Passion and Easter

Passion as an entrepreneur was what made me begin Amino at Easter in 2005. I wanted to help young people move forward after my talks, and the little project grew through work, luck and the joy of seeing others succeed.

Amino was created at Easter in 2005, and that could be your reason to go for it. Have a wonderful Easter. Best wishes, Martin

 

For me, passion as an entrepreneur began with a problem

I want to tell a little story about passion, work and luck. Eight years before this video, I was sitting at home over Easter. I was working on SpamFighter and needed a little break. At the same time, something was frustrating me after my entrepreneurship talks.

This is my story from March 2013 about how Amino began at Easter in 2005, and how a project I enjoyed alongside my work grew into something much bigger.

After I had spoken to 500–600 young people at a business college, they could be buzzing with excitement and wanting to become entrepreneurs. But afterwards, I felt there was nowhere for them to go for help. They could find books or try the local council, but I did not think that really met their needs.

So many wrote to me with the same questions: how do you get started? How do the practical things work? I was happy to answer, but writing the same explanation again and again was also wasteful when others had exactly the same question.

I bought a forum system and started writing

I thought perhaps we could collect the answers in a kind of FAQ. When someone asked about VAT, for example, the answer could stay there for others to use. Perhaps I could get other experienced entrepreneurs involved in answering.

That was the beginning of the idea for Amino. I bought a small forum system for around DKK 1,500 and got a friend to install it on a server. Then I started writing posts.

To bring it to life, I played both the entrepreneur and the person who wanted to become one. I also went around other discussion forums telling people about the new place. I had a small newsletter I used to invite people in. This was before I could use a Facebook page to spread the word.

I spent the Easter days writing, getting users in, working on graphics and making everything fit together. It gradually began to grow.

I had the name from another project

I already had the Amino domain name from another idea. It was about a kind of mental fitness centre where companies could send employees. It was something I had discussed building with, among others, my speaking agent Anders Gissel and one of my co-founders.

That project was not what I was going to build here, but I had the name and put it on the new forum. Amino made me think of amino acids and the body’s building blocks. That fitted the idea of building something. The name was also relatively short and began with A.

Then I kept working on Amino every day alongside SpamFighter. I enjoyed it. I love working with entrepreneurs who are positive and want to create something. And I love helping people and seeing them grow.

When the questions become too easy, perhaps you have grown

One slightly funny experience is when someone, after three or four years on Amino, writes that the whole thing has become a mess and only young people and beginner questions remain.

Then I feel like saying congratulations. Amino does not necessarily have to be what changed. It could be you who has become much wiser. If the questions now seem trivial, perhaps you have learned a great deal along the way.

So fly on. Do something new or build a big business. For me, it is a pleasure to think the community helped someone reach that point.

From a project alongside work to full time

At some point, I realised I would actually prefer to work on Amino full time. I had worked hard, been capable and had luck with other businesses that had given me some capital. That let me stop my day-to-day work at SpamFighter and devote myself to Amino, even though there was not much money in it.

We hired staff, began selling banner ads and created Amino Plus and other offerings. In March 2013, Amino’s core operation has six full-time employees, and I explain that we made a small profit the year before.

As I describe it, we serve around 20,000–25,000 users a day. And we receive messages from people saying that without Amino they would not have started, achieved the same success, or found the friends and network they have. Some say the help has helped them avoid bankruptcy.

It is enormously rewarding to know we can be a catalyst for something like that. That is the part that drives me.

Amino also led to new businesses

We have also helped start Agera with two young entrepreneurs. At this point, that business employs around 12 people and, as I describe it, makes a small profit. I am proud of both the two entrepreneurs and the staff, who are doing really well.

In addition, three people are working on a new product we plan to launch in beta on 4 April. In the video, I first say March and correct it to April. I do not reveal more about the product here.

I have had three experts look at it, and their enthusiasm makes me very excited. A fourth is coming the same day to help polish the final details. It is really fun to be in the middle of a creative process like that.

Altogether, I talk about around 22 people earning salaries and paying taxes. I think it is beautiful that a project helping entrepreneurs can also become a business that contributes economically. In the video, I contrast that with public entrepreneurship initiatives that must be funded by the state.

You can start while something else pays the bills

My point is that passion drives many good entrepreneurial businesses. Find something you enjoy and are good at, and start working on it. It does not have to be full time from day one.

My work at SpamFighter put bread on the table while I built Amino on the side. I also had the advantage of later being able to put money from other projects into it. Of course I should not hide that. You can find more of my experiences of starting and building businesses in Iværksætter til jeg dør.

But I believe the money primarily allowed me to skip some steps. Without it, I imagine Amino might have been around a year behind. That is my assessment, not something I can prove. I believe you can create many similar projects by starting small and keeping at it.

I did not begin by thinking of Amino as a big business. Even so, in the video I expect Amino and the two other companies together to generate revenue of around DKK 20 million in 2013. That is my expectation at this point, not a completed annual result.

Passion, luck and a lot of work

So try to find the passion in your life. Enjoy it, give luck a chance to find you and put a hell of a lot of work into it. Something big can happen, even with an idea you begin at Easter.

I think "I don’t have enough money" or "I don’t have enough education" sometimes become excuses not to begin. Behind them may lie a perfectly understandable fear of unfamiliar territory and all the things you need to learn.

It can be frightening, but in my experience it becomes more tangible once you actually get started. And you do not have to know everything yourself. On Amino, there are people who can help with the questions that come up. I hope you find something you want to work on and take that first step.