Business Angels also support culture

 Meanwhile my investigations I always wondered: Where did the Business Angels Financing start?

 

This is the answer: In cultural projects! Business Angels financed Broadway performances in New York City. And the tradition to investigate into Art and Culture didn’t stop.

 

 

 

The Business Angel’s Philosophy

 

 

Maybe until now you’ve thought, that Business Angels are only interested in big bucks and finding a way to make money as soon as possible.

That might be true, but I was really surprised when I found the “Business Angels Kultur Forum” in Fraknfurt am Main. They are a part of the “normal” Business Angels Club and Culture is really important for them, as they explain on their webpage:

 

 

-       Even though it’s not expected, cultural start-ups have a high impact on the economy, especially through gaming and internet

-       Good reputation for the investor

-       Small period of return and small amounts of money (max. 100,000€)

-       Cultural Potential is a factor for the market value of a region

 

 

Anyway, I did really not expect that cultural projects are supported, too. Everything is possible: music, books, games, movies, radio, play-acting, painting, sculpture, … As long as it is “profitable”!!!

 

 

Culture in Frankfurt

 

In a Forum that the Business Angels Frankfurt organizes twice a year, artist can present themselves as well as their creations. If Investors are interested, they are able to contact the artist and start a common project.

According to this article, one in five ideas will be realized and monetized.

As I found out here, in 2009 Business Angels, who met the guys with this idea on this Forum, financed the complete edition of scripts of Richard Wagner.

 

 

 Wagner’s sheet music of “Tristan and Isolde”

 

 

Even though Culture and Art is a great opportunity for artists and angels, it is still very uncommon in Germany. That is why the head of the Business Angels Frankfurt plans to expand the Culture funding through all over Germany.

One Bank already started: In Berlin the IBB offers a pool of 30 million € for risky projects in the art sector for budding artists, see here.

 

 

Chinas New Age

Today´s media is full of news about China. On the one hand Economists get really excited when they talk about this topic as China sustained a GDP growth rate of about 10 % over a period of almost 30 years.

But on the other hand there is a lot of criticism on the political decisions made in China. Western media were reporting furiously on the repressive politics in Tibet, Liu Xiaobo and Ai Weiwei are well known all over the world as a heroes suppressed by a violent regime.

But there is another tendency that has not drawn as much attention as the others have. Despite having the biggest CO2 emissions in the word even before the US since 2007 China is initiating a wide range of impressing projects that point clearly towards a more sustainable and ecological future.

In this article I will explore different ideas to change China, the mobility of its people and their way of life. I want to find out what topics are being debated by the people who are working on that process and what problems are currently faced.

How to monetize your blog

 

 

You successfully built a lot of traffic to your blog? Great! Now the time has come to profit from your work!

You hit a gold mine!

 

Let’s discover how to translate a blog into a successful business!

“Froodies” – Powered by Business Angels

Lutz Preußners and his five-member team founded the online supermarket “froodies”. Go here to check out their website. Even though big supermarket chains failed already in the field of online-supermarkets, froodies is on a good way to become a successful company nowadays.

 

 

 

 

The founders were convinced of their idea and Business Angel Friedrich von Diest financed big parts of the project. Preußner’s team consists of a web designer, a programmer and a software-developer with Preußner as spearheading. Furthermore they corporate with DHL  and a supermarket chain, that is never mentioned by its name, but to me it seems to be the REWE-group.

 

 

The project’s concept

As they describe in an interview which can be found in youtube here, their idea is to deliver food easy to the client’s house but to charge the same price as in a supermarket. There are more than 5,000 products available, also fresh fruits and vegetables (which are not the causer for E-HEC as we were told by the media lately).

According to this link, their target group are people that work a lot and have little time. But also people over 50 years, who mind quality and do not care so much about the price.

 

 

Financing

All this needed a two-year period of testing, designing and realizing and of course: MONEY. Banks didn’t want to support “Froodies”, but Business Angel Friedrich von Diest did, as he said here. He invested a six-digit amount (so something between €100,000 and €999,999) into the project. Now “Froodies” booms and delivers its products all over the world.  They plan to expand and soon they need a second spearheading. Still Preußner and Diest meet every month to discuss further steps of  “froodies”.

Business Angel von Diest

Lately froodies recieved the award of the best internet start-up company from more than 300 appliers. You can look it up on this website. The jury likes especially the team and their idea. Friedrich von Diest is more than satisfied about his investment and started already new projects with more founders.

Jokerfliegen & Blind Booking – > ready for take off!

