Discover Top Posts Tagged with #felix petersen

M&A-men? Tape.tv merges with Amen App

I was surprised to read this news in TechCrunch, but not so surprised to see it was written by editor at large, Mike Butcher who seems to cover many stories Amen related.

Amen was one of my first Berlin hipster startups that I evangelized. I gave myself the official job title and later hired as: CANDY, The Amen Evangelista or nicknamed by its community simply as CANDY TAE.

Amen has really surprised me how long they have managed to maintain themselves since 2011 until now, without a definitive business model and without active or reportable revenue.

They have pivoted, redesigned, implemented and innovated the shit out of their social app, securing several rounds of ample and infamous funding, while relentlessly working to grow and sustain a user base of multipliers or "opinion leaders," to bring this sexy, sleek work of iOS mobile art to the masses. They started out niche, so it attracted a specific personality - one with a strong opinion - which was their target.

Now with Tape.tv taking over Amen, I am curious if it will continue to remain an opinion generating app, become an UnLike for music discovery, or an entirely new product altogether. Also, are they still calling it Amen or Thanks?

I wish CEO of Amen, Felix Petersen and team the best along with CEO of Tape, Conrad Fritzsch, who is one of the best dinner party hosts ever!

I think Conrad should also buy Watchever to complete the tri-fecta of music, movies and meinungen :)

#Conrad Fritzsch #Felix Petersen #Amen App #Tape.tv #Berlin #startups #Ashton Kutcher #social apps #mobile #opinions #CANDY The Amen Evangelista #Mike Butcher #TechCrunch #Disrupt

FvF Video: A day with Coffee Champion Cory Andreen

We already published the interview and pictures with Cory Andreen a while ago on FvF.

Now we are happy to share the video we produced while spending a full day with coffee professional Cory Andreen in Berlin. We initially spent the day with Cory to shoot the product and launch video for the Thanks iPhone App.

But we couldn't keep our hands off all the good footage we shot during the production. So we came up with this Video Portrait.

This inspiring and tasty day summed up the approach of FvF’s concept of connecting a multifaceted network of established creatives, young entrepeneurs, friends and friends of friends.

A big thank you to everyone who made this video happen and participated in this production.

Find the interview with Cory Andreen on Freunde von Freunden and visit the FvF Youtube Channel with all of our video productions and portraits here.

Video: Luke Abiol, Marie Louise Taarnskov Edit: Marie Louise Taarnskov Music: Quantum Jazz - "If I Can't Dance It's Not My Revolution

Thanks to Amen and its founder and also very good FvF friend Felix Petersen.

#Felix petersen #cory andreen #thanks #fvf productions #fvf video #Kitchensurfing

Freunde von Freunden: Felix Petersen

#Felix Petersen #Lukas Gansterer

7moments serves up simple, private photo albums for the web and iPhone

#SuryaRay #Surya As the concept of ‘social’ evolves, many startups are trying to tame it by creating a solid wall around what’s meant to stay private. That’s the thinking behind social networks such as Path and, to a more extreme degree, Pair. More recently, we can look to Quilt and Everyme (which picked up a couple million in funding last week) for fresher examples of private social networking efforts. Both of those go heavy on the photo-sharing aspect, but now there’s a new startup out of Berlin that’s concentrating entirely on that angle. 7moments, which is all about private collaborative photo albums and nothing more, has a solid heritage. CEO Stefan Kellner was a co-founder of Plazes, along with Felix Petersen, now chief at the much-hyped Amen. That service was sold to Nokia in 2008 and recently shuttered. Plazes was somewhat ahead of its time, being a Foursquare-anticipating location-based services app at a time when smartphones weren’t all toting mobile broadband and GPS. But the time certainly seems ripe for what 7moments is doing. “I did a hiking tour in Nepal, and there was no service that allowed people to all put their photos in one place and do something with it,” Kellner told me. “We could have several Flickr accounts and pool it, but that wasn’t feasible because people were so heterogeneous and I didn’t want to force them into something. So I then decided we should build something to do that.” The service is available as a web app and on the iPhone. You can invite people to an album by email, and can also import photos from and export them to Facebook. Part of the attraction of 7moments’ approach is the fact that it doesn’t involve trying to segment groups of friends out of a larger pool – users need to be invited to each album, which pretty much removes the need for management. As CPO Markus Angermeier puts it, each album effectively becomes a tiny social network of its own. The service went into beta earlier this year with a strong focus on event albums, but, according to Kellner, the response led the team to also think in terms of continuous photostreams for set groups of friends. In terms of other features, there’s no tagging (why would there be in small, private groups?) but users can like and comment on photos. I think this idea has something going for it. Most people I know have had new-social-network fatigue for some time, and juggling the privacy settings around groups of friends on the existing networks is a pain. When it comes to private photo albums, there’s real value in having stripped-down, singleminded, virality-free functionality. It makes for a clean and accessible user experience. The trick, of course, will be in keeping it clean. Kellner says various monetization strategies are being considered, including analysis tools to tell the user which of their photos are good, and a possible shift into real paper photo-album printing. As long as it stays simple, they could be onto something. --- http://dlvr.it/26Bxc4 @suryaray

