The Appsterdam 2 Launch Party Weekend went off without a hitch. As soon as we clear the song rights for the Space Pirate movie, we’ll have a video of the 90-minute keynote online. If audience response is any indication, you will enjoy yourself.
Which is not to say you didn’t miss out if you weren’t there. Feedback from the keynote was universally positive, but it was dwarfed by the positivity people felt for “the vibe,” to use the exact words.
Friday night we got together like we always do at Cafe Bax, except there were way more people, it was Friday instead of Wednesday, and Microsoft bought the drinks. Saturday I delivered the keynote with some dozen guests on stage and by video.
In a deeply symbolic act, I shared the stage with Microsoft and Google and declared that the time of petty politics between platforms, business models, and specialties is over. Now is the time for tolerance and collaboration. Let us put aside our differences and work together.
Together we can make Amsterdam into not just the best place in the world to be an App Maker, but the best place in the world to become an App Maker. People will come to Appsterdam to become App Makers, the way people went to Hollywood to learn to make movies. This will create a surplus of technical labor, which will attract attention from abroad, creating jobs and bringing the world’s knowledge to Appsterdam.
Our Weekly Wednesday Lunchtime Lectures and Guru Sessions let us capture and share knowledge, not just with the world’s foremost experts, who are each making their way through Amsterdam in turn, but also with each other, providing training for the Appsterdam Speaker Bureau.
The craziness of Museumnacht was made even crazier as a group of Knowmads led a larger group of Appsterdammers on a whirlwind tour of the city’s many strange museums. Judy and I ended up giving up our tickets to out of town guests, so we just sort of wandered around. We found a lot of people who had lost the tour and they all had crazy stories to tell.
Sunday that whole vibe thing came into sharp focus as we had our potluck family brunch at the incredible venue, De Balie. Of course, we could never afford De Balie, nor was it available as it was booked by Amsterdam Film Week. We had our brunch in the back offices on a secret floor up a secret elevator.
All because one of the Appsterdammers, Marieke Schoutsen, works at Boven de Balie. One of the main volunteers worked at one of the sponsors, which is how we made the connection. That’s the community taking care of itself. That’s how we develop the vibe that people keep talking about.
Through all this people came to understand that Appsterdam is a paradise for App Makers built by App Makers so they can live in that paradise. There are no ulterior motives here. It’s App Makers all the way down.
And so we come to the close of another Appsterdam Launch Party Weekend. It was an awe inspiring and humbling thing to see the volunteers do their thing, akin to the scene in Fight Club when Jack figures out there are people who work for him who he doesn’t know doing things he doesn’t know about. Let us thank:
Axel Roest
Dan from Chicago
Diederik Hoogenboom
Eugen Martynov
Gavin Morris
Igor Sutton
Jerrol Spier
Judy Chen
Klaas Speller
Laurens Bon
Leonie van de Laar
Louise Koopman
Magnus Dahl
Marga Keuvelaar
Markus Palmanto
Martinus Meiborg
Matt Williams
Matteo Manferdini
Merel Ivens
Olga Paraskevopoulou
Paul Darcey
Robert Sheperd
Ron Jones
Sjoerd van Geffen
Vijay Kiran
I’d like to thank the people who took the time out of their own schedule to get on stage and support what we’re doing here, to strengthen their relationship with the community. In order of appearance:
Marco Bottaro of Sogeti
Dan Nacht of IceMobile
Mark Voermans of Microsoft
Jonathan Wisler of SoftLayer
Jan Gerard Snip of Sping
Lauwerens Metz of Appsterdam Delft
Marleen Stikker of the Waag Society
Don Ritzen of Rockstart
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten of The Next Web
Joris van Mens of Google
Aaron Hillegass of Big Nerd Ranch
I’d like to give a special thanks to the people who joined us from abroad. I spoke to people from the US, the UK, including the Northern Ireland contingent, Germany, France, Italy and a bunch I’m sure I’m forgetting. Thank you all so very much for coming so far to be with us. I hope you had a great time, and that we’ll see you all here again soon.
Finally, none of this would have been possible without a few members of the community donating some resources to make this happen. Let us thank:
Boven de Balie
IceMobile
Knowmads
Microsoft
Pakhuis de Zwijger
SoftLayer
Sogeti
We’ll see you in Summer 2012 for the Appsterdam 3 Launch Party Weekend.
By all indications the first course at Big Nerd Ranch Appsterdam was a smashing success. I have every reason in the world to be biased, but the studentsarehappy and the boss is happy, so I’m happy too. The next Big Nerd Ranch Appsterdam course will be December 2-9.
Now I can say without reservation that if you miss this weekend’s Appsterdam 2 Launch Party Weekend, you’re missing the nerd party of the year. I would say the nerd party of the decade, except at this rate I’m assuming we’re going to have an Appsterdam 3 Launch Party Weekend next spring.
This is important: we’re about to blast this information to the media, so the quickly dwindling available slots are going to run out fast. We are expecting the events to fill up quickly, so you need to act now and be sure to RSVP. If you’re not on the list there’s a very good chance you’ll be waiting outside.
