“Do what you will, but don’t cross the streams!” ~ Max Zerrahn.
Listgeeks is a social network for creating, sharing and comparing lists of things. The minimal design of the site, combined with an interface that allows for playful, collaborative engagement with other list makers, facilitates a totally new approach to the classic Best Of/”High Fidelity” school of list making.
Listgeeks was created by a small group of list-obsessed people based in Berlin, Hamburg and NYC. Max Zerrahn is one of the co-founders.
Do you think the education you’ve invested in helped you on the road to success?
I’m sure it did. Education is always a good thing, but as much as I believe in academia and receiving a “proper” education, I also strongly believe in “learning by doing”. I have worked in film- and video-production, done animation and design-work, I started a record label and helped organize concerts, I have worked in the photo-industry and on a few web-related projects – and to be honest, half the time I didn’t know what I was doing when I started but I ended up drawing a lot of inspiration and knowledge from these divers project and from the people I was involved with. So compared to the education I got beforehand, in a way those experiences seem a lot more valuable to me.
What was the “breaking point” in your career that made you decide to build your own brand?
As far as Listgeeks is concerned, Derick Rhodes and myself have been friends for many years and we have worked on multiple projects over the past decade. At some point we were toying around with the idea of a list-related social platform and were surprised to find that nobody had properly done this before. That was a big motivation. But more importantly we ended up finding some incredibly talented programmers from Hamburg, Michael Schieben and Milan Matull, so from that point on it really started to feel like “Ok, let’s do this”.
What were some of the obstacles that you had to overcome to get to where you are now? How do you overcome failure?
Finding the right people to work with took a while, but other than that things have worked out rather well so far. Especially when you consider the fact that we are still fully independent and operating without any proper outside funding. So now the question is, can we make it last and turn the platform into a proper business? I guess there is still a good chance we’re going to fail miserably, after all we have only just started. We’ll see. Generally it seems that persistence is key but obviously it can be tough to go through the ups and downs that one encounters.
As a young professional, what were some of the mistakes that you made and what did you learn?
As far as mistakes are concerned, I think I was able to avoid a good number of them by collaborating with people smarter than myself. That usually helps immensely.
Is there any other achievement that you are extremely proud of? If so, why?
Having two kids is pretty amazing.
How do you measure success?
Having an idea, putting it to practice, seeing “it work” – to me that feels like a huge privilege and a great success already. But then again making some money off of it wouldn’t hurt either. Ideally, I would wish for a project that allowed me to work independently, with people that I love, making enough money to afford a ping-pong table around the office. A ping-pong table seems to be my main goal in life right now.
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What is one advice that you can offer to your readers?
There are two things I always found incredibly important: 1. Find people that inspire you, people that you want to work with and collaborate! 2. If there is any way to get started on a project without killing yourself: go for it.
AND: Do what you will, but don’t cross the streams!
What do you do for fun?
I really enjoy discovering new stuff – whether it is books, music, films, design or arts-related. Fortunately, Listgeeks is a great tool for discovering new things, so there you have it…
What is your favorite 1) gadget(s), 2) software(s), 3) website(s) that makes your life easier and more productive?
1) I love my phone. It let’s me talk to people, no matter where I am. I can send messages and do all kinds of other crazy stuff with it. Magic.
2) Whichever software helps me solve a problem at a given time is my favorite software. For me there is no single favorite software, really.
3) http://ifttt.com seems like a really smart idea to me.
Whom would you like to see featured here and why?
http://ifttt.com
Ways to Connect with you:
Website: http://listgeeks.com
Twitter: @listgeeks
Facebook: listgeeks
[Post Tags: create lists, how to create lists, listgeeks.com, share lists]
From: http://ping.fm/9Ftil
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