{"id":265691,"date":"2021-01-01T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?p=265691"},"modified":"2021-01-01T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T13:00:00","slug":"follow-your-own-course-otherwise-youll-keep-running-around-in-circles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/follow-your-own-course-otherwise-youll-keep-running-around-in-circles\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Follow your own course, otherwise you&#8217;ll keep running around in circles&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p id=\"block-c312019d-178b-456b-a825-98bd63d45e2b\"><strong><strong>For entrepreneurship the rule is: learning by doing. By making mistakes or tackling something differently the next time, a company can flourish. In the IO series <em>Lessons Learned<\/em>, entrepreneurs share how they have become wise through trial and error<\/strong>. This week: Andy L\u00fcrling &#8211; who has been in the business for more than 17 years &#8211; was once steered in the wrong direction with well-intentioned advice.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\" id=\"block-7b7e779e-9f3e-449c-a671-e369c04455fa\"><li><strong>Entrepreneur:<\/strong> Andy L\u00fcrling<\/li><li><strong>Companies founded:<\/strong> LUMO Labs, iOpener Media, Quantiq Xmedia<\/li><li><strong>Lesson learned:<\/strong> \u2018Always follow your own course\u2019<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"block-8ee616a5-31dc-4e67-ada9-8a96d0afdf7f\">Andy L\u00fcrling is the founder of investment fund LUMO Labs, a company that invests millions in start-up technology companies. Within LUMO, L\u00fcrling works closely together with start-up entrepreneurs and fulfils a consultative role during the supervisory phase. Although, according to L\u00fcrling, getting good advice can help a company to get off the ground, he is also very much in favor of relying on your own intuition: &#8220;People often call me stubborn.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"block-d5f151a2-4793-467a-9443-e40ce42bd710\"><strong>If you look back on your 17-year history as an entrepreneur, what is the most important lesson that you have learned?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;When I started out in 2003, I thought I could handle the world on my own. But of course I can&#8217;t, the lesson learned is: Make sure you follow your own course. In doing so, it is always important to follow your own intuition as well. If you do not do that, you&#8217;ll end up running around in circles. Advice from others is often contradictory.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"block-7a71aaf6-38d1-4e5b-8473-e3cd3e1d42df\"><strong>So, no running around in circles then. Can you name an occasion when you were steered in the wrong direction?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"block-a06d1ca0-fbf3-4b77-80d2-7056d4e3dad4\">&#8220;At one point I came up with an app for social meet-ups based on location. I had just split up with the mother of my child during that period. Back then, I couldn&#8217;t keep my focus. That&#8217;s why I didn&#8217;t pay attention to my own lesson and started leaning too much on other people. Their advice was on the prudent side back then and so I decided not to go ahead with the app.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"block-54755eb0-f007-4c85-8dff-f15dc91397b0\">&#8220;Six years later, a very similar company, named LOVOO, sold the app that they had developed for 70 million euros. I&#8217;m not saying that this would have happened to me. But looking back, I think I should have listened to myself more carefully after all.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"block-822e661a-0a06-4be6-bb3f-2696b9445516\"><strong>Are you still able to glean something from that personal lesson these days?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Yes, definitely. A lot of people find me a bit stubborn and think that I don&#8217;t listen. I do listen and then I pick up things that I can do something with. Except I do make my own plans. We announced in March that we have set up a new investment fund: LUMO Fund II. When I look at our organization, I see that over the past two years we have gone through a clear transition, which involved me flying to several countries both within and outside of Europe to seek advice. But in the end I drew a very clear red line for myself. That really paid off. For example, we now have a much clearer investment focus whereby we target resilience and sustainability in particular.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Do you still enjoy doing business?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Absolutely. In the end, entrepreneurship is a big jigsaw puzzle. And it&#8217;s still a lot of fun finding the right pieces. For me, it&#8217;s mainly that challenge that counts.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"block-ef108169-deb7-4b9b-80d7-629e9dce8d3d\"><strong>You can also read the first episode in this series:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/being-a-founder-and-director-does-not-go-without-saying\/\">\u201c\u201cAs a founder, becoming a director is not something I take for granted.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For entrepreneurship the rule is: learning by doing. By making mistakes or tackling something differently the next time, a company can flourish. In the IO series Lessons Learned, entrepreneurs share how they have become wise through trial and error. This week: Andy L\u00fcrling &#8211; who has been in the business for more than 17 years [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1780,"featured_media":518152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[10216,27509],"location":[],"article_type":[],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-265691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sustainability-nl","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-newsletter-en"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"This week, entrepreneur Andy L\u00fcrling - who has been in business for more than 17 years - talks about how he was once steered in the wrong direction with well-intentioned advice.","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Elcke Vels","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/elckevels\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/foto-voor-nu-1-300x248.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/category\/sustainability-nl\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Sustainability<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Sustainability<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/category\/sustainability-nl\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Entrepreneurship<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/category\/sustainability-nl\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Newsletter<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Entrepreneurship<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Newsletter<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 5 years ago","modified":"Updated 5 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on January 1, 2021","modified":"Updated on January 1, 2021"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on January 1, 2021 2:00 pm","modified":"Updated on January 1, 2021 2:00 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1780"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265691"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=265691"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=265691"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=265691"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=265691"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=265691"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=265691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}