Bootstrapping From Germany: Cleverbridge CEO Christian Blume (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Was it a very profitable situation right from the beginning? Christian Blume: This is the interesting part. When we started the business, we always said, “We’re only going to enter actual business opportunities if there’s a win-win situation.” I would never have signed off on any kind of deal in order to buy market

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Bootstrapping From Germany: Cleverbridge CEO Christian Blume (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The natural question that comes to my mind based on what you just said is, how do you price? Christian Blume: Our business model is, we take a share of the transaction. If somebody wants to work with us, they only pay for actual performance. There are no upfront setup fees. Nobody has to

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Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Gerrit Kolb, CEO of CoreMedia (Part 1)

You have heard me talk about a vision for Web 3.0 since 2007, when I first published my Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS) equation. In this interview, we discuss how the systems behind the scene are coming along to make a full Web 3.0 user experience possible. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with

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Deal Radar 2008: GameDuell

GameDuell was launched in 2003 and offers skill games to be played against real opponents for real money. The site has around 20 popular games like Solitaire, Roll 5, Freecell and Roll 5.

Stardoll for Little Girls: Mattias Miksche (Part 1)

I covered Stardoll in the Deal Radar series. Here’s the story from CEO Mattias Miksche. SM: Please describe your personal background : Family, upbringing, early career, etc. leading up to this venture. MM: I have a multicultural background. Austrian dad, German mom – they came to Sweden during/following World War II. I was born &

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Amazon Pursues Growth At All Costs

In 2007, Amazon’s stock price appreciated by over 125%. How does it look in 2008? Amazon preserves leadership in its core retail business, while layering on a variety of “services”. Amazon posted Q407 results in line with the Street’s estimates. Revenues grew 42% y-o-y to $5.67 billion from $3.99 billion in the quarter a year

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Germany and Renewables

Here’s another good piece from Business Week on Germany’s Renewable Energy efforts: The Wind at Germany’s Back : Cutting-edge tech and government incentives have made it a world-beater in renewable energy. Some excerpts:

Sunpower Seems Unreasonably Slaughtered

Sunpower’s (SPWR) Q4 stock performance has been scary as the company’s stock reached heights of $160/share in intraday trading and then plummeted on general market madness and company outlook to $73/share recently. It is worth looking at the company to see what has been going on.