Headworx

Talking about startups, in the entrepreneurship series I covered five aspects so far: The mindset of the entrepreneur The importance of the team The risks and how to mitigate them The focus on quality Research / development and support as an alternative to marketing and sales Today I want to talk about a vision. Looking at the list above, it should have probably been before the number 1. Because very often even before the entrepreneur makes the "go" decision, there is a vision she / he has. The vision has to be radical. Stretching far into the future. The further it reaches, the more time you have to make the "go" decision, to assemble the right team, to address the risks, to have time to focus on quality and build proper support structures. A far reaching vision can be identified when you tell it to people and they keep on saying "there is no market for this". I love that moment. Because this means there is not much competition. Yet. And we...

The debate among users of the leading mobile operating systems seems to revolve around what is not the real center of gravity. Everybody talks about apps and application ecosystems. iOS has this and Android has that and Blackberry is falling behind and Microsoft... Apps are important. But far more important is the Cloud behind them. Users of the iOS 6 Apple Maps learned this hard way. And when I think "the Cloud behind", the winner is obvious. Google's strength is exposed to the limits in the Google Now app, which is a standard component of the "Jelly Bean" Android 4.1. The Now seems innocent, or even invisible, in the beginning. And then in a very subtle, yet jaw-dropping style it starts augmenting the mobile moments. My Google Now arrived with the Galaxy Note II a few weeks ago. I have got used to the traffic jam notifications and ETA (estimated time of arrival) Google Now offers me every morning and every afternoon. But this week I went on a short on...

Today the blog is about R&D versus marketing and the advantage of creating technology versus creating a product. The classic startup school says: build a product and plan a decent marketing budget. You will be judged by the conversion rate and the number of returning customers. Well. This is true. But there are alternative ways to be successful. We have, at wiho.me , opted to stay invisible. No web site (just the teaser). No marketing budget. 90% costs in R&D. And support. We do not make apps. We even do not make products. We make our customers' products better. We were not sure about this strategy at the beginning, but now it shapes very effective. Access to the market is very expensive for startups. Because the market is crowded and you have to pay a lot to be seen or heard. On the other hand there are many big market players whose products are aging. Well known and established brands with no wildcards left in their pockets. Do you know why big companies rarely ...

It has been only 10 months since I became a proud owner of the Samsung Galaxy Note . The Note has been a mobile breakthrough for me, as I stopped using any tablets and I stopped complaining on mobile phones. The Note had it all. It has been my only everyday computing device beside the faithful Lenovo laptop. I still have a number of iPads, iPhones, Nexuses and other mobile computing gadgets, but they are for professional reasons, mainly to test the concepts and applications we develop at wiho.me. I was not sure I wanted to upgrade to the just released Note II. But then I saw this video , which gave me no room to negotiate. So I upgraded. It has been only a few days now with the II and I've yet to use the multiview and pen. But the upgrade has proven to be worth every cent. There are two reasons for that: one is the new hardware from Samsung and second is the Android 4.1 from Google. I even have the version 4.1.1, which has all the features of the 4.2 , except the Photo Sphere cam...

The Microsoft's empire peaked a couple of years ago, but last week it has started collapsing. Windows 8 together with the Windows RT and the glorified Surface tablets are the evidence. It is unbelievable, but the bundle is a complete self-ingited disaster. For consumers the reason to stay with Windows has been the backwards compatibility. Which has just been broken now. Windows 8 is no longer compatible with the previous versions of Windows. Whoever is presented with the Windows 8 start screen is immediately lost and confused. No desktop. Just tiles. And when they find the "desktop" tile, they get the desktop without the Start button. Try it for yourself and experience the feeling. For many Windows users it is now easier to move to MacOS or ChromeOS than to move to the Windows 8. Or even better to stay with Windows 7. Which is the reason consumers will reject the 8. Windows RT goes even further in breaking the backwards compatibility. Nothing works there. Literal...

My previous posts on startups were focused on people and the organization. Now let us move towards the products. Creating a startup always is about creating a better product. And again it can be a better iPhone or just a better corner grocery store. The scale does not matter, but the goal is to find customers willing to spend money. Therefore what is delivered must appeal to them either on a global or a local base. So how do we create a better product? Of course it starts with an idea. Which again does not have to be revolutionary. A corner shop almost never is revolutionary but can be very successful. When? When it delivers to the customers a value they are willing to pay for. And not just once. Customers must be willing to return. Or recommend you to the others. This is possible only when they see a true value in your product. So how do you create a product that has value? It starts with a mindset. Your own and the mindset of the team. The mindset to create, build and deliver s...

The Web vs Apps dilemma keeps on rolling. It started with the iPhone1, which opened the idea of an "App", as we understand it today. Then we started comparing platforms by counting the number of available apps: iOS had this and Android had that and Blackberry had only this... Then HTML5 has come along and many (including myself) believed Apps were going to die because they would soon be replaced by new powerful Web technologies. Then Facebook announced the HTML5 decision was the worst they ever made. So where is the future? In the Web or in Apps? Here is my opinion based on the work we have done at WiHo.me : Apps will die and will be replaced by the Web technologies known as HTML5. And at the same time Apps will live and will not be replaced by the Web technologies known as HTML5. Confused? Keep on reading. The first statement: Apps will die and will be replaced by HTML5 applies to desktop computing. There are less and less dedicated, so called "rich client"...