Imagine that couple going on a holiday trip by car. One is driving, the other one is planning out the route. Both of them alternate between their main priorities and telling the kids how far along the road they are or just to shut the hell up. Things escalate. Kids become more noisy. Hungry. Tired. The same happens to the couple. Story ends in either: A. patching things up, or B. a really nasty divorce (there probably is a C as well but I really like my lists).

Robert and Wouter of Wakoopa

Now replace the couple by co-founders. Both (should) have specific tasks. Both also alternate between overlapping tasks. Replace the kids by customers, users, partners and/or investors. Things can get really ugly if you haven’t set your priorities and duties straight. And imagine if this relationship is a threesome! But it doesn’t stop there.

In my discussion with Robert – who, like myself, has a single co-founder – we talked about how nasty things can get between co-founders. Co-founders say things to each other that we wouldn’t even say to our lovers. You think the talented cast from ‘The Hills’ is bitchy? Step into a startup office. The swiftly reoccurring ups and downs push personalities to extreme clashes. These situations are definitely not for the feint hearted. Entrepreneurial egos and testosterone levels can raise to clashes of gargantuan proportions (insert grain of salt here). It’s really important that you know what you and your partner are supposed to be doing in this situation, and that territories are marked accordingly.

Arnoud, Jons and Steven of Marvia

I’m in the luxury position to have a co-founder who is basically the exact opposite of myself. Paul is calm and quiet. Takes his time to make decisions. Makes sure things run smoothly in the background. Can react seemingly without emotion to pressing matters. On a practical level he runs financial, legal, partnerships and tells me to quit acting like a diva when things aren’t going the way I want them too.

I’m vocal, extrovert and emotional. I react fast and instinctive. On a practical level: I do the product. Make sure it’s nice and pretty. Tell people about it. There’s obviously a lot more to what we do, but for the sake of this post I’m keeping it short.

Paul and me

Robert is in the same position with Wouter. Steven runs Marvia in a holy triad with Arnoud and Jons. As we discussed, all personalities that can seem to oppose each other: but what’s really happening is that these teams complement each other. And that’s a really good situation to be in, since we’ve all seen cases where things turn ugly. I’m not saying that this is entirely because of what I’ve described in this post, but I think it’s important to find a co-founder that complements you on many levels. And that’s one of the most difficult tasks if you want to start a company.

If you started a company, how did you find your co-founder? I get a lot of questions of guys and girls that want to start a company and lack complementing skills. Leave your story in the comments.

Footnote: Of course that line about The Hills was a joke. Sheesh.

Copyright 2009, Julia de Boer - http://www.juliadeboer.nl/

Pitching for large audiences rather than investors is quite a different story. Many people will tell you to practice pitches as much as you can, and you’ll do well. I don’t entirely agree with that assumption.  For some people, practicing pitches in front of a mirror works each time, but I believe that if you have a clear vision for your company, there’s no need to practice that story. However, when it comes to adapting that story to your audience, a correct amount of modifications is definitely needed. I’ll follow with some tips on how to create a great pitch for large audiences at events for internet professionals:

1. Your audience is broad.
Don’t assume there are just investors in the audience. Don’t assume it’s just press. The audience of events in this field is very wide spread, so try to summarize what you in clear language that’s understandable to everybody. Don’t dumb things down, but be sure to avoid buzzwords and jargon as much as possible. Audiences come to events to learn and get inspired. Startup companies can have the very same effect on audiences, so try to influence.

2. Stories are good.
People generally dislike marketing pitches. I hate them to be honest. Pitching your company is marketing however, but the acceptance of the audience lies in how well you’re able to tell your story. Audiences love stories. Good pitches and presentations are often architected as stories – a clear introduction; get people interested. A solid center piece; dive into your company or product and give them a taste that leaves them wanting more. And a grand finale; leave them with something unforgettable. A big bang.

3. Keep it simple.
Information overload is your nemesis. Bullet points are his minions. The last thing you want to do is that people start reading your slides instead of paying attention to what you have to say. It’s better to have 50 slides with a single sentence or word, than 15 slides filled up with enough prose to finish a novel. Deliberately direct your audience’s attention to the screen when you want to demo your product or show a video. Using full screen images often works better than slide keywords. Using blank slides helps focusing your audience on your stories, or gives them a visual pause to indicate a new section. Slides should support your story, not the other way around.

