Projects are the primary form of work in a growing number of industries. Furthermore, many of us are part of more than one group simultaneously, in different constellations where we may have other given roles. Managing several different projects and teams at the same time is a special area of exploration. At this point I want to focus on the roles we choose, or are chosen for us, in temporary projects and work groups. What role should we play, and how much is up to ourselves to choose?

Team roles is a field of research in the borderland of psychology, sociology and management. There are for example the CG Jung Archetypes, based on 12 primary characters used in everything from ad campaigns to tarot. Jung was a man who went into the depths of human consciousness and beyond. To understand what role we need to play, we don’t really have to go to that length.

Belbin’s model for group composition is a popular and generally accepted team development tool based on nine different roles needed in any work group. These are elementary roles that differ from formal functions as in a leader or a secretary. They represent our preferred position in a team. In a small group of five, we may need to take on more than one role at a time. In a bigger group of maybe 20–30 members, there will be competition and we may have to seriously think about secondary preferences, or divide the larger group into smaller units.

Belbin sets out nine primary roles needed in any group. All of us will have a natural preference as a Plant, a Specialist or a Completer Finisher. There are also secondary preferences worth exploring, and parts of ourselves we would like to develop. Any new constellation or project is an opportunity to try out a secondary or even tertiary role to discover more of who we are and what we are capable of. Our values, personality, temper will play into our preferences, as well as the team and task at hand.

There is great value in learning about how to function in a group setting. Individual reflection such as journaling is an excellent tool for getting to understand ourselves and our teammates. Will I support other people’s ideas or is it more about having my ideas take place? Who does the talking and the walking? Do I enjoy my team role, or do I try to change my input?

There are various online tests to explore team role preferences. This is not the same thing as personality tests based on the much criticized but very popular Myers-Briggs model, or the equally popular and poorly reputed DISC model for communicative styles or “colors”. The Big five is well regarded and worth exploring, not specifically aimed at team roles but more basic personality traits that can explain much of role preferences.

The role we intuitively will choose in a group is often based on unconscious driving forces. We will choose our primary role, if there is a need for it and if not assigned another one. As humans we will make an assumption in an instant of our place in the group in relation to others. This part of our brain is a million years old and lightning fast, but with knowledge and training we can avoid unnecessary social pitfalls as we enter new constellations.

So why not use your next assignment to try out a secondary role in order to explore traits you are curious to develop. Maybe you want to take a step back from the driving role as a Shaper or a Coordinator, and see what happens when others step up. You may wish for a more outgoing role as a Resource Investigator in order to enhance the outcome of the project. You might be particularly good at completing. We usually know what roles we prefer not to take, but sometimes may have to accept because it is required.

With a better knowledge of what different team roles represent for us, we can make the best of our own efforts and at the same time help others find their potential. A well performing team is a hot topic for another post.

So much has happened in the startup space since I started my first company many years ago. Everywhere you go there are (desperate) founders hunting down VCs and angels to convince them to invest the time and money needed for their venture. There are endless pitch nights, investor networking and meetups, cold calling and e-mailing potential partners that never seem to have the time or the decency to respond.

And with a growing number of pitching contests and dragon’s nests, seems most founders are doing nothing else but fundraising for years on end. This is particularly evident now that growth capital is limited to a few hotspots, but to a large part it’s always been much of the same dynamics.

I am sure most early stage startups would rather skip the fundraising part of the journey. It tends to eat up too much invaluable time and energy for founders who would, and in my view should, rather spend time building product and team, talking to clients and solving a real problem. But they all need the right money and network to realize a scalable, disruptive solution.

It’s the same with fundraising as with any other work process like dev ops or accounting; it tends to be easier when you are doing it all the time, staying in the loop. It’s hard for anyone to be in several complex system loops at the same time, so founders need outside help. That’s why we decided to do fundraising full-time, acting as matchmakers for startups in need of the right partnership for their long-time ability to disrupt a market.

Stick to what you do best, to what brings the most value to secure market fit.

Our deliberate mission means that founders can make better use of their precious time and resources. The global startup ecosystem has been growing exponentially for a long time now, and there seems to be no end to the number of service providers, disruptive ideas and investors of all kind coming in to play a role in this rugged landscape.

An expanding ecosystem becomes ever more challenging over time for any individual to grasp. It also means that more parts of the process become areas of deep knowledge for specialists. There are only so many areas in which an individual, a founder, or a company might call themselves a specialist.

Much like the entertainment industry or real estate has seen the birth of agents with deep insights into their part of the market and its key players, I envision the same happening with the startup industry. There is a need for professionals, specialists utilizing deep knowledge of the landscape and its inhabitants. You don’t have to do everything yourself as a founder. Stick to what you do best, what brings the most value and to secure market fit.

Getting funded is a full-time job. was originally published in TEEMR on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An ecosystem is a defined habitat within a biotope where all organisms depend on others for survival. It can be a section of a forest or a cultivation plot where all organisms in the form of producers, consumers and decomposers, as well as “dead” things such as rocks or soil (although healthy soil is full of living organisms) are included.

So why are we using biosystems in order to analyze the dynamics of entrepreneurship, something quite different from the study of nature, and how is this relevant?

