Λίγα Λόγια για τον Petter Hederstedt
Γεννήθηκα στο Gotland της Σουηδίας, απέκτησα το Μεταπτυχιακό μου στη Διοίκηση Επιχειρήσεων: “Διοίκηση και Οργάνωση” από το Πανεπιστήμιο της Στοκχόλμης (2005).
A few words about Petter Hederstedt
Originally from Gotland, Sweden, I have a MSc in Business: “Management and organization” from Stockholm University (2005).
I started my professional career as a Management trainee in Modern Times Group, an international entertainment broadcasting group including free-TV, pay-TV, radio and content production. First based in Stockholm, Sweden, then relocated to Copenhagen, Denmark, and ending up in London, UK as a product manager for MTG’s online company Bet24.com.I have deep experience from community management and online lead generation. Senior positions in Pokerstrategy.com, the biggest poker community in the world, with more than 6m members (Gibraltar) and WebGuidePartner, one of the top SEO and lead generation companies in the world (Stockholm).
I originally started YouPlanet 2008 together with a previous colleague as a hobby project, but we received financial funding in 2010 to continue to grow and develop the site.
Some info about YouPlanet.com
YouPlanet is a fully-packed travel community giving people everything they need before, during and after their travels. The travel guide gives people information and inspiration for living, eating, nightlife, the places to see and the things to do. The community allows people to find and stay in touch with new and old friends, upload photos and plan and share their travels. And with the unique ambassador program people can stay out traveling as long as they want, independently of their start budget.
Τα τελευταία 7 χρόνια, έχω ζήσει σε 7 διαφορετικές χώρες. Έχω τεράστιο πάθος για τα ταξίδια και μου αρέσει να ανακαλύπτω τις διαφορετικές κουλτούρες και τα έθιμα της κάθε χώρας. Οπότε το να δημιουργήσω την YouPlanet ήταν ένα όνειρο το οποίο έγινε πραγματικότητα καθώς μέσα από αυτή την κοινότητα ανακαλύπτεις νέα μέρη και μοιράζεσαι τις ταξιδιωτικές σου εμπειρίες. Πάντοτε ήταν δύσκολο να βρεί κάποιος χρήσιμες πληροφορίες για ταξιδιωτικούς προορισμούς στα αγγλικά, και αυτό ακριβώς το κενό θέλουμε να καλύψουμε. Επιπλέον, θέλουμε να δώσουμε στα μέλη μας την ευκαιρία να κερδίσουν χρήματα ενώ ταξιδεύουν, ανεξάρτητα εάν αυτό είναι σε διάφορα σημεία του κόσμου ή αν απλώς εξερευνούν την δική τους πόλη, για παράδειγμα, στην Ελλάδα. Εμείς τους κάνουμε "YouPlanet Ambassadors", και εκείνοι πληρώνονται βοηθώντας μας να χτίσουμε σταδιακά τον καλύτερο διαδικτυακό ταξιδιωτικό οδηγό.
During the past 7 years, I lived in 7 different countries. I have a great passion for traveling and cultural exploration, so starting up YouPlanet is a dream coming true as it’s all about traveling, finding new places, and sharing travel experience. It’s always been difficult to find good, local travel information and inspiration in English, and this is exactly what we’re trying to resolve. Moreover, we want to give our members the opportunity to actually earn money while traveling, regardless if they’re traveling around the world or just exploring their home city here in Greece. We make them YouPlanet Ambassadors, and they get paid helping us building the best travel site we can.
Starting up a business is not easy, and I have 3 concrete tips.
It’s very important to be a “doer”, to get things done. Nothing comes for free, it’s always up to you to move things forward.
Make sure that you have a very clear idea of what you want to do, and focus on this core business. Skip the rest.
Make sure that you gather a team that has the know-how of the service or product you’re planning to sell. Minimize your dependency of business critical suppliers.
The most challenging of starting your business from scratch is that you really need to do everything yourself. You don’t have the back up support you’re used to in a bigger company. You’re dealing product development, marketing, sales, admin, recruitment and legal. Everything at once. Especially when you business starts moving you usually spend the day putting out fires, and it’s only during the evenings and nights you can get some proper work done. In order to handle this you need to be pro-active, always thinking one step ahead identifying potential issues, before they become real issues.
Another challenge is to build your team. When you’re starting up and you’re a small team it’s very important that you recruit the right people with the right drive, sharing your beliefs and goals. It doesn’t work very well to recruit people who are only looking for a 08.00-17.00 job. If you want to build something great, you will need a great team.