#7moments #Berlin #Europe #Felix Petersen #Markus Angermeier

Felix Petersen

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#felix petersen #ceo amen

Get2Play: Gets2Chat with CEO of Amen App

This past week, the overall winning team of Startup Weekend Hamburg claimed one of their prizes which was to receive mentoring session from Felix Petersen, CEO of Amen App via Skype conference to Berlin HQ. Who exactly makes up this winning team of weekend warriors? Let's chat with the members of Get2play and get their take on the entire #SWHH12 experience first, then we will share some of the highlights of the mentorship advice they had with Felix.

Brief summary of the Get2Play #SWHH12 Team:

Tobias Rauscher (Team Leader) finished his 4yr. International Business & Management, General Manager of [ECO]trend a student company consisting out of 14 students that focused on sustainability and green awareness (rewarded as "Most Promising Student Company" by the LincC foundation), Private guitar teacher and an active musician (founded the band Synatic)

Tobias Grosse is knowledgeable in areas of online marketing, is a certified banker from an apprenticeship with Deutsche bank, has worked with IT Risk Analysis during his studies, worked in Australia, has performed as DJ talent for crowds of around 1,000 people in major German cities, dedicated time to community service in areas such as Fair Trade/Youth Organizations, and has traveled to a few far east countries such as Thailand.

Marnie Knorr completed her MSc in Innovation Management in Valencia, Spain, worked with the punk incubator becode and in Santiago with a bunch of desk surfing developers called agil-az. Ex-crew member and did BA studies in cruise industry mgmt. With spare time, is a youth coach for gymnastics and part of an astronomy group. Has some professional education in mindfulness and cognitive reconstruction, lived in the US, South Africa, Spain and on ships. Started her first freelancing at age 13.

Get2Play has a vision to build the largest online music school, where teachers and students can connect online around the world, to exchange lessons through the internet via web based resources for video, sound, and communication with one another. Sharing musical interests and/or skills without being limited by location.

Did you register for the event as a designer, developer, or non technical?

Non-Technical was the overall answer from all three team members

Was this your first Startup Weekend Event?

Yes - Tobias R.

First Startup Weekend, but second time at a pitching event - Tobias G.

Yes with Startup Weekend, but I recently participated in Startup Live Hamburg with my idea, Crewzable - Marnie

What was the WORST part about working on the project over the weekend?

Setting up the core product without tech support and a rather small team - Tobias R.

Defining balanced work roles in the team - Tobias G.

Finding dedicated developers (too few to go around), initially finding a team to join after the pitches were selected (everyone quickly forming groups to work with), deciding to participate on two teams (Get2Play & ttrigger) and managing my time between both during the weekend- Marnie

What what the BEST part about being at Startup Weekend Hamburg?

The experiences I made and awesome people I have met there. This is really unbelievable! Then of course, being the overall winning team- Tobias R.

Learning so much about ideas, people and techniques. Also getting a more precise feeling for what could work, idea wise - Tobias G.

Finding someone I can work super well with and with Tobias R. , we both see future potential in creating Get2Play. The Hamburg startup community are a group of talented, kind, and interesting people to work with! Meeting the amazing teams that competed in the weekend challenge and also the organizers of the entire event made the experience awesome - Marnie

What are your plans for the 1000€ Cash Prize that you guys have won?

Fully invested into the project - Tobias R.

As long as Tobias invests the money in the winning project, he should feel free to invest my share of the prize towards Get2Play. Otherwise, I would invest my portion of the prize money in the social project "Die ganze Welt in Deiner Stadt" that I am working on in Leipzig - Tobais G.

Get2Play - Marnie

(The Winning Team Get2Play: Tobias G, Marnie, Tobias R. by Jasper Tessman)

Congrats!!! They came, they were challenged, and they conquered the weekend.

Now that the Get2Play team knows where their passions lie, have recruited tech support and developer Adham, but currently living in three different German cities, what are their next plans? They have discussed moving to either Hamburg or Berlin together and with that said, who better to receive mentoring advice from, other than Amen CEO, Felix Peterson. He chats with them about the Berlin scene, startups, and his personal thoughts with creating a company or product.

