Rational Idealist

Being the head of a social group simply happens to some people. They are silently voted into the function, because of a number of ‘right’ moves in the everyday operations.
These right moves are simply about keeping their head clear at any time, even when the others freak out. Everyone wants someone to comfort them, except the leader, who doesn’t need it, since she simply doesn’t feel threatened by the world. So the art of leadership is mainly about staying rational no matter what.
Collateral damage of being the only one to act sober is to be the only one to make decisions. Even when you don’t really know the right path, others will force you with their big puppy eyes. It is thus imperative to have incredibly good hunch for advice, to know who to trust and when to change course, even if it isn’t obvious. Knowing when to be irrational and stick to some weird gut feeling means more than half of the successful leadership.
I guess it’s about following the intuition when setting the course and obeying the reason when walking up that road, is actually how the human was meant to behave in the wild. Call it fear, hope, wishfull thinking or anything else, the sense of every action remains emotinal, even when the reasons are obvious.

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Running a company, especially a young startup is exactly like cooking. You need to be hard when cutting, tender when stirring, gentle when decorating, subtle with combining ingredients, and most important, you must never think about what you are doing.
In fact, running a young startup is all about cooking and food. Geeks tend to be hyperproductive, so they are likely to avoid other substances and distractions, but they know their food. We all know about the famous Google Chef, recentl I was attending a lecture by the Last.FM guys, who confirmed that the main ingredient of their success have been the lunches they provided their developers in the rough times.
We are currently running on a tight budget aswell, but we still have our Chief Chef and an endless suply of Jaffa Cakes. As long as the spirits are high, the code is compiling.

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I am what the world calles ‘serial blogger’. My previous blog has been hijacked by a specific class of readers, so this is my next exile.

It is interesting, how limiting the awareness about the crowd that is reading can be, but it is great that the internet allows to seamlessly run several separate personalities. In the old world, situations like these could cause interesting personal problems and paranoia, while now I can live m different lives, with different friends, and only some of them span accross my personallities.

Of course this means, that we are all constantly living in a dream, an artificial social space, relying heavily on image and representation. But at least we are sane. Maybe.

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Rezultat zadnjega tedna je neverjetno velik kup novih vizitk in hripavost od govorjenja in pomanjkanja spanja. Ampak je bilo vredno.
Poleteli smo do Berlina obiskat najpomembnejÅ¡o konferenco o spletnih tehnologijah v Evropi. Po manjÅ¡em razočaranju nad konferenco FOWA prejÅ¡nji mesec sem bil precej skeptičen do smiselnosti izgubljanja časa, a sem se motil. Tako koristne konference Å¡e nikdar nisem obiskal, deloma tudi zato, ker mi je v sedanji situaciji lahko bila koristna. Se je bilo treba pa tudi precej potruditi zato…Z juretom sva bila tam ves čas, AleÅ¡ in Andraž sta se pridružila v naslednjih dneh.
Z Juretom sva optimistično odÅ¡la od doma 3 ure pred letom, torej ob 530 zjutraj v ponedeljek. Seveda se je pokvaril eden od vlakov, ravno ko bi morala prestopiti. “Hm, zanimivo, zdaj se bo trebap a hitro nekaj odločit,” sva ugotovila, in tekla iskat taxi, kar se je izkazalo za odlično izbiro. Nauk: v velikih mestih so taksiji boljÅ¡a izbira od vseh javnih prevozov. Dostavil naju je pred vrata perona, odkoder sva tekla po tekočih stopnicah in ravno ujela vlak za letališče, kjer sva imela Å¡e 40 minut časa za prijavo na let. Seveda je bila gneča, seveda je bila vrsta pred rentgeni večja od celega Ljubljanskega letališča, seveda sva srečevala napačne usmerjevalne table, a se nisva pustila motit in sva si raje privoščila zajtrk. In potem spet tekla na letalo. *sigh*
Kakorkoli, v Berlinu sva šla z letala neposredno na konferenco, ker sem moral na predstavitvi Seedcampa povedati našo zgodbo. Jako zabavno je bilo gledat nabito polno dvorano mladih nadobudnih poslovnežev in starejših zdolgočasenih investitorjev. Sploh je bilo zabavno ko je moderator pozval pričujoče investitorje, torej ljudi ki imajo na voljo največje kupe denarja v Evropi, da vstanejo, se predstavijo, in pridejo pred oder. To je bilo nedogovorjeno, a vsi po vrsti so na migljaj prsta ubogali. Nato so nas zbrani podjetniki plaho osebno nagovarjli s svojimi idejami in težavami. Hecno.
Preostanek konference je minil ob poslušanju inspirativnih predavanj, kafetkanju s partnerji, mentorji in uporabniki, recimo kakih 20 vsak dan. Zvečer pa seveda organizirane zabave:
Prvi dan smo bili s Seedcampom povabljeni na večerjo v eni najdražjih restavracij v Berlinu. Drugi dan tipična poslovna zabava z razgledom in neumornim menjavanjem vizitk. Tretji dan smo šli sami na večerjo in pod novimi vtisi pretresali prihodnost podjetja. Zdi se svetla.
V četrtek zjutraj sva z AleÅ¡em odletela v Zagreb in od tam domov. Zanimivo je bilo opazovat ‘those little differences’ – sedaj se počutim v Angliji že skoraj udobno, tako da me je dejansko zmotilo, ko se ljudje na Berlinski konktroli potnih listov niso znali postaviti v popolno vrsto. O ZagrebÅ¡ki ne bi zgubljal besed… Je bilo pa vseeno lepo pristati v Berlinu, na kontinentu, in zdelo se nama je, kot da so tla res bolj trdna. Na sploh nam ves teden ni zmanjkalo Å¡al na temo čudnih kontinentalcev in otočanov. Sedaj ko delujemo v vmesnem prostoru se zdi oboje enako blizu in daleč hkrati.
No, v Ljubljani sem si privoščil eno izkuÅ¡njo svojega starega življenja, skrčeno v dva dneva – frizer, shopping, kavice, vsi prijatelji, žuri… Prijateljica je celo premaknila odhod v tujino za pol dneva, da sva se ujela na klepet, prijatelj pa je priÅ¡el pol dneva prej iz Maribora. Vsem ki sem vas srečal in tole preberete, rad vas imam!

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V sredo smo hodili po nabasani Oxford Street sredi dneva in iskali Apple Store. Poklical sem prijateljico v Ljubljani in kot običajno povpraÅ¡al kaj se dogaja. Za trenutek me je popolnoma Å¡okiral odgovor ‘ma tu se po enih gozdovih sprehajamo’. Kako, sredi delovnega tedna? Ja seveda, v Londonu je bil delovni dan. In četrtek tudi. In oba dneva smo cel dan preživeli na sestankih in cel večer pred zasloni. Pa Å¡e petek za nameček.

Po drugi strani, kar smo delali je pa tudi nam dalo razloge za praznovanje. Imeli smo zelo pomembno predstavitev pred vsemi investitorji in dobili zelo dobre odzive. Zanimivo je bilo tudi, da smo bili edina ekipa, ki nam je demo delal brez napake; in to kljub temu, da smo ga dokončali šele pol ure pred nastopom.

Po tem doseženem miljnem kamnu smo spet dva dni bolj sproščeni ‘delali’, večino časa kaj nekoristnega, danes se je pa že nabrala ‘kreativna nervoza’, tako da gremo s polno paro naprej! V Berlin! 😉