Yesterday I had the honor to participate in the Danish Programme “De 6 Hatte”. (The Six Thinking Hats). The concept is that every week an entrepreneur pitches his/her business idea and then 3 topnotch businesspeople/VC’s analyzes it based on the 6 thinking hats-theory.
And how did it go ? Well, after having worked as a doctor for so many years where you are supposed to have all the answers right at all time – it was a whole new experience to be toasted on national radio… 
But I loved every part of it !
Even for the all the critical remarks which I reckoned for the most parts were all right but for other parts must say were caused by misunderstandings regarding our product. I believe the programme might have brought lights to some parts of our concept but then again caused confusion about some other parts. It’s like trying to explain people what a phone is, before it has been experienced. Yes, videochat exists, Yes we are based on videochat – but the eco-system we are building points toward a revolutionizing whole new never-before-seen Internet experience.
The experience did however made it crystal clear that you sometimes have to be able to distinguish clearly between what you build and how you plan to monetize on it – and be 100 % sure WHAT you tell WHO – WHEN. In the end I am really thankfull for this great opportunity to get high quality feedback on Chatterbay – I noticed to my great satisfaction that the VC’s bought the global vision we have – they were just pretty worried about HOW we plan to get there. Nikolaj Nyholm - in my opinion one of the coolest internet anti-hero types alive – did in fact really boost my self-confidence by telling me that he believe I’m up for the struggles we are heading against… And thanks also to Ulla Brockenhuus-Schack for noticing the global potential we have. We can’t wait to show you what great stuff we have in store.
Thats it for now. Stay tuned. C-Day is getting nearer.
Btw: have all of you guys remembered to sign up as a betatester on chatterbay.com – if not, then get your a.. in there !!!
PS: Know any good flashdeveloper who wants to join our team ? Then poke him and tell him to write us an email on jobs@chatterbay.com.
Hi all.
We are excited to let you guys know, that we are getting ALOT closer to the beta launch…
Please buckle up and stay tuned…
For all you guys out there who may think we have forgotten you – that is certainly not the case!!
Our developers are really working hard to correct the bugs and finalizing every small detail so you guys can get the best user experience when we open up…
At the same time we are building some really cool relationships with some interesting companies, that can add up and fulfill the whole Chatterbay experience. Already we can say, that some of the things you’ll be able to do on our site is some amazing never-before-stuff on the Internet.
Among other things we have invented the worlds first “Get more Customers”-button! :)
It’s been a while since our last post. I had a new member in the family and things are finally settling in our now 4 member big family. The little guy is behaving well and sleeps at night, so no big worries…
For Chatterbay things are moving even more rapidly in the right direction! The biggest step forward actually happened last week with Facebook introducing Skype-based videocalls inside the browser. When 750 mio. people begin to interact face to face videochatting truly becomes an even more common way of online interaction. And when this trend spreads out to the rest of the Internet – that’s exactly where Chatterbay steps in and fill the void with our new, unprecedented and disruptive take on videocommunication…
Our participation in the IBM Accelerator programme also started last week. We had a meeting with some very nice IBM-execs to determine our progress so far and how IBM can step in and help us. A very promising process that we expect a lot good stuff from! In the last couple of weeks we’ve also had some interesting meetings with a lot of cool companies who seems impressed with our concept.
Last, we are getting near our closed beta test. So if you haven’t signed up yet as a the beta tester please do so on signup.chatterbay.com ASAP!
We are riding on a wave… Interesting calls, mails and SMS’es ticking in at a rapid pace.
The next couple of weeks are sure going to be fun!
Chatterbay is also soon to get a little Chatterbaby, so stay tuned.
Yesterday me and Andreas went to the IBM Global Entrepreneur Program to present and give the very first demo of the Chatterbay concept including the betaversion of our website ever!
