David DostalAbout internet and life

With BlackLex we have launched BlackCamp.co, an investment portfolio tracking and reporting application. It’s the world’s first web-based investment portfolio application specifically built for actively participating company investors.

From an entrepreneur’s initial pitch to the recording of its daily business and on to providing complete reports on your entire investment portfolio. It’s the perfect tool for every angel investor and entrepreneur to manage, track and control their business interests.

The new platform has a wide array of features available for its users. Included with BlackCamp are goal setting/monitoring functions, task tracking and management, file/document cloud-uploading capabilities, and the recording of calls and meetings.

Our intension was to go from mobile to the web and not otherwise. That means we have created BlackCamp primarly for the screen of a mobile device. Using it on a standard PC is now even better! Much more usable! Users don’t need to get used to a new layout or design, it looks the same on every device. Developing an application for a mobile device forces you to think much more efficient. You do not have the space to place elements where you want.

We got our first clients and are already working on improving BlackCamp with the feedback we get. The BlackCamp team has so much in mind that waits to be realized.

You might know the concept of StartupWeekend. StartupWeekends are a 54-hour events where developers, designers, marketers, business developers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products and launch startups.

Clint Nelsen, the co-founder of StartupWeekend is about to launch the first Startup Labs event in Taiwan on February 10th 2012. With the 22-day program of Startup Labs Clint wants to close the gap between the 54-hour events of StartupWeekend and the 90-day sojourn of a traditional incubation program as YCombinator or TechStars. Clint has already raised about $75 Mio. to launch the program globaly. More than 100 cities are planed for the next years. Each city is going to have its own venture partner, who will invest half of the funds required.

The first Startup Labs event in Taiwan is in cooperation with the early stage fund Yushan Ventures.

I will contribute as a mentor and I’m looking forward to seeing inspiring teams and smart people.

Beginning of January 2012 we are going to announce the winner of the API Mashup Contest in germany. We got a lot of very smart and good projects, more than expected.

It was planed to announce the winner on 10th of december. But due to the few projects, it took us longer than expected to judge the projects. Thanks to all participants for your patience!

I am really looking forward to announcing the winner and to participating in some projects as a mentor or investor.

My last API Mashup Contest post was about my search for the judges. Our board of judges is complete and we have already started the contest for Germany. The deadline for submitting the projects is 11/30/11.

Do you run an API project or have something in mind you want to realize? Then submit your project to our contest and get feedback and maybe funding from our judges, these are:

Pavel Curda, ex-investment banker, internet entrepreneur and networker

Mike West, Google Germany

Jakub Nesetril, apiary.io

Benjamin Krahmer, Founder of UnicCapital

Christof Wittig, Managing Partner of Kii Capital

Ingo Drexler, CEO Mountain Super Angel

Thomas Promny, Business Angel, CEO Velvet Ventures

Alexander Hüsing, Editor-in-chief Deutsche Startups

Volker Heistermann, CEO YushanVentures

Christoph Janz, Managing Partner of Point Nine Capital

and me

Our partners in this contest are Google, Collabim and apiary.io. We get media support from Deutsche Startups.

You do not have necessarily submit a project, you can also apply for joining the teams in order to help them with their projects.

Again, to all API developers out there, visit our contest website, follow @apimashups and submit your project! We are looking forward to your application!

The gymkhana 4 video of Ken Block, which i saw two weeks ago, inspired me to write this post.

I was always addicted to cars and I am still a passionate car driver. At the age of 7 my dad let me drive his car totally on my own.

I did my first driving training at the age of 24 in 2005. It was a three day trip to Sweden, Arvidsjaur (very close to the Arctic Circle) organized by Mercedes-Benz. The event was a safety driving training on a frozen lake. It was fun, fun, fun! Three days of pure Adrenalin. It was more or less a drift training than a safety driving exercise. At the end of the day it’s the same. With a controlled drift you know how to handle a car in any borderline situation.

Location of Arvidsjaur in Sweden

Since I have completed saftey training for the first time I’ve really learned how a car behaves in extreme situations. Under normal circumstances most people never gets to feel this, and if they do, then they are not prepared and cannot handle the situation.

Safety Training on Hockenheimring

The motto is: act instead of react! As soon as you have to react, it’s usually too late. It is important to always have the car under control and to know the limits of the driver and the car. Speed is everything. After this exercise several other followed: from drifting on snow or a wet surface drift.

The next training I want to do is a high speed drift training on dry surface. I already had a chance to try this on the Nürburgring. At an drift event I was invited to be a co-driver during the contest. In the warm up phase, there was still no audience at the track, the driver, who is a friend of me, said that I should also try one round. I thought there couldn’t be so much difference from drifting on snow or a wet surface drift. The car was a Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG. We had winter tires on the rear axle so that the car drifts more easily.

Every morning the cars were parked in front of the garage in Sweden

I started to drive and recognized that it’s not the same as on snow. When you do drift exercises on snow you reach approx. 50 km/h. But at that time I was already going more than 130 km/h and now I should do a controlled drift of the car! I tried it a few times, but the car didn’t want to. My fear took over. But in 4th curve I finally jackknifed the car. I even did some meters in a very nice drift, but then suddenly the back of the car began to drift too far and finally overtooks ourselves and we slit backwards into a pile of tires. My co-driver kept his eyes closed and predicted that we will crash into the pile. After a few seconds and a ride through the gravel bed the car stopped about 10 cm before the tire pile. And therefore the high speed drift training!

In the following some photos of my trainings.

Drifting in Sweden

Ski Doo, this is fun: 0-60 mph in about 3.5 sec

oh yes, it was very cold in Sweden

The car got stuck in the snow, no way out for a rear wheel drive

If we got stuck, this G-Class has pulled us out. Amazing traction without spikes!

Drift training in Lungau, Austria