4. Show off the goods.
Spend some time on creating clear screencasts of your product, or invest in the production of an informative video. Doing this work beforehand saves you from beta blunders on stage (only do live demos when you’re a 100% certain it will work, but even then… hardware has a tendency to fail miserably) so you can continue your flow without interruptions. And believe me, pitching your company for 5 minutes on stage feels like mere seconds.

5. Prepare for hell.
The most difficult part of the competition is often the question round that follows your pitch. The success of a pitch is entirely up to you, but questions from the judges and the audience can be surprisingly hard. They can be about competition, previous mistakes, strategies, things that co-founders or employees have more knowledge about – you can’t predict what’s coming. But that doesn’t mean you can’t prepare. Make sure you have answers ready for the usual suspects: What’s your business model? Are you generating revenue, and if not: when? How much capital are you raising, and why? And prepare for the most annoying questions you can think of, because people will ask them. Come up with answers for those questions that you don’t want to hear. And if there’s a question you really don’t have an answer for, be transparent and tell the truth. Making up some bullshit story won’t help your credibility unless it’s either really awesome or funny.

6. Smile.
Pause for a moment if you black out. Don’t panic. Take a look at your last slide and describe what you see. You’ll get back into your flow in no time. When you get confronted with negative feedback or questions about competition, don’t fall into defensive mode. This is a mistake I’ve made in the past, but I’ve learned that approaching each question positively turns out a lot more fruitful than shrugging off.

I believe these general guidelines can be applied to any product pitch. Don’t follow them blindly, use them to your advantage and try to find the angle which is most comfortable for your company and you as a presenter. It helped us to win the startup competition with a great amount of benefits afterwards.

I’m really interested in how you prepare for presentations or if you disagree with my tips. If you have something to add, leave a comment!

I’ll be hanging out at The Next Web this year, representing E as a visitor this time, rooting for the new round of startups. If you feel like saying hello, consider visiting. It’s well worth the trip.

People often ask me how I got so corpulent. My answer isn’t laden with lame excuses. Not anymore at least. I became a pot-bellied burger gobbler because I ate. I ate a lot. I ate a lot, and as often as I could. No exercise apart from walking a couple of feet to school, university or the supermarket. I can’t exactly recall when this started, but by judging photographic evidence it started during my tween years. And from that point in time I just grew, and grew, until one day I lifted my chubby feet onto the scale for the first time in years. And then it hit me.

Dude, you will die of heart disease or worse before your 30th birthday.

After this major epiphany I started wondering how the hell I should start losing weight. You see, from my early teens up until that moment I tried numerous diets and forms of exercise to lose weight. None of them had any effect. Diets are boring. They won’t let you eat anything, or eat all kinds of weird combinations invented by diet gurus, ‘medical experts’ or – wait for it – lifestyle consultants. I figured that the only way for me to lose weight is to prohibit myself from eating or drinking anything with a high amount of calories. Which basically meant that I didn’t allow myself to eat anything good. No sodas, no snacks and nothing deep fried. I limited my caloric intake to about 1000-1300 calories per day. Experts will probably say that that had been very unhealthy since a matured male body needs about 2500 calories per day. But I felt I didn’t have time to take things easy.

And then came the touchy subject of exercise. I detest going to the gym. I can’t stand the bags of douche that hang out there every single day to make small talk, or the TVs hanging over treadmills which always seem to be tuned to MTV, airing depressing reality shows. But, slapping down cash for a gym subscription forced me to go there. I trained almost every day for two hours. One hour of cardio, to burn fat. Literally running my ass off. And one hour of muscular training, to help me burn fat faster. Building up muscle tissue also helps you burn calories faster when not working out. Cool little details I learned at the gym.

Now, the worst enemy for anyone who’s trying to lose weight is not seeing any progress. Especially when you’re as overweight as I was. You will see a decrease in weight on the scale, but when you look in the mirror after losing a substantial amount of pounds, you won’t see any difference. Even after two or three months. And that is extremely demotivating. I bet that most people that start losing weight just stop because they’re not noticing a difference after all that hard work. I had the same problem, but stuck to the programme. And eventually, my shirt size went from XXXL to S.

To burn it down to an interesting list of what I did, including some tips:

1. Become disciplined.
Head out to the Discipline store and get yourself some. Seriously, this is almost the only thing you need to lose weight.

2. Become super disciplined.
Becoming disciplined is not enough. You need to head back to the Discipline store and get the uber-package. Make sure you hang on to that for the rest of your life.

