Random Thoughts

After competing in the hotly contested (specifically in Germany) market for Online Food Ordering for about 12 months, there are a couple of thoughts and as well some standards I want to set for our company for the new year.

First of all, it is surprising how litigious the space is - not sure whether this is specific to Germany (we have not encountered anything like it outside Germany). So that seems to be a cost of doing business. I would prefer to do without it, as it is not fun and on top of that inefficient.

Second, the competition seems to be on a weird personal level instead of an abstract value-maximizing-beat-the-competition-through-execution level. Again - this is specific to Germany as we have not encountered anything like it outside Germany.

Thirdly, and most surprisingly, competitors like to cook their numbers. I have no clue on what level that would make sense, as this cannot be sustainable on long term. First investors find out, than competitors etc. 

In any case - here some standars that we follow and believe in at Lieferheld. 

• We will never buy Facebook friends - you will not see Lieferheld getting miraculously super popular in Pakistan (We will and do use Facebook ads)
• We will never buy traffic to short-term boost our Alexa Ranking
• We will never list restaurants/delivery services on our platform with whom we have no contract
• We will never copy menu data from our competition and of course all of the menu data that we have on our sites have been entered by us from the original menues
• We will never communicate inflated numbers of restaurants / delivery services available ( ‘available’ = you can order online via our site)

Curious to see what 2012 will bring - we have big ambitions.

Here some eye-candy for the holidays:

http://youtu.be/OxjkfVOXYcQ

We have been living in Berlin now for about nearly a year - time to write down some unstructured thoughts on Berlin / Europe.

Berlin feels quite homogeneous - it is quite German. There are Germans and foreigners living in this city (we employ as many non-Germans as Germans at my company). This is quite different to New York.

There are no foreigners in New York. Everybody is a New Yorker on arrival. Language skills not required - everybody tolerates your English. What makes the society so open:

US society defines itself via a common idea: The constitution / declaration of independence.

That is quite compatible: Everybody - regardless from what culture - can subscribe to such an idea and join the club. BBQ on 4th of July. Thanksgiving. Freedom of speech. Equal opportunities (maybe not quite - but this is another post).

The European societies define themselves via their cultural heritage - Germans, Frenchmen, Danes etc. have 1.000 years + of ‘cultural identiy’ that defines them. Hard to join this club, if possible at all. That makes European societies hard to join - you either are in or out / stay a guest.

Long-term a competitive disadvantage and also it makes these societies homogeneous = boring.

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” - Steve Jobs 24.02.1955 - 05.11.2011

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you and then you win.” - Ghandi

Quite interesting - seems to be true for the space I am working on right now as well: the German online food ordering industry. With Lieferheld.de we came out of nowhere last November and became 2nd biggest player in Germany within 9 months. 

Instead of competing with us to build a better product for our customers, the incumbent players that have been around for 6 -9 years in that space, are becoming quite litigious. Always singling something out, where we innovate, do things differently or bring real customer value (today, the topic is Online Payment - an area that I know a bit). I actually cannot count the amounts of legal proceedings - so far all invalid - that have been raised against Lieferheld.

But hey - we just focus on building a better product. Let other competitors focus on denying innovation and customer value.

It looks like we approached stage 3 of the above quote: getting close to winning ;-).

It was announced on Friday: We closed a €4M EUR series A round for Lieferheld. 

I have been fundraising more or less non-stop fulltime during the last 4 years. This time it was a very different experience:

• It was quick (6 weeks)
• It was competitive
• We were able to set the terms

Here is why I think this was the case:

• The usual checkboxes / setup was in good shape. A lot of de-risking took place since seed: team, technology, proof-of-concept, revenue etc.
• Trust: The seed investors of Lieferheld (Team Europe Ventures, Holtzbrinck Ventures) are well known. This saved a lot of time for getting in front of partners / decision makers AND we got feedback on average in 48h whether the deal was interesting or not. This made the whole process very efficient
• The right topic at the right time: Online to Offline. Performance Based Local Marketing. Existing €2.5B EUR market. Fantasy: Groupon IPO, Grubhub IPO, Just-Eat IPO etc.