MEST's First Graduating Class

“The dis tin,” or “the this thing”, is a phrase frequently used in Ghana to describe something that either is difficult to describe, does not have a name, or a name that the speaker has just momentary forgotten. (Disclaimer: Please forgive me, all Ghanaians if I am translating this somewhat incorrectly.)

In 2008, I worked at Meltwater Entrepreurial School of Technology (MEST) as a Teaching Fellow – more on that later. This past January I was fortunate enough to go back to Ghana and attend the graduation of the first class of trainees.

So what is “the dis tin” that is MEST? What does it mean to me, to the Meltwater Group, to our employees, and most importantly, to the trainees in the program? Since joining MEST as a Teaching Fellow in 2008, many people have asked me these questions.

MEST is Meltwater’s non-profit program launched in Accra, Ghana two years ago. MEST follows the Meltwater Group’s deeply rooted belief that “talent is talent everywhere” and that when “talented people receive the right amount of support, guidance and encouragement, they can accomplish extraordinary things” as our CEO Jorn Lyseggen once put it.

MEST’s mission is to train young Ghanaians in order to enable them to start their own globally successful software companies.

What did I work on at MEST?

A Teaching Fellow at MEST is a hybrid between a teaching assistant at university, a coach, a technology expert and a mentor … so pretty much a jack-of-all-trades ☺

In my time at MEST my main focus was to strengthen the trainees’ understanding of current technologies and how they can be successfully leveraged for the trainees’ respective business ideas. The depth in which the different technologies were addressed was really diverse since the trainees all came from varied academic backgrounds (but all hold a bachelor’s degree). Therefore the level of support a trainee needed often was decided on a case by case basis.

Generally speaking, my experience as a Teaching Fellow was a very enjoyable one for me. Besides having the chance to work in a new cultural context and being able to broaden my horizons both professionally as well as personally, I developed a lot of new friendships with other MEST staff and, of course, with the trainees themselves.

Samuel (EIT and Founder of Streemio) & Sebastian (author)

What were my impressions now when going back to MEST?

Going back this January to see how MEST and the trainees had developed in the last year and also to celebrate the graduation of the first class of trainees was a great experience. I met a lot of my old friends, as former Teaching Fellows like myself flew in from all over the world to be part of this truly unique and historic occasion.

It was exciting to see how the trainees have developed. The group of eleven successful graduates have built up incredible entrepreneurial spirits and technological skills over the course of the last two years during their training at MEST. I am sure that successful businesses will be started by them one day. They may not necessarily all be in the global marketplace, but will achieve their own individual definition of “being successful”.

One of the teams was accepted into the MEST Incubator, which is phase two of the MEST program that helps MEST graduates validate their ideas and get their new businesses off the ground. Supplied with initial funding, they are already developing the first prototype streemio.com and hope to go live with it in the middle of this year. Follow Streemio closely in order not to miss what they are up to.

I am looking forward to seeing all the great talent and ideas that will come out of MEST in the future. To the trainees, I have to say: You guys rock, go for it!

So I hope I was able to tell you a little more about “the dis tin” called MEST.

In conclusion, I am proud to have been part of MEST. “Hats off!” to the Meltwater Foundation and especially to Jorn for staying true to the unique philanthropic character of MEST and for bringing to life such an extraordinary example of corporate responsibility.

______________

A former Teaching Fellow, Sebastian Spier is Managing Director of Meltwater’s Research and Development team based in Budapest, Hungary

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Last Friday, February 26th, Meltwater CEO Jorn Lyseggen joined several other entrepreneurs, venture investors and academics at the 2010 Conference on Entrepreneurship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Jorn participated in a panel, the “Top 10 Mistakes Made by Entrepreneurs,” alongside Gurbaksh Chahal (gWallet), Matt Cohler (Benchmark Capital), Carol Sands (The Angels’ Forum and The Halo Funds) and moderator Mark Leslie (founding Chairman and CEO of Veritas Software and current Lecturer in Management at Stanford). The panel discussed the ups and downs they’ve experienced as well as lessons learned.

One of the topics discussed were the main characteristics of entrepreneurs. Matt said passion makes or breaks a project. Gurbaksh said the ability to embrace rejection; being able to swallow rejection and deal with it, is a crucial characteristic. He cited how author J.K. Rowling was rejected seven times before her first book was published. Jorn agreed with the others and asserted that successful entrepreneurs have the following three qualities:

1. An optimistic mindset
2. The ability to absorb rejections
3. An ability to impact and inspire the people around you

A final question was raised and the panelists couldn’t come to an agreement. Are entrepreurs risk-seeking or risk-averse? Matt said entrepreneurs are change-seeking, not necessarily risk-seeking. Jorn said he sees himself as risk-averse, attempting to minimize risk as much as possible. What do you think? Are entrepreneurs risk-seekers or risk-averse?

(More photos from the panel to come)

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I recently read a blog post on VentureBeat called “The lost generation of entrepreneurs.” The author asserts that today’s start-ups do not allow 20-somethings to develop entrepreneurial leadership skills. I can’t speak in generalities for all of today’s start-ups, but I can say that at Meltwater, this is simply not the case.

I’ve heard colleagues describe the International Management Trainee program at Meltwater as “entrepreneurship on a red carpet.” In other words, sales people who aspire to be managers at Meltwater receive start-up opportunities with the backing of a large organization (Meltwater recently reached $100M in sales).

Let me explain. True story: a highly-driven, 20-something joins Meltwater as an entry-level Sales Consultant with little relevant prior work experience. 6 months later, he is promoted to Sales Manager, leading a team of 4 new hires. He develops the talent in his team over the next few months, and 2 of his team members are subsequently promoted after working with him. Within 1 year of employment, he is sent off to the U.S. East Coast to open the Philadelphia office, then subsequently opens and manages the New York office, and eventually he opens Meltwater’s first South American office in Buenos Aires.

