Hi, I'm David Langer. Welcome to my blog Freed from The Matrix, a collection of insights, interviews, hacks and other stuff that's relevant to young entrepreneurs. I'm the co-founder & CEO of GroupSpaces, Entrepreneurship Columnist for The Gateway newspaper and an aspiring triathlete. Thanks for reading!
Have you ever wondered how some people consistently outperform everyone else, no matter what the activity? Most people would attribute this to an envious amount of natural talent. Racing Towards Excellence is a simple guidebook co-written by Jan Sramek and Muzaffar Khan, two such outperformers, where they demystify strategies that anyone can use to consistently achieve excellence in any area of their life.
Jan (aged 22 when the book was written in 2009) is the quintessential outperformer and Muzaffar (aged 40) is his friend and former mentor. Having achieved AAAAAAAAAA (that’s 10 A’s if you’re struggling to count) at A-level and simultaneously three Distinctions at Advanced A-level (AEA), Jan embarked on a prestigious academic career reading Mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Following last term’s Tycooons of Tomorrow series, this term I’m going to be interviewing four successful entrepreneurs (arguably, tycoons already!) on the pivotal year in their respective careers. The idea for the series came from a conversation with Paul Carr – we thought “A day in the life of” was going to need to be romanticised too much to get anywhere, but most people who have ‘made it’ can attribute a significant amount to one particular year.
In the first interview of “The Year That Made Me” series, I spoke to Kulveer Taggar where he shared his journey of studying at Oxford, to Investment Banking in London, to dot-com millions in Silicon Valley – all in just over a year!
Which was the year that made you?
2006, the year after I finished my PPE degree at Oxford. It was when I left my graduate job at Deutsche Bank to work on my start-up full-time and moved from London to Silicon Valley.
Kieran is the final Tycoon of Tomorrow in this 4-part series – and the biggest hitting yet. He was born in Bermuda and moved to England at the age of 14. A year later he started HolyLemon.com, a video sharing website focused on funny videos and at the age of 19 sold this to NASDAQ-listed tech company HandHeld Entertainment for $1.25M. Last year, at the age of 20, he left his Management degree at Bath University to found his third company, Playfire.com, for which he has already raised $1M in venture capital investment.
What was it like to sell a company for over a million dollars at the age of 19? What did you do with the money?
It was very surreal! After the exit became public, I did 10 different radio interviews, was on the front-page of the local paper, on the BBC website and the ITV evening news. It’s odd seeing and hearing yourself in that way! My life didn’t change very much after the sale. I went on holiday with my girlfriend, and bought a MacBook Pro, but that was about it! The best thing is that I have capital to self-fund future ventures in the early days, and it’s a credibility stamp when meeting more experienced successful entrepreneurs.
James co-founded studentbeans.com in June 2005, with the vision of the website becoming as much of a staple to university life as baked beans. Today, with over 100,000 new students registering for the site each year, that vision is becoming a reality.
Have you always known you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
Some people are born to be athletes and some people are just born to be in business and I am one of those. At the age of 14 I took, developed and sold black and white photos of dogs to their owners. At 17 I did young enterprise and developed a local directory service online for shops and services in North West London. During my gap year I did an internship in San Francisco, a ski season in France and travelled the globe. In between that all I honed my sales skills doing telesales for a bingo company. Combine these experiences with a business degree from The University of Birmingham, running events and gaining sponsorship from over 30 companies whilst studying and being involved with AIESEC – the largest student run organisation in the world, where I went on placements to The Philippines & Colombia, by the time it came to graduation I knew I didn’t want to be cocooned by the normalities of daily life in the corporate world. There was only one option and that was to be an entrepreneur.
Hermione is the founder of new media social enterprise Newspepper.com and this year she graduated with a degree in Journalism from London Metropolitan University as well as an NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists) qualification which is usually taken as a post-graduate course. She is the younger sister of 28-year old dot-com millionaire Ben Way, a man who was reportedly worth £18.3 million in the 2001 Sunday Times Rich List, aged 20, only to later have a dispute with his investors, losing everything. He went on to advise the UK and US governments on technology, and he is currently the Chief Innovations Officer for London-based Venture Capital firm Brightstation Ventures.
Having known she wanted to go into the media industry before her degree even started, Hermione got involved in a plethora of related activities while studying. These ranged from working as a runner for various TV shows and at local newspapers to a broadcasting internship at CNBC Europe.
You managed to squeeze an awful lot of media-related activities in alongside your degree. How do you divide your time up while you were studying?
It wasn’t so much a case of dividing my time up, but more a case of trying to cram as many experiences and opportunities into my week as possible whilst not sacrificing good results for my degree. I work very well under pressure so much of the studying part was done at the last minute, which worked well for me.
Following my 4 article series about entrepreneurship for The Gateway newspaper earlier this year, I have been asked to do another series this autumn. It will consist of 4 interviews with student / recently graduated entrepreneurs in the UK. I’ll be meeting up with them over coffee, understanding what makes them tick and finding out how they got to where they are today.
My first interviewee is Jan Sramek, a 3rd year Mathematics & Economics student at LSE. After completing his 1st year reading Mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, he moved to London in order to “leverage his interests in financial markets and entrepreneurship”.
Jan is currently running 3 businesses, has done 6 internships, got 10 A’s at A-level and started his first business aged 13. His LinkedIn profile makes a very impressive read.
3 businesses is a lot to be working on alongside a degree. How do you divide your time up during term?
I tend to find lectures too slowly paced and not a very efficient way of learning, same applies for classes – so I don’t attend too many. 2-3 weeks before the exams, I sit down, focus and learn everything properly. I got a First, so it seems to work.
With school out of the way, it’s a very fluid and flexible allocation between the rest – really varies day by day. Living on 5 hours of sleep also helps.
Idea Idol 2008 Promo starring David Langer, Jitin Dhanani, Alasdair Bell and Jenny Tsim. Produced and directed by Joe Kennard and Nigel Steer from Purple Media. Oxford, Feb 08
Start-A-Company Talk
David Langer shares his experiences of starting a company at university. Oxford Entrepreneurs Start-A-Company team-building event, Said Business School, Oct 07
Graduate of the Year Interview
Kate Bronze interviews David Langer at the finals ceremony of the 2007 Graduate of the Year competition, Sep 07
Clicky Business
Following the ClickUni founders around San Francisco & Silicon Valley, including Facebook, Google and Bebo HQ. Produced & narrated by Anjool Malde, Aug 07
LunchMeet: ClickUni Manages Social Groups
David Langer and Andy Young interviewed by Eddie Codel on Podtech’s video blog show LunchMeet, San Francisco, Aug 07
Hi, I'm David Langer. Welcome to my blog Freed from The Matrix, a collection of insights, interviews, hacks and other stuff that's relevant to young entrepreneurs. I'm the co-founder & CEO of 
Have you ever wondered how some people consistently outperform everyone else, no matter what the activity? Most people would attribute this to an envious amount of natural talent. Racing Towards Excellence is a simple guidebook co-written by Jan Sramek and Muzaffar Khan, two such outperformers, where they demystify strategies that anyone can use to consistently achieve excellence in any area of their life.
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