3. Don’t set a starting date.
“Next tuesday I’ll start. So before that, I still have the chance enjoy a shitload of these deep-fried Mars bars.” Don’t do that. Start immediately. Setting a date will only lead to postponing, making those Mars bars even harder to lose.

4. Set a goal.
Goals are important. I originally wanted to go from 145 kg (320 pounds) to 100 kg (220 pounds). I achieved that a year later, and decided to continue until I’d reach my optimal BMI. 6 months later and 20 kg (44 pounds) lighter, I achieved a BMI of 22.2.

5. Pay for exercise.
I can’t tell you how much I hate the gym. But paying the damn subscription fee made me feel guilty if I wouldn’t go. If you can’t stand treadmills, weights and those weird guys that hang around the gym all day, then pay for another form of exercise. The money you lose is so much worth it.

6. Lose the sodas.
Coke, Fanta, Mountain Dew, but also milkshakes, smoothies, sugar laden Starbucks coffee, and any sweet drinks overall will make your butt humongous. All these liquid calories won’t satisfy you, have close to no nutritional value. Keep drinking them while you’re fat, and you might as well inject butter straight into your ass.

7. Drink water.
Water rocks. It contains no calories whatsoever. You should drink at least 2 litres of it every day, but a lot more if you start working out as well. And for me, it was an important catalyst: each time I’d get really hungry, I drank two glasses of water. That will fill up your stomach, giving you the sensation you’re satisfied.

8. Don’t reward yourself with something good.
Lots of diets tell you to reward yourself with one good meal or a really yummy snack after a week of successful dieting and exercise. Fuck that. You’re fat. Punish yourself until you lose the weight. This ain’t no picnic. Reward yourself with an extra glass of water, a few more bench presses or an ultra awesome outfit at the end of the road.

9. Light products are for pussies.
Don’t eat or drink that crap. Not only do aspartame and sweeteners taste like dog poo compared to proper sugar, but there’s a chance you’ll grow Chernobyl-style mutations by eating too much. Stick to fruit and normal food. Eat little of everything. Eat a regular meal during the night but don’t have seconds.

10. Stay disciplined.
Take these 10 tips into consideration, but find your own way of losing weight. Remember that the key to getting rid of those love handles is to keep doing it. No excuses, no time-outs or breaks. Not even on vacation. If you’re a gargantuan fat bastard like I was, you won’t notice any change (in the mirror) in the beginning. This can be really demotivating. Make sure you keep going, because the first kilos/pounds you lose will fly off like the goddamn Millennium Falcon. The final bunch of kilos are the hardest, but discipline will help you for the rest of your life.

So that’s how I did it. No excuses to being fat, unless you’re seriously ill. All it takes is discipline and perseverance. It’s not important which diet you follow, or what kind of exercise you do, as long as you do it. And keep doing it until you’ve reached your goal.

I had very specific demands when it came to a good laptop bag. You see, I’m a big fan of Apple’s 17″ MacBook Pro. My first Apple machine was a 17″-er (way back when, when it was still called PowerBook *awesome name* and featured a G4 processor). Since I (still) design a lot, even while traveling, this machine with its 17″ canvas and 1920×1200 full HD resolution provided the perfect Creative Suite power any designer could wish for. It was thin, but large nevertheless. And finding a bag that could fit this beast, and meet my sartorialistic fashionista needs was a complicated task. The first bag I got for it was a Knomo Frinton. A tote, with beautiful black leather and enough room for some magazines, perhaps a book, and my peripherals (mouse, power adapter, iPod). This bag served me perfectly fine until I saw the aforementioned teaser.

The bag was called Unfold. A very clever name, for a uniquely designed, beautiful laptop bag. You see, it’s called Unfold because it folds to two different shapes. And the coolest thing about it, is that it’s designed to hold a 13″, 15″ or 17″ MacBook. Hand-made with fine Italian leather, that ages beautifully. I just had to have it, and ordered it immediately.

Gorgeous packaging

I literally counted the weeks it took before my bag arrived. It might have been days, but it felt like weeks. But then it came. Packaged beautifully in a cotton bag with really nice typography that said Working Class Heroes. That was the name of the company back then. I took it out of its packaging and felt up the smooth, new, and deliciously smelling leather. I threw my Knomo bag in a cupboard somewhere and adopted this bag instantly.

