Daniel was invited to speak at a distinctively funky and fresh event last week.

Why funky? Why fresh?

Because it was an unpretentious gathering of young entrepreneurs, that gave the whole evening a fresh and ambitious feeling. Successful business people shared their tips and tricks of the trade with the audience.

So last Thursday, Daniel planted himself on the stage and answered a bunch of questions. A few of those questions were built around previous statements Daniel has made, for instance liking the development of another Facebook to winning – and he means really winning – the lottery. On that note the tip of the day was to not just go for sheer user numbers, but to keep a very strong focus on the issues that surface repeatedly when you are an entrepreneur.

How exactly am I going to make money with this? Is there a chance to expand my product over the years? If that is of importance: Is someone eventually going to buy my company? The chances are higher to sell a few enterprises for 100 Mio than one for 2 Billion. Keep that in mind.

Here’s another topic Daniel spread his thoughts on: Communications. How many channels do we really communicate through? Are all of these channels really necessary, or does it become increasingly difficult to prioritize in the flood of information. The idea of social networking is not purely quantity, but also quality, and not just one platform/social network but also the vast realm of bloggers, friends, colleagues, journalists etcetera.

Like it has been said in the opening statement, the evening was extremely motivating and highly refreshing, with a lot of entrepreneurial talent present.

The get-together was organized by Junge Wirtschaft – a division of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. Thanks for the invite, and see you again soon!

The holidays!
At this time of year, millions of people are spending millions of Dollars, Euros, Pounds, Yen, Zloty on their well-deserved time off work. Mostly somewhere in the sun, relaxing pool-side, lake-side or ocean-side with a frosty drink. Niiice!

We here at Jumio (temporary headquarters pictured right) are taking things generally easy, but being in the business we are in (payments, that is) we feel professionally obliged to ponder the aspect of payment when heading out of town for a vacation. This is how we stumbled across this article, giving out some scary stats on online holiday scams. Feel free to read here.

For those of you too relaxed to click on the link and read the whole article, here’s everything in a nutshell.

- Confirm the authenticity of travel providers before handing over payment details. Also applies to rental shops and the like.

- Check if a website is secure when entering you payment details. (A padlock symbol in the bottom right of the browser window or for the payment pages to begin with ‘https://’)

- Keep your receipts (usually PDFs sent to you) to keep track of your payments.

- Log out of sites when you are done with your bookings and payments.

(These are just a few tips, but you can find a more detailed list here.)

In some cases there is a lot of trust involved between provider and customer, especially if you book ahead. Think of a small rental place that only takes cash for their motor scooters or sail boats for example. Jumio, by the way, is working on raising that level of trust. For your next vacation.