To understand this, we need to dig a little deeper into the concept of economic (entrepreneurial) ecosystems as a metaphor. A system defined by an industry, technology or business area where all players continuously adapt to all others. The ecosystem organizes itself from the bottom up, without any outside help using continuous evolutionary adaptations. The ecosystem metaphor is quite appropriate if we look at how a purely capitalist market works in theory. In reality, all industries and markets are subject to intervention, regulations and agreements. One reason being that completely unregulated economic activities may have bad implications on society and/or the earth’s system.

But even where there is no evident negative impact of economic activity, various interventions are usually applied anyway because that’s how society works. Johan Eklund points to the fact that this tradition rather brings to mind theories of ​​creationism (a higher power as the creator) rather than a self-organizing evolutionary process of trial-and-error. Eklund’s idea is that if we want use a word like ecosystems, economic activity and innovation must be free from intervention. Otherwise, we should seek an alternative metaphor that acknowledges the existence of, and need for, policies and regulations.

The comparison between economics and ecology can still be meaningful, even if many would argue that economic growth is in conflict with sustainability. In a market, there are producers, consumers or “decomposers” just like in the natural world. These decomposers might be criminals, lobbyists and side interests that in various ways may bring corruption to the system, death and disease to other organisms. The economy also features dead but very essential structures such as roads and various types of infrastructure that influence the living conditions for organisms. When looking at how various entrepreneurial ecosystems emerge and develop, a regulatory function in the form of policy and politics is usually taken for granted. Conservatives and liberals seek “free” markets, albeit for different reasons. Socialists and social democrats seek “fair” markets. Green parties and transnational authorities such as the EC seek to preserve forests, while liberals seek freedom of landlord rights etc.

The interpretation of ecosystems in economics is put forward not least by decision makers and those who want to actively promote all kinds of entrepreneurship. Strong advocates for such an interventionist view is found within the system of education, business schools and others designing the entrepreneurial education and for which they also receive long-term funding. The same thinking goes for various entrepreneurial support organizations.

Maureen McKelvey at the Gothenburg School of Economics does research concerning “How do we best support innovation processes? How do we train entrepreneurs to grow?”. This is far from a darwinian dynamic of a natural ecosystem. The Swedish innovation support system is made up by advisors, business developers, project managers and decision makers who may add knowledge, resources or structural components to any given sector. Although these activities come with the best of intentions and (sometimes) with the appropriate competences, startups (much like children), are best left on their own, finding their unique path to existence and growth. But any system tend to feed itself. Local communities and support organizations tend to compete for growth and attention, acting both as wardens and sometimes as parasites. And by all means, parasites are a common feature in any natural ecosystem.

Being someone who gets paid to deliver advice and business development, I need to add value where needed, and to know when advice should not be given at all. It also includes accepting and promoting interventions such as public grants, incubators, interest groups. Most organizations in this field are non-profits with a very noble purpose, but many seem to exist mostly for their own sake, orbiting around startups and entrepreneurs as self-appointed experts. The majority of decision-makers and other influencers within the support system lack any real entrepreneurial know-how and are little more than bureaucrats, but some are at least honest with what they do not know.

The business community creates employment and tax revenues that drive the whole of society. If we believe this is well enough, then all business activities have a positive impact. However, an increasing number of entrepreneurs and organizations are opposing such an over-simplified worldview and tend to follow a purpose of social benefit, local development or wildlife preservation. They may be looked upon as the opposite of parasites, but they have their own problems within a system that is built around a purpose for profit and growth.

Humans are the only species with the power both to destroy and to care for the ecosystem. There are no planned interventions in evolution: changes occur purely as a result of changed conditions, mutations or natural disasters. Similarly, technological change can make or brake an entire industry and drive the economy toward something completely new and never before seen. So as part of the support system we might like to think of our role as that of a game warden or conservationist, working to restore or strengthen ecosystems.

A famous example is the reintroduction of the gray wolf in Yellowstone in the 1990s, resulting in the whole ecosystem becoming more balanced and nuanced, with greater biodiversity and better living conditions for a number of different species (including pray), many of which were unexpected. Wolves only disappeared because of humans in the first place, and so interventions go both ways. Biosystems have actually come to look much more like economic systems, with humans behind the scenery everywhere. The fact that there are still natural ecosystems in perfect balance, without intervention is when there is no human interference, bugs and bears only taking as much as they need.

It would be interesting to see a study that looks at entrepreneurial ecosystems with or without any intervention. Politicians, advisers and researchers have a need to see themselves as essential to the system, and it is never easy to question one’s own existence. Being part of the ecosystem is a way to be seen as relevant and in demand, even when one’s contribution may be questionable. If a decision maker seeks to understand the true value of entrepreneurship and innovation, they ask researchers who share their interests. The real players in the field are busy developing their businesses in order to adapt, survive and thrive, but they also have a lot to say. It’s just that their opinion is seldom asked for. We tend to talk about them, not with them.

Despite these critical aspects, it makes good sense for any entrepreneur to understand a bit about how ecosystems work and how we use the metaphor. The public sector, especially in the Nordics, is a significant player when it comes to innovation funding. Particularly social entrepreneurs, who usually and quite naturally have trouble securing private funding, are often left to public grants in order to take their first steps to the development of a social innovation. Still, despite the fact that national strategies aim to promote “soft” and social innovation, and require recipients to comply by gender equality and social inclusion, my guess is that 98% of global startup funding is about “hard” innovation based on technology and economic growth. The Swedish state-owned Almi and Almi Invest are running one of the largest national innovation funds in Sweden with a staggering 9,000 billion SEK (about 9 billion EUR) in assets with the goal that “more innovative ideas are successfully commercialized, more viable companies are started and developed and more companies increase their competitiveness and growth.” Everything about social benefit or local development comes second. It’s Milton Friedman in sheeps’ clothing. What can be done about this mindset?