You’ll notice I always refer to App Makers and App Making. When Apple responded to Intellectual Venture in the guise of Lodsys, they referred to us as App Makers, and I liked the respect and legitimacy it engendered.
As for App Making, it goes back to what my journalism mentor, R.G. Gould, once said about the First Amendment: “You owe your living to it. You better damn well capitalize it.”
During panel discussions between App Makers and patent attorneysMichael McCoy (US) and Paul Reeskamp (NL), we discussed business structures to erect legal bulkheads to limit exposure to extortion or other threats. The construct we came up with is to have an Amsterdam- or offshore-based licensing company that owns the IP produced by the App Maker, and some number of operating companies that license and sell that IP in different markets.
The US accounts for approximately 25% of the app market and 100% of the extortion market. One advantage of living in Appsterdam is that you are generally out of reach of the US, unless you do business in the US. You can do business in the US while limiting your exposure by having your Dutch company deal with non-US marketing and sales, and a US company dealing exclusively with the US market.
One advantage of doing business in the US is the trivial formation of limited liability companies. That means you can have your US company spin off new US companies for each successful product. You can even have separate companies for every platform. The more you bifurcate your enterprise, the more you ensure that if one part falls under extortion, the rest is protected.
In its long-term role as the legal center for App Makers, the Appsterdam Legal Foundation is exploring ways to make setting up such a structure as painless as possible, even for people who are not citizens of the United States.
It is also possible to effectively eliminate exposure to the US by simply not servicing the US market at all, as some European companies have done. Even though the major platform providers are based in the US, non-US companies making non-US products for non-US markets are sufficiently jurisdictionally out of reach as to not be worth the bother.
Of course, if it’s all the same, you will probably find the US market too lucrative to ignore when the only risk is losing that market. Still, it may be a good idea for non-US companies to exclude the US market from early trials and launch. If and when the product becomes successful, it will be worth the effort to enter the US market.
Tune in tomorrow when we shall endeavor to create an App Maker’s Guide to Surviving Extortion.
Summer in the Netherlands rocks. Employee salaries include 13 months of pay, with the extra month cashing out at the same time as your vacation. Basically the Amsterdammers surrender the city to the tourists and go have adventures, coming back thinner, tanner, and more relaxed.
Just in time for festival season! September features a number of music, arts, technology, and general interest festivals all over the Netherlands—including the world’s greatest Pride. Appsterdam got into the action with our enormous App Dome at the Picnic festival.
The upshot is the entire country travels in August and parties in September. The Appsterdam work year starts in October, and what a year we have planned! Appsterdam 1: Summer of Appsterdam is drawing to a close. The coming weeks are going to be an amazing time as we gear up for the launch of Appsterdam 2: Appsterdam Overwinter.
We’re starting strong with the Appsterdam Legal Summit on October 3-4, as well you know. This is the chance for App Makers to talk to an international corps of friendly attorneys. We’ll solidify our understanding of the patent situation, devise strategies, and answer questions in person, and via a daily two-hour broadcast.
We’ll also be running our regularly scheduled events, which includes weekly Meeten en Drinken in Amsterdam, Delft, and Warsaw; our Weekly Wednesday Lunchtime Lecture series; and our twice-monthly Appsterdam Family Weekend get-togethers. We’ll also have our next Appsterdam Guru Session hands-on workshop, Android from Scratch, on October 15. We’ll have the next public app meeting, focusing on design, with Meet the Makers in Appsterdam Delft on October 26.
As always, there are plenty of other great events going on in the city, like the Node.js training session on October 4. I’ll be doing a speaking tour with the GOTO Conference, which lands in Appsterdam on October 13-14. Your next chance to start a company in a weekend comes with Startup Weekend Groningen November 4-6. If you’re working on Android in Appsterdam you don’t want to miss DroidconNL on November 22-23.
Finally, there are two events that are near and dear to my heart, not just because I’m speaking at both of them, but because together they form what I call the “Fishers of Men” stratagem. This is for the rare class of people who are ready to take the plunge, divest of their material possessions, and jump with both feet into a new career and a new life. These are the people who look at the dramatic moves I’ve made in my own career and say, “I want to be an App Maker, and I’m willing to make whatever sacrifices are necessary to make that happen. What do I do?”
Here’s what you do: sell, donate, or trash everything you own; buy a plane ticket to Amsterdam and a seat at the Big Nerd Ranch iOS Bootcamp on Oct 22-28, then be prepared to spend 7 intense days in your cocoon before emerging a beautifully trained butterfly, just in time to celebrate your metamorphosis at the Appsterdam 2 Launch Party Weekend featuring Museumnacht on November 4-6. You’ll meet people, find work, and start your new life.
On the less dramatic side of the pond, if you’re a European CS grad looking to be where the action is, a number of Dutch companies have teamed up to assemble an opportunity package that picks up half the tab for going in to the Big Nerd Ranch, and a job offer when you get out. If you’re in the select group eligible for this offer, it’s frankly hard to beat!
