The first speech of this year’s IdeaLab is over and we saw Oliver Samwer talking about 3 main points while founding a company.
At first the CEO of Rocket Internet talked about huge ideas and how you should always „dream big“. No one would have thought that Zalando or AliBaba would become billion dollar companies and disrupt their markets, but they did. He praised especially the American attitude of taking higher risks and just do their thing.
„The founders in Silicon Valley are so successful, because they believe in their product“
He pointed out that it’s not important to invent a new business model to be successful, but rather to focus on the product and deliver the best customer experience. Just as we can see with Rocket Internet he explained „Lets not be business model founders, but product founders“.
Last but not least he said that motivation is key and that you should always dream big, but that one very big and often underestimated aspect of founding a company is to find the right co-founders. Thats why he always encourages people to visit conferences, meet new people and last but not least to learn out of past mistakes and to keep on going - „we are in the business of failing“