In the jungle or up on the mountain, there is no outside force to intervene. Everything that lives here must have a clear purpose. The arctic fox and the grouse must be useful for one another and for the whole ecosystem, otherwise none of them belongs here. On the entrepreneurial virtual mountain, roles are invented rather than given. But here as well, balance assumes self-regulation and adaptation. Profit is a strong purpose, easy to convey and to grasp. A “soft” purpose like people or planet have a much more long-term impact and is more difficult to measure. So we stick with profit, for the sake of convenience and convention and we add people and planet to appear as good.

Now the awareness of cause and effect is so much greater than just a few years ago, and an increasing number of entrepreneurs want to call themselves social. Young ones finally have a strong voice and we are seeing new business models that include people and planet as to increase profit. Governments are finally realizing we can not only have economic growth and ignore the consequences. Much of the entrepreneurial ecosystem of funders and founders, advisers and academics, is geared towards profit from rapid technological innovation. It will take some time to adapt to a whole new deal.

A number of futurist-social-thought-leaders like Indy Johar or Michel Bauwens promote a shift from traditional roles of ownership or management to the role of stewardship, for the good of the planet and the commons. It is the idea of ​​a conscious, long-term direction towards a future for the biosphere as a whole, where all resources are owned by the commons and not just a few. This implies a very hard shift from the current system and the capitalist world order. As much as we would like to see society shift from short to more long term thinking, we still live in a world driven by convenience. The concept of Homo Economicus is at least 10.000 years old and it will not die until there is an equally powerful shift towards a whole new paradigm, which seems rather unlikely to happen for another ten millennia. Who and where are we then?

Innovation, trade and entrepreneurship ultimately generate all economic growth on which modern society is based. Yet I doubt even the most hard-core neoliberals would prefer a system where everyone is left to their own devices. The lambs must sometimes be protected from the predators, even if that means also protection from themselves. In society however, it is too easy for a wolf to appear in sheep’s clothing and reap short-time benefits. This is why most regulations lack precision, limiting also those with good intentions.

If we were to apply the same methods to control ecological systems, wolves would have to go to wolf school, the bear would have to formally check in or out of hibernation and the beaver would have to go to jail if he cut down too many trees in one place. Only humans need governing in order to behave well, and this assumes control which is provided by technology. Many future job opportunities lie in the development of identity checks and tracking, predicting of behavior and consumption. A shining example of a fast growing, well defined and very profitable ecosystem with its own infrastructure, its producers and consumers, decomposers and parasites all locked in symbiosis.

What are entrepreneurial ecosystems about? was originally published in TEEMR on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I want to talk about time. What it is and what we do with it. Why time seems to be on everyones lips. How to explore this gift, this force of nature that we all seem to grapple with, but never win.

A couple of weeks ago I listened to a lecture by Bodil Jönsson, a Swedish physics professor and author of several books on the topic of time. We were invited to suggest topics within the lecture. I asked what her thoughts were on flow. Someone else asked about the fact that as we grow older, we seem to experience accelerating time. Or why time goes by slowly if we are bored.

At some point in this lecture we talked about how we in the Western world look at time as an asset, like money, that we never seem to have enough of. There is never really time to do anything out of the calendar, this “technology” that we can’t seem to live without since everything about life in the modern world relates to time. This is a justified reaction, but what is really behind this understanding of time? We live in a time of scarcity, economics, performance. Everything is measured. Every hour we work, every step we run or walk. We tend to look at everything with the eyes of the accountant, where everything has a price and where most things are valued in terms of time spent working, caring, building and digging, researching, and processing. Time is everything.

What if all this is an illusion? What if time really has no price, since it is not a commodity and not bound by scarcity. Time is in fact eternal and abundant. It just keeps coming, no matter what happens and no matter how we feel about it. Yet it is a force so precious. It slips away from us with accelerating pace.

Time is inevitable, a cosmic force and the only true gift that keeps on giving. To one extent people in Western societies are right in that we never have time, and actually we never did. It is a universal gift, a natural force we receive as long as we live. It can’t be saved or stored, except in memories, in emotions.

There is no having something we never had. This idea stuck with me since that day. What a lovely feeling to know we can all receive this gift no matter what we decide, whoever we meet and whatever might happen (as long as we don’t die). That’s an insight that helps me relieve some of the stress related to the concept of time as a commodity. If I can accept that time is a gift, then I can also accept things that come with it. I can look at each moment in time as a window of opportunity, instead of feeling stuck and constrained by this force.

Looking at quantum physics, it’s fascinating to think about how an object can be at different places at the same time. If we think about it, that’s exactly how memories work. Ever had a dream where you seem to flow between different moments in time that may have decades between them? How we seem to bounce between childhood memories and moments that never happened, but might have happened. Like experiencing parallel worlds. That’s probably the closest most of us will ever come to understanding quantum physics.