This bag travelled all over the world with me. It’s been from Amsterdam to Tokyo, London, Berlin, Barcelona, Paris, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, Austin and probably some obscure spots not worth mentioning. It has survived massive rainstorms, extreme heat, late nights out and SXSW. And I can’t recall how many times I’ve heard “Wow, where did you get that bag?”. Each time I stopped to write down the URL so people could go look for themselves.

Steven's 2Unfold (left) and my Unfold (right)

I fell so in love with this bag I started evangelizing. I converted my friend Steven, who got very lucky. By the time he was ready to drop the whopping (almost) € 400, 2Unfold was released. Working Class Heroes changed its name to Hard Graft, and came out with the new version of my beloved bag. 2Unfold was even more perfect. It lacked all of the little 1.0 beta design flaws of Unfold. I can remember my jealousy for Steven’s younger beauty, but was still very much infatuated with my beautifully aging baby. My second convert was high profile. VP and CTO of this little online bookstore. I don’t think I need to say more.

Werner Vogels and his 2Unfold

Although my Unfold has aged stunningly, it has its flaws like I mentioned before. It was the first version of a bag that got perfected in its second version. The strap for example, is very weak compared to the new one. So weak in fact, that it snapped on one of my bike rides through Amsterdam, dropping my laptop on the street (no major damages, but still). The hidden side pocket got used while walking so many times the zipper broke. After many fix-ups, I decided to leave it as it is. Fixed the strap twice though, that part was crucial.

My Unfold, 2 years ago

My Unfold, today

But even with its many damages, I still get stopped by random strangers asking about my bag. The leather has changed color and stained a little, but adds a lot of character to it. Since the strap-snap incident however, I’ve been thinking about replacing my beloved Unfold. My friend Nalden is very keen on his QWSTION bags, and I must say, I was tempted to get one of those as a replacement.

Then my eye fell on a tweet. A new version of 2Unfold. In a color that matches most of my wardrobe perfectly (I rock the greyscales). Perfect just became more perfect. Now don’t you all go buying this bag because I have to save up some cash.

To start off, I’ve been refraining myself from actually saying “startup” to describe what we’re doing. Now, the following may sound like a big cliché from any random person working in our field: I stopped saying startup since I saw David Heinemeier Hansson speak at the Future of Web Apps in Dublin earlier this year. Apart from (probably) sharing the same problem as me when it comes to name spelling, this guy is obviously an inspiration to many starting entrepreneurs. There is no need to stick my tongue up his butthole. He’s arrived and got the minions. But there is one thing I learned from his talk which has stuck with me ever since. The term “startup” is probably used more in our field than any other market segment in the world. Why? I’m not calling that new little bakery that just opened on the street corner a “bread and pastry startup”. You start a company. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the short time I’ve been active as an entrepreneur, it’s that an internet startup copes with the same problems as any random shoe store.

Regardless of what era you start your company in, you need to think about revenue. Starting a company in a healthy economy, or in one that’s coughing up blood is no different. You are not  Zuckerberg. Steve Jobs is not your homie. Building a company will cost you a shitload. But the economy is no excuse. Sure, angels, VCs and partners (aka the people with actual money) are in better positions. But it’s not like they’re just gonna give you a big bag of money to create your unicorn paradise. And that is something that young entrepreneurs, like myself, are going to find themselves disillusioned with once they start a company.

The last thing I want to do is blow my own horn and profile myself as a serial entrepreneur with mega 1337 business skills. I graduated as a designer. I know how to create cool products that people want to use, make them look and feel good. The other skills, the things that will take up at least 70 percent of your time, I learned the Nike way. Just by doing it. And I’m still learning new things every day.

I could probably write a multitudinous list of reasons why you should not start your own company. The things on that list would include arguments like: You will work day and night. The people that work for you will make more money than you do. You will experience gargantuan amounts of stress. You will be disappointed more than you thought. You will prioritise in spite of things you love. You will have no money. You will disappoint people. And you will have no money.

But it’s worth it.

Because once you get your first users, or your first customer, or even a simple mention on Twitter, you get a feeling of immeasurable awesomeness. That feeling you get after a successful pitch, is what rockstars feel when they go off stage. And the people you’ll meet along the way are worth more than all of those things combined. The list of reasons to start your own company is microscopic compared to the reasons not to. But the weight that a single positive reason carries is extraordinary. I’m grateful to be experiencing that every single day. And I could recommend it to anyone that has the guts to take leadership and start something of their own. Something that is truly yours.

Welcome to I’m afraid, Dave. This is my blog.