My colleague’s story is not unique within Meltwater. He’s not a fluke. There are literally hundreds of stories of professional development and opportunity within the company.

I had a chance to sit down with Meltwater’s CEO, Jorn Lyseggen, this afternoon. This is what he has to say about it: “Meltwater is a company that gives young people the chance to take on executive management responsibilities at a young age. Entrepreneurial projects include: opening new offices, expanding the company to new countries and the opportunity to be part of the founding teams of new products.”

So in summary, it is perhaps true that very few substantial start-ups nowadays allow 20-somethings to learn and develop company-building skills. Meltwater Group may be the exception. And, hopefully, successful Meltwater employees will become entrepreneurial advocates, mentors and serial starters down the road due to their experiences here.

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Meltwater employees are derived from a broad range of academic disciplines, including business administration, economics, cultural studies, journalism, law and even theology. In Germany this is very unusual, as it is common only to look for a job that relates to your education, just like it is standard for companies to only offer jobs to candidates with relevant educational backgrounds.

I studied Art History and after my master’s degree, I completed a PhD financed by a scholarship from the German Research Foundation. This educational focus reduced job opportunities rather than widened them. The only possible jobs I could find were within the cultural sector or at universities. Although I studied the arts, for family reasons I did not want to follow this academic career path – I wanted to make a change and start working in business. However, the possibilities to do so at the time seemed very limited in Germany.

What Meltwater offered me was further professional development, like a second education, and an opportunity to build the background that I was now interested in pursuing. The entry level Sales Consultant position is a training ground to build a foundation of business understanding and skills. I received a kind of crash course about the most important contexts of economic principles, including the answers to questions like: which internal structures do departments and subsidiaries of the biggest German companies have? What does a proper sales process look like - which aspects stimulate the negotiation process and which ones hinder the process? What is the nature of the work in Controlling or Business Development and how are different projects in marketing departments structured?

In the end I can reflect back on my time at Meltwater so far and say that I am receiving fundamental insight and am learning about countless areas of businesses. In addition, for those of you out there who think that your education has limited you to a specific market or job, think again. Meltwater is a prime example that opportunity is out there for people with varied backgrounds and experiences.

_____

Stefan is a Client Relations Manager based in Berlin

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I’m going to do something incredibly original here, and open with a Winston Churchill quote. The late Nobel Laureate once said: “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” This assertion resonates with the deepest part of my being, especially my business being. I’ve been working in the business world for the past seven years since I finished college, and I’ve had my fair share of successes and failures. Up until last year, I would say there was a little more weight on the side of success. However, over the last year, failure has tipped the scales. Can going from failure to failure really be defined as success?

My Meltwater career started off with a bang. I started as a Sales Consultant in our newly formed Meltwater Chicago office and came to work in that first month really pumped up. I worked hard and made more calls than anyone in the office. However, in my first month, as I watched my colleagues close deals and ring that legendary Meltwater bell, I sold nothing. I closed zero deals and added no clients to the portfolio.

Failure?

One thing that’s not a failure is Chicago cuisine. Chicagoans know how to eat: deep-dish pizza, Italian beef and the Chicago style hot dog. But I digress.

In my second month I learned from my failure. I learned to ask clients the tough questions and to hold them and myself to a rigid schedule. And you know what? It worked. I was one of the top sales people in the U.S. that month. The lessons I learned from my previous failure made me successful, so I began to live by that mantra: dissect my failures and apply the lessons learned. From that point on I was a top salesperson in the company and within one year I was asked to be the Managing Director of Meltwater’s Chicago office.

Success?

I just wish this mantra worked as well for me in other areas of my life. Like on the ping-pong table or in my marriage. The marriage reference was a joke. Really. Did you hear me? Sweetheart? Babe?

About a year ago, I was asked to join a new division, Meltwater Drive. I believe in Meltwater’s vision of entering growth SaaS markets by leveraging our sales expertise, so I willingly accepted the challenge. In fact, I saw this as a chance to relive the adventure of my early days selling Meltwater News. It was an adventure and more, but my results were not what I had envisioned. I moved to London for four months to work with the team there. I love London! So much history. The pub culture promotes real conversations and the food is nowhere near as bad as people say it is. It’s more like a gastronomic delight.

The team I worked with was delightful. All business all the time! I like that. We worked day and night. Literally. At one point when we started working with a new business partner and because we wanted to ensure the success of the relationship we worked from 8am until after midnight for more than a week! Some of the best moments of my working life were made in those sessions. However, although enjoyable, the time spent selling Meltwater Drive didn’t always translate into successful results for the U.S. team or me.

After four months in London, and marginal success for the U.S. team, I took the operations to Fog City. No, I’m not making some analogy about success peaking its head through the fog of failure; I’m talking about San Francisco. By the way, I can see mountains, a bay and Victorian mansions from my apartment window! My view is amazing, but my results were sub-par, so I thought back to what Churchill said and I began to dissect my failures more than ever. I analyzed every meeting, every phone call and every aspect of our business process. Though I’ve experienced more failure and stared in the face of more challenges than ever before, I’ve learned more in the last six months than I learned in four years of business school and seven years in the business world.

Although my last venture was somewhat of a failure it brought me to another success. In January, I was asked to work with Meltwater’s New Ventures team and to be part of the founding team for a new product division.

I’ve never been more enthusiastic and never more certain about future success. For that, I have my failures to thank.
_______

Brandon is a Managing Director based in San Francisco, CA.

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