What if there are multiple universes and dimensions where someone else that looks like us are doing something like we are doing, only a little different, like the theory of the Multiverse explained by Max Tegmark, another brilliant author and physicist. A staggering thought, but entirely possible. And what if that other you, in another dimension, is actually not someone else but you yourself, having a parallel experience like the one you are having now, only a bit different? In a quantum multiverse, everything can happen and thus will happen, all the time. Think for a moment about the possibilities related to this.

The force of time is a bearer of opportunity, experience, emotions and change. Time brings so many things sacred to us, and it can take it away in an instant. Time keeps on coming, no matter what we do, what choices we make. All we can do is tap into the stream, follow the flow and accept where it takes us.

With this concept also follows that there is no such thing as a Now. There are only past memories and (multiple) future events. “Now” is an illusion, since we are never stuck in time. Time is not linear and not square. It is not circular. It is shapeless, merciless. As such, it can never be controlled or harnessed.

For me, this represents an opportunity to let go a little. Allowing things and events to happen. Embracing the gift of time and what might come with it. It helps in being present, being grateful and open to what life allows us to have.

You don’t have time. You never will. was originally published in TEEMR on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There’s a classic scene in the 2008 movie Felon, where Stephen Dorff, just having arrived at prison after defending his house against intruders, meets the stone hard killer cell mate (Val Kilmer) with a clear ultimatum: Fuck or fight?

In society, most of us don’t have to make hard choices like that. And what a relief! But we need to respond to a number of situations and challenges on a daily basis. How do we know what rules to play by, and the possible outcomes? Are we free to make our own choices or are our responses due to our status and our position in the hierarchy which we find ourselves in?

What are the rules at play?

For a long time I have been a big fan of decentralized organizations. Flat and fluid structures; egalitarian, teal-colored and responsive. Many have fallen in love with the idea of working in free-flowing, bossless structures inspired by visionaries like Frederic Laloux or Ricardo Semler arguing that humans have no use for hierarchies. And yet, everywhere we turn there’s hierarchy. Just because it’s not always visible doesn’t mean it is not there.

Wherever there is a weak, malfuncioning formal structure, there is a lurking unformal hierarchy. Even supposedly egalitarian structures have their inner circles based on skills, social relations and performance. Someone always holds higher esteem within the group and more power to influence. And to succeed, we need to know how those hiearchies work and what rules are at play.

This is a tricky challenge.

How great it would be to live in a world where people can always be who they are meant to be. In reality, that’s not how things work and in most cases we have to battle all kinds of bullies and layers. More often than not, we have to fight the power to earn our rights, our freedom to grow and follow our beliefs. Even if status is based on positive human traits, we may feel constrained. Life is built on hierarchy but the dynamics can be very different in various groups. Hierarchy is a game of status, based on physical strength or size, social skills or character, sometimes even empathy and love.

To understand how this works, I think it’s interesting to look at our closest relatives, the great anthropoid apes.

In every human there seem to live one loving and caring bonobo and one agressive chimp. As a species, these our most close cousins look much the same but behave in very different ways. That’s because they never have to face each other in their natural environment, separated by the great Kongo river.

Bonobos and chimps organize very differently. Chimpanzees are ruled by agressive males and forceful conflict resolution, bonobos are ruled by females with strong character, resolving conflicts mainly by having sex. If you happen to be born a chimp or bonobo, you have to follow very different rules in order to achieve status. With humans, it seems to be we are having both systems at play, and that may also be one of the reasons to our success as a species. It also makes things more complicated, since we always have to figure out what rules are at play and since most of us are part of many different groups, we have to know how to always balance these forces we carry within us.

Fuck or fight? Is it code chimp or bonobo?

Society has evolved with the urge of humans on the one hand to care for, and love one another, and on the other hand to conquer and exploit others. We may have a big frontal lobe, but underneath we are still 99% apes. We all share a history of great love and great violence. Our ancestors were more likely to die from the hands of another human, than tornados or tigers. Yet, it is our ability to communicate, to cooperate that has brought us to where we are today. Hence the ability to be both chimp and bonobo has to be something of a secret weapon.

He who intuitively senses the appropriate response has the edge and he who makes the wrong assumption might not survive for long.

A large part of our brain is constantly occupied by analyzing how others behave or respond. It is a skill we train from the moment we are born and we do it without really thinking about it. Being part of the group has always been key to survival and thus the need to belong is as crucial to us as food and shelter. Society has effectively made us autonomous as individuals, we can now easily survive on our own. Yet more people die from loneliness than ever before. We do need to belong, and this means constant adaptation to different group dynamics.

Even if we do conclude we are part of a bonobo-style structure, there might be times when we have to bring out the chimp when faced with a threat. One example where this conflict of human nature is obvious is in the ongoing struggle for the future of humans and other species. Trump and Bolsonaro vs Greta Thunberg and Naomi Klein. Extraction vs regeneration. Competition versus cooperation. Ego vs Eco. Yes, there are times when we all have to bring out the chimp. Fight the power. Or we will all suffer dearly.

How much wisdom there is in action movies!

In the original 1987 Predator, at a critical point, Arnold concludes that We make a stand now, or “there will no one left to make it to the chopper”. That’s more or less were we are now with the future of the planet. It seems there is never enough love and care for the world, despite our capabilities. Why else do we keep harming our environment in order to make a few more bucks? Why do we allow dictators to rule and wage wars on their own people? Why colonize Mars, when we are already living on the perfect planet?

