Estuve muy cansado. Caí sobre unas zapatillas yendo al baño. Me tocó una corriente eléctrica en la ducha. Pronto descubrí que alguien había entrado a mi pieza en la noche para teñir toda mi ropa azul. Una lata considerando las reuniones importantes que tuve esta mañana. Bajé rodando por la escalera después de haberme olvidado del primer escalón. Cuando me despierto de la inconsciencia, revisando mis varias heridas, noto que un perro se está meando sobre mi pie derecho. Lo veo pero no lo siento por que mi pie derecho todavía esta en la escalera. Lejos de donde me ha acompañado durante estos 27 años.Por suerte estoy en Chile, donde la culpa siempre se la puedo echar a Michelle Bachelet. La pobre que ocupa el cargo de una de las presidencias más omnipotentes del sistema político mundial, una figura que tiene todas las culpas y todas las gracias por todo lo que pasa en el país. Una persona. 16 millones de compatriotas. Sola responsable de cada evento. Te mandaré la cuenta médica (y el pie, que ya no me sirve). Junto con unos reclamos sobre una comida mala que me sirvieron ayer. Me parece injusto, considerando lo poco que veo que tienes que ver con lo que me pasó, pero uno tiene que acostumbrarse a los sistemas nuevos, para ser un buen inmigrante… … hasta cuando la razón me dice que la culpa debe ser... debe ser de la gerencia de MOP, los subcontratistas y quizás del gobierno anterior… … ¿pero la culpa sigue ser de? Michelle. O quienquiera que sea presidente actual. Empiezo a entender todo esto. Por qué los ejecutivos de ventas a pesar de ganar comisión y a pesar de que Needish sea gratis no "se atreven" a meterse a Needish. Quizás entiendo ahora por qué el gerente del colegio echó a Naty. ¿Se habrá sentido directamente responsable? Una organización, sea empresa o sociedad, necesita confianza para tomar decisiones. Necesita tomar decisiones para crecer y seguir adelante. Necesita gente que tome su responsabilidad para crear confianza. Pero más que nada, necesita gente que de esa responsabilidad. En mi humilde opinión, creo que a este país le haría bien compartir un poco más la responsabilidad… | Me levanté esta mañana…

From a theoretical standpoint I guess it always is. So saying that launch day is getting closer is likely to be as irrelevant – or of no interest at all – as saying that the future comes closer every day. So let me re-phrase that and say that launch-day is getting relatively really close. And THAT… is about time (understatement).

I don’t know if it’s us or if it always takes 6 months from decision to launch a fairly simple web-site. Anyway it’s frustrating, extremely frustrating. Right now we are approaching serious Chilean corporations with our cute little value-propositions, asking them if they couldn’t please consider being a part of the Needish-community for launch. So far they could. They can. Or they consider. Some try to resist but lack proper arguments?

Sales-pitch: “Would you, Oh marketing or sales manager, consider a 5 minutes sign up process - for free - to receive potential new clients in your inbox within a couple of weeks.”

Yes! Of course they can. It’s the easiest sales-pitch in the history of sales. Still, some organizations might suffer from internal decision-deceases likely to one day cause sudden death in a society where the client is every day more powerful and equipped with murdering tools like comparison, international competition, de-regulation etc. in the quest for service and understanding.

And I understand this. I even, to some far-fetched extent, respect it. If 6 foot 6 unsteady -could fall over and wreck my desk any moment - Oskar had the nerve to step in to MY office asking for ME to assign a sales-person in each and every one of MY divisions to be prepared in case a shit-load of clients suddenly appears through the virtual leads-highway they are creating for ME (and MY competitors!)… I might tell him to just “hold it there for a while! What did you say again? To spend our precious time now, though you have no numbers to present?”

Exactly! We can only promise dedication and that we will do everything in our power to make sure Needish will be a tool for your pleasure. And after all, if you are the marketing manager and you actually just read this, you already spent the same time it would take to prepare your organization for the Needish launch…

… A launch that, by the way, is getting closer! Relatively really close! It’s a matter of weeks and I can’t sleep. Like a kid on Christmas Eve. Freely distorted from the Swedish phrase “Like a kid on the day before Christmas Eve”, freely translated from the Swedish phrase “Som ett barn före julafton”. We actually do get our gifts one the 24^th. I don’t know if it’s because we are nicer kids, our parents are more kind parents or if it’s just because we get more frustrated while waiting. Judging from the calmness surrounding me in the office and considering how politically in-correct it would be for me to say that Swedish parents are nicer… I should say that we probably get more frustrated. I know I am now that I can taste launch. Smell it.

