Speakers, investors, jury members, journalists, bloggers, attendees, etc. have arrived to Gdansk for infoShare, the biggest Tech Conference in the CEE Region. This evening I met a few of them at the pre-event diner and Before Party, others are still traveling. Based on the amount of people I met today, it feels as if it is going to be the best attended infoShare ever. Combined with an amazing line-up of speakers we are going to have several inspiring days in Gdansk. What inspiration means, I discussed last week with Michał Sadowski (@sadek), CEO of Brand24. Besides, I had the opportunity to discuss the topic with Benjamin Woerner (@WoernerBen) of Zalando and Brian Wong (@brian_wong), founder and CEO of @kiip, author of “The Cheat Code” (@CheatCodeBook). What becomes clear out of all talks, is that inspiration is a joined effort. We need each others input to define a challenging desired state that will inspire us to realise it.
Fashion industry offers a world of opportunities
Unfortunately, Benjamin Woerner will not manage to join infoShare, fever is keeping him home. He planned to share the untold Zalando story, which a few people know. The Zalando we know today as a successful online retailer, started less successful. It was founded by two students at their student apartment and their first startup in 2008 dramatically failed, partially due to the financial crisis. Then they managed to become one of the fastest growing companies in Europe. And now they are transforming into an e-commerce platform and they are opening-up their ecosystem for entrepreneurs to build new fashion experiences.
He believes there are many opportunities in fashion like solving the sizing issue or how to provide experiential content. Entrepreneurs are invited by Zalando to join their eco-system. In case you have an idea, I believe you will manage to contact him. At least give it a try.
The desirable future as the inspiration source
For Benjamin Inspiration means opening-up opportunities, showing what is or will be possible. You need people with ideas showing the connection from the current state towards the desirable future.
He is addicted to TED talks, listening to people’s story in general, learning from them how they managed to overcome their hurdles. If you hear that someone managed to do something, why shouldn’t you be able to do it?
After fashion the food sector inspires him, because there are so many challenges in that area. The current state is just not sustainable. Fortunately, he sees that many possible solutions are being developed. The meat sector is for example really inefficient. Increasingly, the industry manages now to grow meat alternatives, like a plant-based bleeding burger, it tastes and behaves like meat.
Inspiring impressions while traveling
While driving through London Brian Wong managed to find some time for a short call in between meetings to discuss what inspiration means to him.
Traveling inspires Brian the most, because there are always amazing cultures to see and people to meet. You can only imagine so far as the collection of things you have seen. So the more you see, the more you will be inspired.
Brian aims to show people that there is enough energy in the world to almost do everything. Through his book he shows that it is quite possible doing things without being super complicated. He will offer cheat codes for real life. There are many things we get advised as entrepreneurs that are super complicated, unnecessarily, blurry. His presentation and book will provide you with super tactical things to do.
He guarantees that 5 minutes after leaving the session you will have found enough to act on that will actually change your life.
Brian will provide two presentations during infoShare and they will both be worth attending:
- Firechat with Brian Wong, 14:30 – 15:00, 17th of May (Wednesday)/ MARKETING STAGE
- It’s All About the Moment, 10:00 – 10:30, 18th of May (Thursday)/ INSPIRE STAGE