Women finally got the right to vote only after decades of sacrifice from female activists. The same could be said about the French revolution and the fight for black civil rights in America. One way or another, even the most loving at some point must also decide to fight. We need to ”get to the chopper” or die.

The inner Ape: Humans & Hierarchy was originally published in TEEMR on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I have spent many years in startups. They have been challenging, demanding, and promising. It has not made me rich moneywise. I got something else in terms of valuable life lessons and the kind of personal development that comes with challenging yourself. Here’s a few lessons I learned.

Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

As said by the grandmaster, Bruce Lee, who for all his wisdom and strong spirit, did not make it past his 30's. But he made an impression. I can’t say I have yet, but hey: I am still alive and so are you. So let us use our time wisely.

I had tried life as a freelance consultant for a while when leaving my first job after graduating from business school. I traded safety for freedom, and maybe I found just a little too much of it. Going alone was not really what I needed.

I found life as a freelancer to be quiet, boring and lonely with a lot of doubts and no one to share dreams or strategies, since all friends at the time had steady jobs that paid them well. The startup ideal and the co-working spaces that are now all over the place did hardly exist in the nineties. I became more involved in construction projects and found myself pondering over existence.

Then there was this ex-colleague, ex-schoolmate PhD working as an analyst who approached me with an idea that he and another guy had been tinkering with. It was in the days of the early web, before the success of Google or Apple. We were going to provide online surveys and there was no one doing that on a commercial basis in Europe. They had a proven method and they wanted me to run the ship. So I came along for a third of the company, acting as CEO, COO, sales exec, business developer and pretty much anything else.

We were in business for less than a year until lack of patience split us apart. The other guys bought me out but they never made anything out of it. Partly because believing that hiring someone to do the job never works out. I have seen many examples of people who think they have a brilliant idea, a method, a magic boat they want someone else to row. They are not prepared to work.

I was a decent rower, but no one is good enough on his own. I found myself being bored and lonely. There was never a team effort. Instead I had two cardinals demanding miracles without digging in or providing the resources. I took some time to reflect on things and ended up applying for advanced studies in marketing and concept writing, which is yet another story.

Lesson 1: Do not hire someone to do the dirty work. Do it yourself.

The second time I took a shot at a startup it was me taking the initiative. I had been working in advertising for some time and I was tired of making money for brands who just wanted their sales to grow. It was something of an impact venture. It quickly became something else and I ended up staying for 12 years.

I approached one of my closest friends, working as an accountant at one of the big firms. He talked to a couple of other friends of his, and so did I. We ended up being a total of seven founders with the intent of creating an online editorial service powered by advertising. It was not a great business model. But we blazed ahead, inventing things as we went along. It was improvise, adapt, overcome. A game of survival, of constant looking at the figures, in a team of business graduates obsessed with sales and cash flow. We were making a fraction of what friends from business school were making in their careers as investment managers or management consultants. It was also bad timing, since we started out just when the first internet bubble began to burst.

I remember one weekend where we gathered in a cabin on a remote island, dreaming up strategies, products and how much we would need in the end in terms of fuck-off money. I was being convinced we were in it for the money, thinking we could build a profit and a presence in just three years and then exit. We were working for scraps and I had just bought a house. We had our first kid and my wife also had her own business that demanded a lot of work. It was a struggle, but there was a feeling of calling the shots which is not bad.

When finally leaving we were a company of 20 employees and a community of 200k followers. The business model had evolved into one of the biggest crowdsourcing ventures at the time. It was a personal success but I was not satisfied. I tried hard to change how we did things in order to really disrupt and grow but failed to convince my team mates. I was the first to start and the first to leave. These 12 years provided so many insights. Too many people stay for too long where they are and for the wrong reasons, doing the same thing over and over, eventually ending up empty inside.

Lesson: Starting a business for the purpose of profit will not end well.

My third attempt in the startup space was with a slick guy I came across in a recruitment process during the last part of my second venture. He did not get the job, but he had an interesting profile. I approached him with an idea of starting a digital agency. We went along to build some pretty good solutions.

We had something of a status client with a revolutionary beauty product that seemed like pure magic, and these guys were backing their appearances up with fancy sports cars, clothes and watches. One day they would come by in a Mercedes SLS AMG, the next in a brand new Range Rover. Funny thing was, they never wanted to pay for anything. They behaved like rock stars, insisting on just a handshake when we really needed a contract. My co-founder, who knew these guys, assured me we were safe. We ended up doing a lot of work for free. Our partnership crashed when he decided to join them instead of securing a contract. He may have had his reasons, but it was a stab in the back.

Lesson: Do not be impressed by appearances, and never trust a slick dude.

Although these were all hard lessons, I am still thankful for all I learned. These days I get paid a decent salary for coaching other founders and I can use all of my hard earned insights to help others avoid some of the lessons I learned. I am also running a side business in recruitment. Life goes on.

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +428,678 people.

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Lessons from 3 startups: fool’s gold. was originally published in TEEMR on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In the near future, we will all be free agents. Muscle for hire. Mercenaries working for anyone and anything, as long as it pays.

