1. Television is not the truth!

    Sunday June 26th, 2011 by admin

    We live in interesting times. You only have to turn on the television and you hear about revolution upon revolution, crisis upon crisis, war upon war. That is if you are not watching some sitcom, sports event or soap series. We then take this information from CNN, BBC or FOX and speak of it as the truth. But all we see is a selection of images and a pretty girl reading newslines. Ever thought about who wrote those? Ever thought about who owns the networks? Ever thought about whether telling the truth serves their interests?

    So what happens if you turn off that “truth” telling machine? You would have to make up your own mind about things, formulate a genuine opinion on things by investigation. And this is the real power shift: with the internet, anyone now has access to and can contribute to different viewing points of the same events. So turn the hollow machine off, cancel your newspapers and investigate yourself! That’s the only way to get to the truth about anything.

    Category: @thedocks | Comments (0)

  2. Fail fast…

    Monday June 20th, 2011 by admin

    Isn’t it funny how all the people that we listen to have made it somehow somewhere? I mean, if you go to a talk or conference, most of the time there is people that we admire because they achieved something. This is great of course, but the fact they succeeded does a) not mean they know why they did and b) makes it unlikely that it will happen that way again. Think about it, the factors of success are determined by randomness for a large part anyway. Failure however seems to be an ever returning phenomena that we can actually assess. Ask someone who failed with his startup or company and he will be able to tell you exactly what went wrong. Ask a so called “success” person why he succeeded and he will tell you a bull shit story about how it “just happened” to him and they “just worked really hard”.

    Fail fast and often, and chances are you will succeed one day for the right reasons.

    Category: @thedocks | Comments (0)

  3. Random does it

    Tuesday March 8th, 2011 by admin

    Random is good. Random is fun. Random is engaging. And in this case, random is f*cking right! http://fuckyeahnouns.com/philip

    My life is nothing but a mystery :)

    Category: @thedocks | Comments (1)

  4. Why is it all happening in South America?

    Thursday January 27th, 2011 by admin

    Am I the only one wondering why everything is happening in South America, or better yet, Brazil in the coming 6 years? Not only the economy is booming out of proportion, they have managed to secure both the World Cup and the Olympics within 2 years time of each other. I find that remarkable. With so much attention going their way this decade I guess branding this continent won’t be a problem. The question remains whether it will influence their economies into stability. If they succeed, this continent is the most interesting of all!

    Category: @thedocks | Comments (0)

  5. Back on Track

    Monday January 10th, 2011 by admin

    A new year, a new horizon. Since my last post I have taken some time to really think things over, and start anew. Biggest lesson of all is time itself. Starting, changing and improving all take time. So next time around I should be more patient and resilient to time consuming goals. In a conversation with another entrepreneur the other day it became very apparent that building something simply takes between 2 -5 years until you can actually derive any serious benefits from your efforts. Why? Simple, it is survival of the fittest. The basic law of nature.

    Category: @thedocks | Comments (0)

  6. 10 lessons from a non-technical founder

    Thursday November 4th, 2010 by admin

    1) Why do you think all great online successes have had great TECHNICAL founders? Do you really think this is a coincidence?

    2) Exploring the landscape does not mean you are a landscaping artist. Hit a couple of startup events and then get back to work. Other startups won’t help you because they have enough problems of their own.

    3) Have a prototype build in week 1.

    4) Do not change anything about the prototype unless your users tell you to.

    5) Don’t have any users? Well, there you go, that’s your real problem. Market the hell out of it! Still no users? Shitty product, back to the drawing table.

    6) It is not about how good your idea is, it is about how good your execution is.

    7) There are three ways to get funding: 1) a lot of traction 2) great (technical) track records and 3) Ron Conway is your uncle.

    8) Make sure you have enough money to pay and motivate your developers as they will be doing most of the initial work.

    9) Ask yourself if this is a mind trick for making an easy buck or a desire to change something in the world. Now ask again.

    10) Do it your way and do it anyway, and when you are done, please rewrite this blog post.

    Category: @Sea | Comments (0)

  7. Dutch Digitals

    Wednesday October 13th, 2010 by admin

    Here we are back in New York. Funny how your mind and body adapt swiftly to a new and much higher pace of doing things. It is not uncommon to have multiple plays scheduled for a night, and you see people standing up in the midst of things if they don’t like it and just go somewhere else. Unheard of in Europe. Rude. But life bettering! Living at Washington Square Park makes live better, too. I can walk west to chill in the West Village or party in the Meatpacking, I can cross the street and pretend I am in France, or go east and wonder about the East Village diversity of people.

    But right now, I am in a Starbucks working on Dutch Digitals and finalizing another client or two for my portfolio companies.

    Category: @thedocks | Comments (0)

  8. Life Decisions

    Monday September 27th, 2010 by admin

    If you give 10 random people 6 months off and a little bag of money to go do something with and ask them to give a presentation about what they did afterwards the results would probably be very different. Sure, probably half of them would go and travel the world only to return to their former lives after six months to show how cool they off their endeavors. But what about the other half?

    Would somebody give the money away?
    Would somebody use it to learn a skill they always wanted?
    Would somebody save it?
    Would somebody spend it without any plan in under a month?
    Would somebody start a business?

    And, more importantly, does it matter? If it does, to whom?

    We live in an era or age where most people under forty never knew poverty, where food comes from the fridge and fun is available in television, movies and alcohol at such prices that  it may as well not matter what you do with your life. How many people feel they are making a difference outside of their own family?

    Anyway, I need to take decision today what to do with my time, back at it…

    memo to self: write a post on philanthropy

    my privilege

    Category: @thedocks | Comments (0)

  9. These are my favorite tags…

    Friday September 3rd, 2010 by admin

    Tags. Love them.

    Tag a song: Great if you are listening to the radio and didn’t here the dj say the name and artist of the song. Shazam! there you go for 3,99$.

    Tag a location: Mappyfriends let’s you tag a location so your friends can find it later, it’s free and could grow to be the greatest travel tool ever!

    Tag food. Will he or will he not get it ready in time? My friend Gary Reloj is on his own last name to get his app up and running, tagging his favorite treats in New York City for the “business class”.

    Category: @thedocks | Comments (0)

  10. Rainy days

    Tuesday August 17th, 2010 by admin

    It’s raining. It’s Holland.

    Yet this week is a memorable one: on Thursday thousands and thousands of boats including 50 or so Tall Ships are arriving in Amsterdam for SAIL 2010. A spectacle worth traveling for, or in my case, coming ‘home’ for. The event is only once every five years, you can visit the ships, listen to performances, walk around and witness fireworks. Awesom-o!

    ….

    ….

    Category: @thedocks | Comments (1)