We had the privilege to meet and demo in front of Danish investors, mentors, other entrepreneurs and some prominent IBM-representatives. We were luckily well prepared from last weeks trip to Sillicon Valley and felt really on top of it all. The demonstrations went smooth, but sometimes it’s pretty hard to explain what it really is that we’ve created! Because Chatterbay is not just a product – it’s actually internet communication re-invented! It must have felt the same way trying to explain people about the telephone for the very first time – if you explain it as a communication tool that can be used to call your family, theres the danger of people not understanding what impact it can have on communication between people in general.
We often get questions from people about the comparison made in Børsen Digital between us and Skype. Well we definitely share the level of ambitions but actually Skype is nothing more than a phone on the Internet connecting people that already know each other. We are in fact a lot more than that.
Long story short: we got selected for the special 100 Days IBM Accelerator Program that’ll speed up our go-to-market and launch. We are aiming for the Techcrunch Disrupt in San Francisco if everything goes our way. The words about us were: “…the most disruptive potential globally, visionary, fits right into the tendency of empowering social platforms…” (!) Well – we bow humbly and will do our best to unleash that potential… As a sideeffect the networking yesterday has shaken up some VC’s and we are really starting to show up on peoples radars…
We can’t wait to show you what we have in store for you in a couple of months !!
We’re sitting here in San Francisco Airport waiting for our plane.
This has been one of the most inspiring, intense, mindblowing and eye-opening experiences ever. Because of this week we have reached a milestone in our little companys history: we have determined the first and most important step on the road to world domination.
Moreover our ambitions have been calibrated and finetuned: We can actually become as big as any other company in the world – it just takes the required effort!
Having people with multimillion dollar-businesses tell us that we have a product with an outstanding potential ensures us that we are on to something really big. Of course comments like the one in the blogtitle were also heard because of our ambition level and what we would try to accomplish.
But I think that even if you are walking in the mud you should be looking at the stars…
Day 4.
The last 2 days have been crazy! Tuesday we were pretty tired from a long day on the SV Launch-event. There we saw Guy Kawasakis fascinating speech on Enchantment.
Afterwards we went on to an evening with pitch-sessions with some really cool advisors who gave us some astounding feedback on our product and very usefull suggestions to improve our pitch.The 1-minute pitch were to be used for an invite-only pitch-event yesterday evening at the Startup Mansion with some of the main Venture Capitalist in the Valley. I made my pitch in front of a 50 people audience a bit nervous and probably talked a bit too much. But we had a tremendous response and made some very interesting talks afterwards. People say: You guys are definately on to something big! It was very inspiring and we really learned alot.
Today we are getting the last polishing on our pitch to be used for an event tonight in San Fransisco with already >100 people signed up at the I/O Ventures.
Before that we will be going to one of the highlists in this week: A visit at Googles headquarter !!!!
We had a fantastic day yesterday meeting some really awesome people breaking it all down for us:
Long=Lazy
Brief=Hard
and: Entrepeneurs are artists.
We arrived yesterday at San Francisco Airport at 16.00 after a very long flight from Frankfurt. On the way we had a nice talk with a cool Swedish guy setting next to us about our concept and the trip.
It is really nice that no matter who we explain our core concept to they seem to instantly get the idea and start imagining themselves use our product. That must definitely be a good sign! The trip over here was spent rehearsing the elevator pitch and create some more wireframes for the Chatterbay landing page – and we can’t wait to show it to you guys – its really gonna blow with some never-before-seen on the internet features!!
In the airport we met John (Letfarm.dk) also from the scaleit-project, with whom we shared a cab to our nice little hotel in Palo Alto, Hotel Cardinal.
Having been awake for 25 hours began showing so after a quick nice evening meal on a typical American diner we went directly to our hotel room and crashed the beds, unfortunately unable to join the other scaleit-guys on a nearby sportsbar.
Jetlagged sleep, but after having a nice breakfast today, where we met some more scale-it guys we went to the Great Mall with some of the other Danes shopping the American Way!!!
The promo package is packed and we are constantly sharpening our pitch, so we can be ready for tomorrow, where we among other things are going to Steve Blank’s private ranch !!!
See you tomorrow! Please leave a comment if you wish.
