(๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و Nº130 Getting in gear halfway through the year! 🏖 🌻
Hard to believe it is already May!
2018 is already almost halfway over and that’s ok. : )
Spring is in full swing in Amsterdam & as summer approaches it is busy at the Twotone offices:
- Just this week, we kicked off with Brick Lane Bikes from London to get the word out about their new Hitchhiker frameset across Europe.
- And kicked off with Helsinki based Pelago Bicycles to grow their brand in the Benelux.
- I hired Renate full time after her 6-month Hyper Island traineeship with our team. Everyone until now has been a contractor with the company. Hiring Renate is big deal! : )
- We also welcomed Bertille, our 2nd business school intern from Enseignement supérieur Perrimond in Marseille, France. Bertille will be working with us for 2 months.
- Next week we’re kicking off with the SF based & made in America cycling apparel brand Ornot.
2015, 2016 & 2017 all had s l o w summers so it feels good to be really be getting in gear halfway through the year!
As always thank you for reading,
Jon
p.s.
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Cycling
Science, Socks & Moms. — www.ornotbike.com
Has your Mom ever gifted you a pair of socks? Return the favor, ornot.
Ornot has 25 different styles for your Mom and you! ; )
Ornot is also a new Twotone client since this week!
Pelago — Good bikes for better life — www.pelagobicycles.com
We also kicked off with Pelago this week! We’ll be helping grow their brand in the Benelux!
Stoked
The Trials And Tribulations of a Privateer Enduro World Series Racer — www.pinkbike.com
James Shirley spends the summer roaming the world in search of EWS racing glory whilst living out the back of his converted van. Find out what life’s really like on the road.
Startups
Dropbox, the ultimate Mouse Hunter
Christoph Janz of Point Nine Capital wrote about Dropbox, a three-headed unicorn, going public a month ago & and what made helped it beat all odds:
- Timing Until 2005 or so, most people used only one or maybe two devices to work with their files: a desktop PC and/or a laptop. Dropbox was founded in 2007
- Product Dropbox managed to beautifully solve a very difficult problem.
- Virality It’s this built-in virality that allowed Dropbox to grow at a pace that no other B2B SaaS company has seen before.
- Team It’s clear that the founding team combined excellent product and tech skills with a strong growth mindset.
Sunk Cost Sinks Ships — medium.com
Andrew Evershed, Product at Shopify, wrote a post about the products that go wrong. Not the catastrophic, risk-the-company type either.
It’s about that product you all know about, lurking in the background of your company and sucking up time and skilled people that could make a difference somewhere else.
Is it accurate or useful to say ‘if you’re not paying, you’re the product’? — slate.com
nope.
Sales & PR
61 Glimpses of the Future & a talk by Jan Chipchase
This is good and worth a read.
ALSO, my friend Joachim Baan invited the author, Jan Chipchase, to Amsterdam to speak on May 17th about how side projects are the clearest indicator of what we want to become. Get tickets here.
Over 400 Startups Are Trying to Become the Next Warby Parker. — www.inc.com
Inside the wild race to overthrow every consumer category.
The Ultimate List of Sales Automation Tools — reply.io
Also, how Sales Automation Will Change by 2020.
Radness
BLB Hitchhiker getting rad in Greece — www.youtube.com
Jimmy Tofu of Spray.bike tested the upcoming Hitchhiker frameset from Brick Lane Bikes.
Lookout for more about this radical whip in the coming weeks!
