In Sweden on May first we sometimes say… or rather… in Swedish we say (sometimes abroad): “Maj maj måne jag kan lura dig till Skåne”. I would consider it the bad sequel to April fools. I guess we just love to make fun of people in Sweden. It makes sense. No one is ever angry over here, so you can get away with pretty much anything. Maj maj måne, however, I think lost traction for two reasons:  

1) Second mover’s disadvantage (never heard about it, but I imagine there must such a disadvantage… otherwise no one would have the first mover’s advantage… right?)

 2) The name.

Let’s go back to April fools for a moment. In Swedish, we say: “April april din dumma sill, jag kan lura dig vart jag vill” which means – a very FREEISH translation I must say – April april you stupid herring (kind of fish), I can fool you to go wherever I want. It does sound stupid, I know. But at least the point is that it rimes and that you can be fooled to pretty much anything (="to" go anywhere). Now, May 1st, and the “Maj maj måne jag kan lura dig till Skåne” is even worse. I won’t bother translating but the most important part: “I can fool you to go to Skåne”. Oooooooh… I’m so scared… ooo… Come on! Skåne is a part of Sweden.

So, what I am trying to say is May as a “fooling-month” comes after April and it carries a pretty pointless tagline compared to Aprils. NEEDISH has first mover’s advantage (I know, that’s a pretty aggressive statement, but hey – show me where to find the little box today!) and NEEDISH is a pretty great name. Excuse me if I feel confident. I am sure it will pass… and come back again… and go away… and re-appear. That’s part of the thrill.

Back to business 2 consumer (that is our primary field, isn’t it?)

Oskar 

 From the airport in Buenos Aires… My flight is delayed and I will have to spend the night in Madrid tomorrow, which means I am on the road for like 48 hours before I get back.

Boring. Really fucking boring, but still somehow I feel calm and happy in a strange way. I just spent 15 minutes talking to 7 Argentinean make-up selling chicas at the duty free store. Probably one of the reasons for moments of happiness. We’ve had more meetings since the last blog-entry and it’s been good. Not resulting in any money but they have helped us to develop our secret idea. There are now several companies interested in investing money in the second round. Who wouldn’t be? We basically present that we either conquer the world or loose it all without a penny in revenue, so it doesn’t take a clever due-diligence professional to understand that an early second round could be attractive. So how do we do the first round? Well, first of all we are going all in. The three of us. The founders, as we so promising call ourselves in the Business Plan.  

We now have three employees and probably one more on Monday. To that adding designer-services, accounting, some patent-registrations etc… which means our all in won’t last for long and probably not enough to hire a secretary. All 7 Argentinean make-up girls wanted positions as secretaries in Needish just after having seen the logo. One of them said: “¿tiene q ver con estar necesitado/oso de algo?”

Who knows? I am just tired. It’s tiresome to be young, fairly poor and trying to start a company on the other side of the world. It’s also fun like hell, inspiring and exciting. What will happen next? No one really knows. One of the investors said he could hook us up with a free office in Silicon Valley, to try to raise funds from there. Maybe we will…

By the way! We have two American clients now. I was charging my computer at the intl. dialing booth earlier and two attendants from Delta asked for long-distance rates. When they didn’t feel like buying 200 minutes to call home and tell the family about a delay, I offered them to use my lap-top and to Skype back. The booth-responsible was less happy. They were amazed that you could actually bump into a Swede in Argentina and talk to your daughter by screaming to a laptop without any cables connected. It is quite strange I guess. It’s a strange world we live in. Had I only long curly hair they would have thought I was the second coming. They loved me and wanted to pay me. Gave them two business cards and told them to remember the logo and tell everyone the story whenever they see it in American media. One of them touched me the way only old women have done on this trip. Unfortunately. Love and needish seem to have no connection what so ever at this time. At least not for the CEO. Needish has been like a monastery so far. Only men. Only time to think about the mission, not really knowing what the mission is, but taking for granted it’s a good one.

Are you Needish? I know I am. Or is it Swedish?

Considering those American clients… do they mean that we are no longer in a start up phase?