Heck, it does not even have to be paid work. A coupon to a packet of juice is all it takes. One of the startups I co-founded employs “ordinary people” as creators of content around products of their choice. There is no paycheck, only a tiny product sample.

One thing I learned from doing this for 10 years: It is amazing what you can accomplish just by appealing to peer recognition, free time engagement and old-school principles of influence.

When I left the company I co-funded back in 2012, we were 20 employees and 200k+ freelance content providers of which most are amateur writers.

Some are skilled influencers with their own audience and reputation. They do not get anything more than average Joe, but reputation and reach matters a lot when selecting 10 families to try out a new car for the weekend, or a 1000 volunteers to get a coupon and try out the new smoothie or ready-made pizza.

We also built a separate business out of creating editorial content for magazines, acting as an outsourced feature department hiring semi-skilled amateur writers specializing in consumer tech, appliances or motoring. They worked for us as contracted freelancers and they had a cut of each article produced. We were the freelancer newsroom. Editorial content is one of the areas that employs the most free agents. There are very few steadily employed journalists or photographers around these days and most of them accept this as part of the territory. Much like advertising, where I spent a few years as a copywriter doing commercials and annual reports, among other things. Yes, I got paid a decent amount but not more than the average agency professional.

As I look around today, there seems to be very few areas unaffected by contracting. So is this a good or a bad thing? That will depend on who you are. What are your skills, your reputation & ratings? Are you specialized in one area or more? Is your area of work growing in importance or are you about to be replaced by a bot (are you a robot 😱)?

Furthermore: Do you work with clients in large companies or small agencies? Are your business relations personal or based on lowest payment? Are you easily swapped for other contractors? Are barriers to entry high or low?

”A man of action will always find employment.” (Ivanhoe)

I am not going to bore you with statistics. But in the near future, the best professionals in most areas will be free agents: they will be writers, coders and project managers working on their personal brand. And so will you, me and Dupree and Average Joe. The difference between Ace Joe and his average sibling will be paygrade and security. Very few freelance professionals get to the level where they are able to pay for things ahead in life: insurance and pension funds. Most hired guns will have to compete for scraps and scarcity.

We see it already with companies like Task Rabbit. They (or we) are the freelancers not by choice, but by accident and lack of options. Accidental freelance professionals and task rabbits would be better off organizing for better bargaining power. Or why not get together and create teams and coops of freelancers like envisioned by Kevin Kelly. There will always be power in numbers, and the most creative ad agencies, law firms, construction companies and cleaning companies tend to be owned by its workers.

Freelancers of the world, unite! was originally published in TEEMR on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There is a joke among economists that a bunch of scientists from various disciplines is stranded on a deserted island. They have plenty of canned food but no can opener, and so the debate on how to open the cans using various scientific methods proposed by the chemist, the physicist and so on but none of them works out. The economist comes up with the obvious solution to assume we have a can opener. And voilá, problem solved. Everyone happy.

We are taught in society that being human is to be a utility-maximizing me, myself and I with the intent of getting the most out of everything for ourselves: Homo Economicus. We live in societies built on the assumption of rational decision-making where everyone are perfectly informed of all things they need to know in order to make rational, informed choices.

This is the theory developed by the neoclassical at the Chicago School of Economics where people like Milton Friedman, George Stigler and a whole bunch of other economists were awarded the Nobel Prize. Ever since attending business school I have had problems with this worldview. I remember struggling with the feeling that something was wrong while being taught that this was the foundation of public institutions and trade politics.

Once a year in December, Stockholm features a celebration of knowledge in a global science-fest called the Nobel Prize. There are Prizes for medicine, physics, literature, chemistry (the peace prize is delivered in Oslo). And then there is economics: the most challenged category in the Nobel tradition. Critics from areas of natural science wonder in what way economics is a science alongside basic research areas, dealing with the foundation of life.

Economics is to most people closely related to social science and politics and those are not Nobel Prize categories. The study of economics is the study of scarcity, of ownership and trade. It also includes decision-making and human behavior and in this respect, it actually relates to evolutionary sciences. The Nobel Foundation and the Riksbanken (incidentally the oldest federal bank in the world) awarded Milton Friedman the Prize in Economics 1976. He has since been associated with the economic shock treatment used as an excuse by Pinochet in Chile to torture and kills people in the name of economic order.

But none of that was of course known when Friedman was appointed the Prize, and to be fair the Prize in economics has also been awarded pioneers like Richard Thaler and Daniel Kahneman. Their field of study is not so much about theoretic assumptions but more about life science: they study behavior. By mapping how people make choices in real life, we now have a much more balanced theory of the economic mind. And contrary to the neo-classics, it is intuitively appealing.

Kahneman writes about system A, the automatic system or the intuitive mind and system B that represents logic and awareness thinking. The carrying idea is that we are aware of the choices we make using system B, but not of what is going on in system A. This is in line with consumer research showing that almost all choices are made subconsciously, sparked by emotions. Kahneman’s idea of two systems, one operated by the prefrontal cortex and the other by virtually all other parts of our body makes a lot of sense since we are first and foremost designed to survive before we may analyze and invent.

It is not about what system is “right” or more appropriate to use, we just need to be aware that we are not aware of most choices we make in everyday life. We are constantly using system A and sometimes system B, but while we may notice our thoughts and calculations going on behind our forehead, we are not aware of what is going on with the autopilot of System A, fueled by feelings, associations.

