IPAN tonight

In Holland we don’t really have Santa. We have ‘Sinterklaas’ who does pretty much the same as Santa.

Gifts, food and familytime!

But tonight is also IPAN night and we decided not to cancel the event even though we don’t expect many visitors. In fact, I’m here now, and I’m the only one….

5 minutes later….

There are three people now!!!

The next day…

In the end, more than 35 people showed up! And then at 9 the actual Sinterklaas showed up with 2 pieten and a small bottle of champagne for everybody.

I have never met such a funny and nasty Sinterklaas before. He told us he wasn’t wearing any underwear, that he was in desperate need of a beer and that he regularly became intimate with his female Pieten.

Then he asked if we could turn up the music so he could dance a little bit. A very succesful and interesting IPAN evening after all…

Brandstage MSN Interview with Boris

Yesterday I had an interview with Michiel Pot from Brandstage. He is planning on doing a series of MSN interviews and publishing these in his blog. I like the format and freshness of this new way of interviewing people and like how he designed the article.

Check it out, in dutch: Brandstage

5 Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Lie…

Pinokio?

I’m a liar.
I often don’t tell the truth.
I give false statements all the time.

The above statements are not true.
I was lying.
The following statement IS true:

The truth is not only boring it is also not very constructive. If you want to achieve anything you will sometimes have to take some liberty with the truth.

Did that get your attention?
Do you disagree?
Do you think an entrepreneur should always speak the truth?

Good, read on then.

Often when I talk about how I build my companies and how I sold them in the past I get questions about the amount of bluff I had to use to reach my goals. Often the word ‘bluff’ is replaced with other less positive words like ‘Lies’, ‘False statements’ or ‘Prevaricate’.

It is good practice to try not to lie to people. I try not too and am generally an honest and trustworthy person. But in many cases I do say things that aren’t really totally and absolutely true. A few examples:

The lie: “I’m very confident about our plans and current situation”
The truth: “I’m scared shitless and am doubting everything but I can’t show it because then everybody panics”

The lie: “We can do it!!!”
The truth: “I think and hope that we can do it but I will be just as surprised as you are if we actually do”

The lie: “I knew we could do it”
The truth: “We actually did it????”

The lie: “YES!”
The truth “Maybe. I hope so. I’ll make sure it will be a YES soon. Please lord, let it be YES“

I’m sure you have all been in similar situations (I’m lying again! I don’t know that…) and recognize these lines. You probably said similar things. We could argue that these aren’t lies at all and that we are merely trying to establish a self fulfilling prophecy. And I actually agree with that.

In reality the fact that you told a lie depends on what will happen in the future. If you say “Invest in me and I’ll make you a millionaire” and you do, you weren’t lying or bluffing. But if you lose all your money and your company goes bankrupt everything you said suddenly turns into a lie.

There is no way out of this trap. You either tell the truth and don’t get anywhere or bluff a little and hope that reality catches up with your predictions. If you are serious about never bluffing and always telling the truth consider the following pitch to your child who is trying to learn how to ride a bike:

“Sweetie, I don’t know if you will be able to ride this bike. You will very likely fall on your knees which will bleed and turn blue. If you do fall I will try to catch you but I will probably be too late because I’m running behind you. Sorry about that but it is just something you will have to go through”

Or:

“Sweetie, I know you can do it! I’ll be right behind you!! Don’t worry, nothing can happen!! Faster!!!”

What would give a child enough confidence to actually learn how to drive a bike? How can you motivate your friends to work harder? How can you get investors to invest in your dreams?

Sometimes the truth just won’t do.

Trust me on this, I know what I’m talking about (damn, did it again).

Live at Bright Live

Diederik (Twones.com), Patrick and I are showing our stuff at Bright Live today. It is a great conference with tech, art and lifestyle in the ‘gashouder’ at the ‘westergasfabriekterrein’ in Amsterdam. Come over if you are in the neighborhood.

We are also hosting a FUBB here (Fleck Users & Bloggers Beer) at 1800 with free beer on Fleck. We are wearing our white suits but are also adding stickit notes to every object we see with ‘fleck.com’ on it. See you there…