Igår var det värsta trafikkaoset utanför kontoret pga alla avspärrningar i stan. 20 år sedan Berlinmurens fall och man kan förstå vilka minnen det väcker för många här. Den nyuppbyggda symboliska muren av stora dominobrickor som vältes igår tyckte jag var en skön symbolik.
Det är roligt och smått fascinerande att höra berättelser från min sambo och hennes familj kring känslan av att få åka över till andra sidan, ta emot en liten summa pengar (tror alla östtyskar fick 50dmark oavsett ålder), åka över i varje familjs stolthet Trabanten och shoppa upp deras första västtyska pengar. En barbiedocka och ett tetrisspel inhandlades och baserat på att jag får storstryk i tetris av min sambo så var det ett välanvänt spel.
It feels like a thing built on lies and promises, but it works, somehow it does.
Not a quote from a “great thinker” but picked up from popular fiction writer Conn Iggulden when he’s trying to capture the feeling of how nomad tribe leader Ghengis Khan looks upon gold and how it powered the arab empire and its cities. Gold at that time must really have been the most useless piece of metal you could imagine its value only represented in the labour it took to dig it up.
A few hours ago the first customers picked out their packages from Bytelove Inc, the new US subsidiary of Bytelove AB. This would be the end (or beginning not sure) of a project we started a few months ago.
Bytelove Inc is not just a new shop under another judicial person but a whole new way of working for us that we will probably implement in part also for the EU in the coming months. Some points:
Magento Commerce: New e-commerce platform, yes we are leaving cubecart behind since it never really worked to run with a multistore/language setup anyway. The new store runs our first version of Magento (and no Magento is certainly far from bugfree).
Accounting: Going over to accrual basis accounting together with tighter integration of the Bytelove processes and our accounting program (quickbooks, 99USD hahaha) enables us to work faster and get more exact reporting plus minimizing errors.
Outsourced logistics: All fulfillment is done by an external partner, it is more expensive but it takes away much of the boring part of the business plus it actually force us to build better processes (so I actually think we save money in the long run). The fact that our partner has an excellent api also helps :).
So far we’ve succesfully fulfilled a bit over 150 orders and counting … this was by far the funniest project I’ve done so far this year …
After a certain trial the debate regarding a free vs controlled net has pretty much exploded here in Germany. Here the front cover from Der Spiegel nr 33.
That’s kind of funny, I assume many of the cars was taken from businesses who will now have it even harder to make money and repay their loans. So now Swedbank is sitting with a bunch of cars which are less than easy to sell in the current market, not what I’d call a win win situation :D.
Bootstraplabs run by Nicolai opened its doors a few months ago. Bootstraplabs offers companies a cost effective way to establish themselves in the valley and to accelarate their business.
Currently some companies using the service are:
Prezi: Trying to innovate slidepresentations, you have to see this :).
Summertime, especially July, means that things start going a bit slowly in the online and e-commerce world. Some fun stuff happening/found lately though:
Betreut: Steffen continues to kill in the baby sitting area, now extending to all kinds of services such as dog sitting (tierbetreuung). More lame Swedish version would be Grannar (supported by lots of old media but still doesn’t manage to push through).
DTG: Swedish Direct to Garment king Peter got into a pretty nasty accident a few months ago, when you run a business this is the kind of thing you are always scared to death about, hope it didn’t hurt Peters business to much and I’m sure we’re gonna see more DTG shirts around the stores in Sweden soon :).
Inredning: Dan, aka throwing up 2 sites a day maniac, just realesed his new shop Inredning. Needs more new unique products but I’m sure its gonna find its focus in the coming months grossing millions a month in a year ;).
OnlinePizza: There’s been a lot of talk about Pizza lately, looking at the German Pizza.de these guys are on to something good. What I love about the Swedish service is that you also pay online!
Rumplo: Just an absolutely great T-Shirt shopping portal, be sure to check out one of its sponsors, LaFraise.
Zappos: Nothing new I’m just wondering why ppl start talking about it so much right now, Zappos been around for looooong, maybe the CEOs appreance in US show The Apprentice could have something todo with it.
… this was by far the funniest project I’ve done so far this year …
