Make it an Adventure

Weekly Report CW4

Last week, I met an entrepreneur to talk about ventures, businesses, and how to make a satisfying living. I like that we picked up our bicycles and just went to a place we both didn’t know. It felt like an adventure from the beginning, and bite by bite, the conversation went warmer and warmer. We decided to stay for dinner in the restaurant and spent about five hours together. There were many good take-aways for me and a pivotal moment. He mentioned:

“Look, I was way more successful than you are in your age because when I had a great idea, I went for investment until I got it. Making debts is not a bad thing.”

The key is to turn great ideas into valuable assets while making the planet a little bit better. This conversation empowered me to take well-prepared projects to the next level. I can’t wait to go and pitch the heck out of it until we find someone who supports it with a personal loan in the six figures.

Would you take the risk?

Imagine you have an idea at a prototype level. People use your prototype, love it, and pay for it. You made the financial calculations to scale, mapped out the business plan, made a market analysis, marketing strategy, and so forth. You know the next steps and need, let’s say 317k for that. In a usual case, your return on investment is within four years, in a good case in two. You find a person ready to invest the 317k in your project, but if it fails, it’s your liability to pay it back. Would you take the risk?

Most people shy away for a good reason. As an employee, it would take ages to pay this amount back. The good part about a personal loan is the low interest of ~3% per year. The bad part is that you have to take the risk. Another option is providing shares, which moves the risk to the investor. But in the long run, you give much more away when you make the idea successful. So if you really have no doubts about making an idea happen, what do you think is the better option? You need to have your inner dreamer, realist, and critic on the same page to make a good decision. And it would help if you had some consultancy to make sure you have considered the risks properly.

Right now, I’m very excited about what options my partners are going to choose. Both need investment to take their venture to the next level. But whatever they do, I’ll be there to guide them in the long run.

The Five Monday Questions (CW4)

I start every week with a report and five questions, as we implemented it at OnSaPa GmbH to keep a consistent feedback relation.

What was good?

• The dinner with a successful entrepreneur was very joyful and inspirational. We both enjoyed the time spent together.
• The lessons last quarter about money start to show results
• I feel empowered to get funding for various ventures
• The wellness weekend to think about ongoing projects was calming
• Yesterday, I celebrated 1000 daily posts
• I am using the visualization of the Dreamer, Realist, Critic from Disney to make conversations and collaborations better.
• We made progress at our OnVentures project, having the first draft of the skeleton to build ventures theoretically.
• The yearly meeting with ACT was very progress-driven. My partner had a breakthrough in his entrepreneurial mindset.
• The daily stretching starts to show results. It makes me feel more healthy and flexible. I think that’s good.
• Achieved 0.74 of weekly pro-active tasks.
• I started to re-organize the file system

What to look at in the future?

• Create a standardized OnSaPa-Dossier to get funding for our partners
• Check out the positives about an AG rather than a GmbH

What was shitty?

• This month is short, and my side income is cut in half. I could have expected that earlier.

What should stay as it is?

• These reports early in the week are magical. A single week feels like I’ve done things in three weeks. Reports on Fridays felt like a lot, but zooming out was more challenging.

What was neglected?

• I couldn’t spend time on the NFT-Collaboration on the weekend. I’ve to pick it up during the evenings because I have to make the deadline.

I will be back next week with new updates.

Enjoy a fantastic start to this week!
Otto