my blog. for you.

Let’s talk digital.

I’m an independent IT consultant and entrepreneur in the Internet and software business. I’m interested in design, enterprise applications, web apps and SaaS products. I design and develop business solutions and applications. I help companies in terms of software quality and knowledge transfer, e.g. with Angular and Spring Boot.

Caring

Recently, I've read two interesting stories about people who genuinely care about helping others and how as a consequence everyone involved benefits. One of those articles is titled "How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire" and describes the outcome of a hiring process. Brooke Allen, the hiring manager, describes how he not just gave feedback to the candidates that ultimately weren't hired as to how they might improve their skills but actively and ...

Timothy Dexter – The man who carried coals to Newcastle … and turned a profit

Timothy Dexter was a colourful 18th century American businessman noted for his eccentricity and his eerily acute business sense that in most cases flouted common sense. Among others his business feats include: delivering warming pans to the West Indies, where they were sold for a profit for use as ladles in the local molasses industry shipping gloves to Polynesia, where they were bought by Portuguese merchants on their way to China, who coincidentally anchored there at the time his shipment arrived amassing early Continental Dollars ...

Sunday February 15th, 2015 by Bjoern in Business, Entrepreneurship

Culture is key

Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb recently wrote a post about why culture is the most key part of a company (and quite likely of any organization). He quotes Peter Thiel, one of the investors in Airbnb, on the questions of what's his most important piece of advice: "Don’t fuck up the culture." Brian goes on to elaborate that "culture is simply a shared way of doing something with passion". No matter how a product, business or business model might change in the ...

Sunday November 16th, 2014 by Bjoern in Entrepreneurship

Leadership

Last week I was asked by a friend what I consider the most important aspects of leadership. Spontaneously, I came up with the following two: transparency dependability A good leader should always be open about her objectives and the team's goals. She's supposed to communicate timely and clearly - especially when it comes to bad news. A leader should also be dependable, i.e.: She should adhere to her decisions, admit when she's wrong and not act behind people's backs or have an agenda of ...

Sunday August 17th, 2014 by Bjoern in Business, Entrepreneurship