Felix advises them that location is not as important as being happy wherever you are, having a great product/service/idea that is strongly validated by a target market that demands it. Essentially, there MUST be a demographic for whatever idea a startup is offering because if there is no audience, the startup will not go very far with or without financing.

You could create your startup in Poland for that matter. It really does not matter where you do it. However, Berlin has a very strong tech scene, is international, can provide many resources such as talent (designers, developers, etc...) and an overall infrastructure that supports startup industry activities. The connections and opportunities are vast in such a dynamic and quickly growing multicultural city such as Berlin.

Other key points Felix discusses is creating hype, financing, and team building.

As far as media and related marketing hype, do not focus so much energy on this initially until you have a proven product or service. Make sure your product fulfills a need or is solving a problem, then work on doing that as best as you can! It is not only wasteful to draw attention to yourselves if the product itself is of low quality, not a sustainable business, or lacks an attraction factor, but in fact, can be harmful to your future reputation and image as being all hype, with little to no purpose. It takes so much effort to climb to the top, but only a misstep to fall back down. Make every step forward count and place your footing firmly.

Team building can be difficult, but the most important aspect of a successful startup. Teams can of course technically function apart, but it is always recommended to work together, in one location, closely and regularly. It makes brainstorming and building your product/service more efficient because when a team has direct contact with one another, there are less time lapses between initiating, implementing, and iterating which means less time is lost communicating over it and more energy is used towards building it. Time is one of the most valuable assets in a startup, meaning it should be used wisely, and also spent strategically, otherwise someone bigger, better, and faster will push you out of the market.

"Financing" is a big word that actually has little to do with why or why not your startup is successful. Know your product, know your market, know what your market wants, and just DO IT as best as you can and especially better than your competition can. Start with a strong and talented team, work hard, focus, prioritize and the money will find you. Investors like to invest in ideas that are proven to work, particularly in an environment over-saturated with mediocrity. Startups needs to stand out and promote themselves by being proven, not merely having strong potential, if they strive to survive in this competitive industry.

The team asks what Felix thinks about their online music school concept (positive/negative feedback), possible problems, where to focus in the beginning, and how can they stay lean with such huge aspirations?

Felix hesitates a bit to give too much feedback on the overall concept of an online music school, because he admits that is not his area of expertise, nor has he done any research/analysis of how big the market demand is for this, nor does he have much personal experience with the music industry in finer detail. He does suggest however to research the target group, find out if there is a strong demand for this service and find ways to fulfill their needs. Test it out on a smaller scale by locating talent to start the platform and see what the reactions are. He comments how SoundCloud operated low key in the beginning, because they focused all their energy building their product, with less effort in securing publicity. The founders have an immense passion for music and THAT was their laser focus, is to share this passion with their audience and together build the best experience possible. The idea is not to get popular in the market, but to become necessary and relevant to a target audience. Supply and demand says a lot.

The main critical questions that were pointed out are related to where the talent will be found, is there a large enough customer base, will people really use the online platform for learning, and is it something they prefer over doing in person since music is personal and often when learning, it can be quite a physical activity benefiting from one on one human contact. (i.e preferences for tangibility of the instruments, desire to interact with instructors in person, sound quality, connection challenges with internet servers, handling an online payment system, etc...)

In the beginning, it is advisable to find your customers, since this startup relies on people wanting to learn, because they are the sustainable element to drive the business model. Once there is enough of a consistent and engaged customer base, it is important to recruit quality talent so that online members have options as well as availability with the Get2Play service. Reputable talent is very important to keep customer satisfaction high because word of mouth travels quickly which can be very good or very bad for your business.

The main elements of staying lean is hiring only people who are necessary and be cautious with outsourcing. Hiring freelancers or other services can be a tricky investment because you can only try to predict the desired outcomes, and hope for the best, but if you are not careful, your startup could lose investments either monetarily or productively (time spent fixing mistakes) without seeing gains.

There you have it, some translated insights from a very intelligent CEO Felix Petersen, who not only founded Amen, but also Plazes, and is a true Berliner through and through. He has worked with major corporations such as Nokia, alongside CPO Caitlin Winner. The success of Amen is heavily reliant on the complementary backgrounds of each founder contributing skills and experiences from their fields to balance out one another. CTO Florian Weber is known for his early involvement as a developer for Twitter.

I think we all learned a lot during that one hour mentoring conversation. Thank you to the Get2Play team for their enthusiasm and a special thanks to Felix for offering us his time and thoughts. We think you are the BEST mentor with a mustache that can offer down-to-earth, good hearted feedback ever, Amen!