You’re ready for a holiday but you lack the big bucks to afford an oversea- vacation? You’re spontaneous and up for something new? Check out “Blind Booking”/ “Jokerfliegen”.

For a fixed price you book a flight without knowing the exact destination in advance. You only get to see categories of destinations and it is not until a few weeks before the flight that you’ll get to know where you’re actually heading. There are two German airlines (correct me if there’re more) that offer the so-called “blind-booking” experience.

1. If you prefer an over-seas destination, Condor offers “Jokerfliegen”, where you pay 199 € for destinations like Barbados, Cuba, Goa, or the following:

Music festivals – challenges and impacts

Researching more about organisation and management of music festivals I found out that there are heaps of different dimensions that can generate profits and have to be taken into account. Not only do the festival organisers themselves profit from the event, but it is also a profitable opportunity for sponsors, software developers and the tourism industry.

Over the years Festivals have become more and more important for their social and cultural roles. They have been increasingly promoted and created as tourist attractions and they are also viewed as tools in place marketing and destination image making. Festivals are highly valued for their ability to animate cities, resorts, and attractions.

The best example for the great symbolic and cultural meaning some festivals represent might be the Woodstock festival the world’s most famous “hippie-festival” which took place in the USA from August 15 to August 18, 1969.

Today such big music festivals are far more common all over the world and organisation and management concepts have improved a lot.

How your smartphone might prevent you from committing a crime

It is not easy for the music and movie industry nowadays -mainly due to violations of copyrights. Criminals hack the computers of famous artists like Lady Gaga and publish unreleased songs, and then there is a vast amount of internet websites that allow File sharing and streaming. Pirate copies of the latest movies, songs and concerts are often available to the public shortly after their publication. Just recently the streaming website kino.to has been all over

5 Tips to build traffic to your blog

Precious tips to build traffic to your blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You are a passionate blogwriter? You now wish to boost the traffic of the page, you want to make more people have a look at it?

In my previous blog post I already started researching how to achieve this goal and highlighted traffic boost with the help of the discovery engine stumbleupon.com. Anyways, I would like to dive head into the topic and find more ways to make a website a whole success! May the detective work begin!

Tip 1 : SEO – Search Engine Optimization

Visioning future Metropolis

 Innovative Public Transport Systems

In the 21 century an increasing world population, the scarcity of natural resources, and global warming will be great challenges to humanity as we have to find a way to solve those problems. Contrary to the expectations that entering the information age, people would move back from the big cities to the country, there are currently 50% of the world population living in cities, 2050 it will be around 70%. Furthermore the so called mega cities are growing steadily and more and more are reaching 20 million inhabitants. In those urban areas the demand for clean fast public transport has increased drastically. People who do not own a car need to be moved fast and efficiently from one part of the city to another without losing too much time.

As a consequence one could say that public transport systems are the future, while the automobile is an anachronistic model that cannot be adopted by 9 billion people living on this earth without destroying the planet due to excess carbon dioxide emissions. The more cars there are the more traffic and traffic jams there will be which are time-consuming and make mobility and flexibility in large cities impossible.

Innovative public transport systems will become more and more important. I will explore the visions and points of views of experts in the field and find out what could be helpful and what seems to be a mere utopia.

Business Angels: Start your project now!

Germany needs entepreneurs! So time to realize your idea. Here are the steps to find a Business Angel and convience him or her of your idea and especially of you!

1. Get in contact!!

There’s a direct and indirect way.

In the indirect way a Business Angel notices you and your idea through word-of-mouth recommendation in his network. Hit-or-miss tactics, right?

You better try the direct way and visit to present your project:

-       incorporator meetings

-       convention and exhibitions

-       Business Angels Club

So why don’t you start here?

Gründermesse Berlin

Business Angels Berlin Brandenburg

Incorporator consulting

But then you have to meet the challenge:

2. Is your project a good idea? What do Business Angels expect?

There are some explicit requirements:

-  Ideas where a high growth rate and increase in value are expected

-  In general money is invested into technology projects. Service or trading  companies aren’t supported very often, because they aren’t expected to be so profitable

-  Products or services that are hard to imitate or that have a better quality than the market-average

-  Complete team, that must be willed to give away up to 49% of the business. How much they have to cede depends on the financial requirements and future profits

-  The product and concept of marketing must be as prepared and ready for the market as possible.

3.  Icing on the cake

So don’t forget that Business Angels are also human beings.  They must like you and be convinced that they can work together with your team. Not only your idea bust also interpersonal relations must excellent.