Mikkel Svane Boeken

"Featuring nearly eighty inspiring, informative, and instructive letters, Dear Founder is rich with sound advice on an array of business topics, from turning your idea into a reality to building a culture, to reaching key financial goals. This book is an indispensable guide to navigating the realities, risks, and rewards of being your own boss and founding the company of your dreams."--jacket "Wise, practical, and profitable letters to entrepreneurs, leaders, managers, and business owners in every field--from a leading executive, investor, and business founder" --

The real story of what it takes to risk it all and go for broke. Conventional wisdom says most startups need to be in Silicon Valley, started by young engineers around a sexy new idea, and backed by VC funding. But as Mikkel Svane reveals in Startupland, the story of founding Zendesk was anything but conventional. Founded in a Copenhagen loft by three thirty-something friends looking to break free from corporate doldrums, Zendesk Inc. is now one of the hottest enterprise software companies, still rapidly growing with customers in 150 countries. But its success was anything but predestined. With revealing stories both funny and frank, Mikkel shares how he and his friends bravely left secure jobs to start something on their own, how he almost went broke several times, how they picked up themselves and their families to travel across the world to California and the unknown, and how the three friends were miraculously still together for Zendesk's IPO and (still growing) success. Much like Zendesk's mission itself--to remove friction, barriers, and mystery in order to make customer service easier and more approachable--Startupland removes some of the myths about startups and startup founders. Mikkel's advice, hard-won through experience, often bucks conventional wisdom and entrepreneurial tropes. He shares why failure (whether fast or slow) is awful, why a seemingly boring product or idea can be the most exciting, why giving back to the community is as important as the bottom line. From how to hire right (look for people who are not offended by swearing) to which personas generate the highest response rates, Mikkel answers the most pressing questions from the perspective of someone still in the trenches and willing to share the hard truth, warts and all. While there are books by consultants who tell you how to build businesses, or by entrepreneurs now running billion-dollar businesses, there are few books from people still in the trenches who acutely remember the difficult daily decisions, the thrill (and fears) of the early days, the problems that scale with growing a business, and the reason why they all went on the adventure in the first place. Startupland is indispensable reading for all entrepreneurs who want to make their ideas the next big thing. The book will inspire and empower you to follow your own dream and create your own story.

In the Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, there is a holy water font. It was made of a shell of the giant clam, Tridacna gigas. I often wondered where it came from because these clams are only found far away from Europe. I found it intriguing that the shell already arrived in France in the early sixteenth century as a gift from the Venetian Republic to King Francis I. Where did it come from? What story could such a shell tell? What thoughts did the sculptor, Jean-Baptiste Pigalle have when he carved the beautiful column upon which the shell rests? What is its religious significance? Only a few pearls from giant clams are believed to exist, and their origins are shrouded in mystery. Is there a pearl somewhere belonging to this clam? It will have to be the Pearl of Saint-Sulpice, alias the Pearl of Allah. The pearl took me on an unexpected adventure to the French Revolution and before, to a1964 scientific meeting where the descendants of the secret league of the Scarlet Pimpernel unites and onwards to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in1974 where I faced the prowess and strength of the guardians of Aphrodite in the Troodos Mountains. Join me if you dare.

History is not always the exact truth but a narrative flavoured by the writer's passion and background and the time when she or he lived. It is particularly true for southern Australia's history because it was put on paper by the colonialists. It is as if the history of Australia started then, and nothing happened before. Many past stories representing the history of aboriginal Australia are lost because its people died rapidly of infectious diseases, malnutrition and wars. Even these stories may not be the exact truth because they were told and re-told many times. But somewhere within the tales and the stories, there is a truth, and I have tried to find it. Behind the glamorous reports of Matthew Flinders and Nicolas Baudin's maritime exploits, one can find their humanity, aspirations and failures. The history of the people that lived along the South Australian coast from the Murray River, the Encounter Bay (Ramong to the Ramindjeri people), Kangaroo Island to Port Lincoln (Kallinyalla, the Place of Sweet Water, to the Barngarla people), and along the entire west coast of the Eyre Peninsula, is at best scanty. But there are stories-interesting stories-of whalers, escaped convicts and their lives among the aboriginal people. Here, I meld these stories together in a tale of love, adventure and imagination.