If you represent a Chilean company, you shouldn’t miss out on this opportunity. Feel free to e-mail me at oskar at this domain dot com if you have any questions. In my reply to your e-mail, you will experience a considerably different approach, a more business such. After all, corporate blogs can be personal… right?

Oskar

We have already had some moments of glory, others of despair - since we founded our company. More will come, better moments I hope - worse ones for sure.  If life was a constant feeling of being numb, it probably wouldn’t be much fun at all. But if running your own company was a constant feeling of being numb, life would probably be more fun. Right now I‘d say we are in a pre-everything kind of nervous state of mind. I know I am. May is by far the most boring month of NEEDISH so far. Considering that we have had some interesting dialogues with some new investors, that says a lot about the other months… January meant getting onboard. Did I really want to do this? To be honest, hell no. I was happy just the way I was. But there was a defining moment when I suddenly realized “I am onboard, and I want to be here!” Februray was cold like hell in Sweden, and I traveled a lot. We decided to buy tickets go to Chile. So far, it had been only three guys kidding around, and suddenly we were two guys flying half across the globe to change the world. March meant preparations for Chile. Working late hours almost every day. This was the month when it really kicked in. We were doing it. And it hurt. I was tired. So tired. April was Chile. We were in Chile. Dani and Juan met for the very first time. They didn’t hate each other; hence the last obstacle was overthrown. Love was in the air. We had joy, we had fun, we had a weekend in the sun and when we came back we managed to raise 100000 dollars. I had to resign. So I did. Big month. Huge. May? May has been kicking along I guess, but it hasn’t really changed the course of the company… that’s what I hate with May… nothing has really happened to change the way we think of ourselves. Not yet. And we are definitely too early in this business (are we even to be considered in business?) to start enjoying the past. Maybe this is why I woke up today and wrote an e-mail to the others, basically saying (looong email): “We are crap and we need to improve this and this and this and that”, wrapping up with a “maybe I worry without reason, didn’t mean to be mean… good luck guys!” I guess they hate me right now, for being such a pain in the ass. I hope it was worth it. Anyway we are very much a cyber-organization so far, and hate never shows its ugly face (it only shows as subtle messages in e-mails)… and it’s not really hate… of course it’s not! But strong words like hate can make a weak blog worth reading. Love from Sweden to all NEEDISH people out there / Oskar 

Kafka said something like: “The light in the tunnel could be a train”. But Kafka was a depressed anti-social poet, wasn’t he? I saw the NEEDISH-light today. On a secret location, somewhere in the mighty djungle called the World Wide Web we have hidden a link to the test-server where the first version of NEEDISH is being built. Digital guards are surrounding the area and only the wholy 7 (the team) is allowed to enter the future. Today I logged on and… I guess test-drove is a proper word. If NEEDISH was a car today, would have been the day when the anxious plant-manager takes the new model - convertible - on a mountain drive in the setting sun. Luckily NEEDISH is not a car. Had it been a car, my days would have been counted. It has no brakes. It has no wind-shield. It has no lights. It has no dark-haredish girl in the passenger seat. It has no real wheels. BUT it has an engine. And that engine works beautifully… After playing around for an hour I reluctantly came back to reality and I wrote the very first test-document ever. It started like this:

First of all, you have done a beautiful work guys… I just…

I just what? Unfortunately I can’t tell you. Being secret is not so much about protecting the idea… it’s creating that curiosity… and it’s about protecting the idea… did I say it wasn’t? Ha! I am paranoid. I see XISH-services in my dreams. I hear them on the streets. I smell them when I close my eyes. But so far we are IT as we know it. Competitors exist. They are cute. They have visions. But they don’t have Chileans working in development. So, everyone lets give it away for Chile, that tall and skinny and precious little secret hiding behind the Andes. I see a prosperous future for such a great place to live… at least until global warming creates energy-crises and Argentina stops selling Bolivian gas to Chile. But hey, who am I to be predicting the future, I am only a part of the team that will change the way we felt about Service. Real global service.

Halleluish, Oskar

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?