blew my mind.

Rustem and his team built this (see picture below).

robo wunderkind

Simply said, Robo Wunderkind is a robotics kit that allows you to build your own robot, so that kids also pick up basic coding skills along the way.

It is essentially a set of blocks which you can use to build all kinds of functional robots. Connecting the cubes is as simple as putting building blocks together — there is no wire or magnet.

robo wunderkind bricks

Then comes the 2nd fun factor. Kids can learn how to code by playing with the app’s visual programming interface which is super intuitive: kids with no previous exposure to coding will easily figure out how to program in the app.

robo wunderkind app

Here are some things that Robo Wunderkind can do:

  • drive around while avoiding obstacles
  • play a recorded sound when somebody enters the room
  • react to claps and other noises
  • play music when somebody picks it up
  • record and play voice messages
  • …and much, much more!

The idea was born end of 2013.

first robo wunderkind prototype

After building his prototype and putting his star team together, Rustem and Anna did something unexpected.

In 2014 they moved to Shenzhen, China to pursue their dream. There they learned all around hardware manufacturing.

That took a year and it mid 2015 came their Kickstarter campaign. Which ended up raising more than 3x the amount initially planned.

In this month, July 2016, almost 3 years after the idea was born and a ton of awards and pitches later, Rustem and team will start delivering their product to their 1 169 backers.

In simple words entrepreneurship is about dedication, patience and believe in what you do, and Robo Wunderkind is a true example of what it takes.

Go Robo Wunderkind Team!

 

PUBLISHED ON Posted on in Categories Ecosystems, Fundraising, News
Tags ,

First reads for 2016

It has been busy two months of the new year so my compilation of reads comes relatively late. Hope you will discover something  interesting for you too:

Enjoy the reads!

PUBLISHED ON Posted on in Categories Ecosystems, Fundraising, Hall of Shame, Mentoring, News, Random Thoughts
Tags ,