So what then, is intuition? How does it work? Is it the same as instinct, gut feeling, sensing? And how do we know how to use this system A to our benefit when in fact most of the time we are not even aware it is governing us at all?

The theory of Daniel Kahneman is that intuition is nothing but experience. There is no magic, no sixth sense that knows what we obviously can’t know. It explains why firefighters know when to leave a building before it collapses. It explains why Roger Federer seems to know exactly what angle and speed the ball will have when approaching so he may move in position even before the opponent touches it. And it explains phenomena like the 10.000-hour rule.

Scientists like Kahneman and Nassim Nicholas Taleb also shows us why we may trust system A to predict the future for us, based on real life experience. System B on the other hand does a lousy job at predicting stock markets and natural disasters. That’s why the monkey throwing darts is better at predicting stock prices than any over-confident expert.

So how do we know when to make conscious and rational choices and when to leave things to the autopilot? After all, we would not have come far producing medical drugs and moon rockets using only intuitive thinking. But without it, neither penicillin nor poetry would have done society any good. Or as Albert Einsten may or may not have put it:

The Intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the Rational mind its faithul servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

System B is wasteful of energy, contrary to the Intuitive mind. Thats why kids as well as adults get tired from sitting still, using only their brains and a pen, or a laptop. Intellectual work is tiring. Hunting, cooking and having day to day conversations are easy tasks in comparison to algebra, history or writing blog posts on Medium.

Most professional coaches teach us to use our intuition more. Why do we need that? Because in today’s society we have forgotten how to trust our instincts. We are constantly numbing our inner voice with outside impressions: music, traffic, announcements, reading, coding, browsing. And when the inner voice finally reaches through all that noise, we do not trust it because there is no way we can explan by logic reasoning why we are sensing something, and what it means.

Think of the times when your intuition tried to tell you to back out of something but you went ahead anyway and it turned out bad. Or when you met someone that triggered the alarm clock inside and you could not justify the reason for your dislike so you decided to trust them, only to be fooled. Intuition does a great job at protecting us and guiding us in life, we just need to listen and to trust our inner voice. Especially when there is no logic to it.

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Friedman, Kahneman & the tyranny of Logic: Learning how to listen. was originally published in TEEMR on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This piece is about exploring how we will use programable tools for personal power and success previously unheard of. I think it’s pretty fascinating stuff. Imagine soon being able to have your own small team of super-hero AI agents adapted to your liking and benefit. That’s more than kings and emperors have ever had at any time in history.

What will that do to us, to our character and our possibilities? How will we use that power?

As for me, I would like a super-persistent digital version of Ari Gold (Entourage TV series) to take care of all my gigs, and my own pleasant, professional version of Pepper Pots (Iron Man movie) to keep track of me, my family and all the things I need to keep track of. Our future digital helpers will all require different mindsets, different personalities.

Kings and emperors might have been able to choose, to educate and train their agents. But ultimately, they have always been a person with a past, with feelings and aspirations of their own. We will not have to deal with that here.

They will come with no feelings, no past and no plans of their own (let us hope), thus we will be able to design them from nothingness to perfection.

This is an interesting opportunity, and a creative challenge. Where do we start? What will be their guidelines? What personality should we give them?

I would like my Assistant to notice when I am awake, to usher me and prepare me for the day. To access the other assistants including my children’s personal Tutor. Keeping track of me, my calendar, what is happening in the world, what the weather is like, if there is a malfuncion I need to deal with, an accident on the road ahead, the whereabouts of the kids during the day and when it is time to go pick them up. She (or he if that’s your thing) is always by my side.

Providing security, stability and tranquility is a task for a pleasant personality. I would not choose my Ari Gold for that; there are other tasks for him. Like alerting me on who I need to connect with and what actions to take professionally. Obviously, Pepper talks to Ari at all times and most of the time without my knowledge. My agent knows me by heart and is constantly challenging me to step out of my comfort zone. That’s how he is programmed. Knowing me and all my limitations is key to his success and that is the hardest thing to code for: what truly serves me and what to avoid in the flow, how to trick me into being the best version of myself and not just take the easy way.

Taking care of cash-flow and professional development is a complex and crucial task. My agent needs to be ruthless both to me and my employers.

My digital team might also include a personal Trainer. There will be no limit to their ambitions for me, but as a human I need to rest, eat, and have a walk every now and then. They will all ensure I will get the feedback I need to feel accomplished at the end of the day, regardless of how I spend my time. They are always with me but I can choose when to respond, and how to connect. I can choose what kind of knowledge I let them have. Some things are best kept private.

My assistant is only visible when needed and has to double as my avatar, my proxy, my guardian and life companion. She will need a slightly harsh personality to ensure I will not have emotional attachments. I don’t want to fall in love with her (like that dude in the movie Her). That’s just tragic.

The experts providing my digital helpers are making huge profits on people like me, who are very specific about what and who they want to hire. But I have a stake in the company so adding to their smartness and usefulness is to my best interest in several aspects. Making a good match and tracking usability is crucial, so they will collect every little conversation between us.

We have a deal, me and the makers. I may choose another team of developers or leave the platform, migrating my data. Having this kind of power-team will never be cheap, but at least I get to decide on my own profile. And my team is a lot cheaper than hiring real persons. I have copyright of my personal agents so if someone would like to replicate the profiles of my team, they would have to make a deal with me. After all, it’s hard work training them to do really well and there will always be others who are willing to pay for the right skillsets.

Since there will be so many foreseeable versions of digital assistants, trainers and various other forms of agents we could think of, we also need flexibility in programming and training them how to behave, how to look and feel.

Developing the raw material from our instructions, from our data to make these super-efficient assistants is a task for Big Business. That’s why it is not likely we will be able to buy the raw material ourselves and start sculpting like a Michelangelo with a keyboard. Big Business will have better tools and they are going to crave your data in exchange for a kick-ass AI. They who are willing to provide the most data, put in the most work and pay the most are the ones who will have the most success in life. In that aspect, things won’t be so much different from today. Money will talk, also in the digital future.

Is it far-fetched to think that the early versions of digital helpers will be based on human profiles? Will there be copyright from copying the personality of a movie character? Most likely so. That’s another area where Big Business will own the future. Following from there, we will see countless upgrades and tweaks so that the Aris and the Peppers will be even better than the real thing. There will be movies and stories with strong personalities in the future too, so it should be no surprise if AI Business is related to Entertainment Business.

Our cloud-based companions will be able to control all things around them just by sending a command. Software and the Internet of All Things Imaginable will eliminate the need for androids taking physical shape. That area will probably be more interesting for medical robots, pets and toys.

Having constant access to a team of digital superhelpers will give us godlike powers. Just say the word or move your hand, and marvelous things will happen. Things that may be of benefit to you, not necessarily to others.

Are we ready for that? Or will we be like children driving a Ferrari? Already we have so many powerful tools at our fingertips and we can access almost any knowledge, almost anyone and anything anywhere with no effort. And we could do so much more with that power already, but we know not what to do.

Angels or demons: Future Artificial Companions was originally published in TEEMR on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In the epic Back to the future trilogy, the witty teenager gets to travel in time thanks to a ground-breaking invention by the mad scientist. This invention, the “flux capacitator”, is built into the equally epic DeLorean beautiful coupé.

Flux tech allows witty teenager Marty McFly to go back in time, altering the past and thus the future. By doing so, he is also altering himself by adapting his skills to an environment that is changing at atom-level around him. This concept is cool ‘cause it is also the key for the rest of us to stay relevant & future-proof.

In these days with so many of us being aware of so many things, while also feeling like being stuck in time and space, forced to repeat the same loop, we are seeing more and more people questioning their work-life balance and their purpose in life. Why are 85% of global workforce not engaged at work? Why do so many of us feel like being stuck? And why does paid work so many times have to be so empty of (engaging) purpose?

Being stuck in a loop is a concept currently being explored in another futuristic vision: The Westworld HBO series. In this violent, cynic vision, humans are no more alive and have no more free will than the replicant machines. They are just more sadistic, more frustrated, and also less determined, less purpose-driven than their engineered versions.

So what can we learn from Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) and Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins)? I think for one thing we need to acknowledge our different ambitions in life and align them in a way that is unique to each one of us. There is no one solution for all of us. In fact it’s funny how every job description is based only on the needs of the employer, not you as a person.

No wonder it is so hard for most of us to find a paid job that is also our passion, our mission in life. Add the constant flow of success stories in social media (everyone seems happy but me so I must be a failure) and the pressure from society to strive, to consume, to earn more money so we can buy more and travel more. After all, that’s what real success looks like, right?

The concept of being stuck in a loop is one concept that is in stark contrast to another concept as described by Kevin Kelly in The Inevitable, reminding us in a way of Christopher Lloyd’s mad scientist and how we may change our past & future: being in constant flux.

We all know things are not static: even mountains crumble and even immortals like Morgan Freeman will pass away at some moment (and we will cry). But because of our tendency to get stuck in a loop, in a fixed routine of eat, sleep, play and work, we sometimes miss that things around us are always in change. We believe we are destined to follow along the same line as before.

Luckily, the future has not yet happened and so we may in fact choose whatever path we want for our future selves. We just need to make a conscious choice. This is where another, increasingly popular concept comes into the picture: Ikigai or your personal point of convergence.

I have yet to realize my true Ikigai. I may be close, but seems I am circling around the center like being in orbit. As an entrepreneur, I have often felt a clear mission and and a sense of meaning, at the expense of cash flow. Or I might have enjoyed good money and a decent challenge, but felt uncertain at the risk of being exposed (the impostor syndrome). Most employed people tend to be in the lower circle, having decent income and a well-defined job but feeling empty.

But. As the Ikigai tool might be very useful in determining your sweet spot, it is not enough just doing so and then be done with it. You need to do this over and over again, since you and the world around you is constantly evolving. We should choose to see the Ikigai as a fluid diagram to be revised, and updated, as often as needed. Could be once a week, or at least once a year. I know I will look at my Ikigai as often as needed until I can see it changing in front of me.

As for Morgan Freeman, I am sure he found his Ikigai a long time ago and has kept it alive and kicking. In fact, one key part of Ikigai is never to retire, to stay active. May we all live long happy after and may Morgan live to make many more great movie characters for us to enjoy as we continue along our Path.

BTW: Anthony Hopkins is the same age and he too is a living legend like Morgan.

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Reinventing You: A life in flux. was originally published in TEEMR on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.