[quote style=”boxed”]We basically give all business ideas away as it is! But I think there’s a great opp to start a truly personalized online travel guide company.[/quote]
Forty-one year old Reinier Evers is an accomplished trend watcher, entrepreneur and presenter. He holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Amsterdam and has been fascinated with the online business revolution since being introduced to the nascent web in 1994 at New York University, where he studied Business Policy.
While at interactive agency AGENCY.COM in New York and London (1997-1999), he worked with global clients like British Airways, Texaco and Compaq, managing a team of strategists and analysts. Many of these projects involved trend spotting, business research, vision development and competitive analysis, making trendwatching.com a natural progression of his activities. These days, trendwatching.com welcomes more than 150,000 visitors to its website each month, while 160,000 business professionals in 180+ countries receive the company’s monthly trend briefings. The company’s annual trend reports have been purchased by virtually every leading B2C brand in the world.
Reinier was also a co-founder of Urbanbite, an online food delivery portal in the UK and the Netherlands. It was sold in 2001 to lastminute.com, one of Europe’s largest travel and entertainment firms.
What are you working on right now?
We’re in Singapore, working on our 2012-2013 plan, focusing especially on which new services to introduce next year.
What does your typical day look like?
When I’m in London, it involves lots of email, lots of team meetings, lots of innovation-spotting and lots of reading and discussing trends.
What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?
I have always made sure I had jobs I loved. And I have seen enough bad jobs to learn that you need to find out what you like before you enter into a bad job, that you should quit if you find yourself in a bad job and that you can always become your own boss if you really want it.
3 trends that excite you?
- POINT & KNOW: how instant information gratification is going real-world/visual.
- CITYSUMERS: how urbanization is promoting more daring and more modern consumption across the board.
- SCREEN CULTURE: how the interface is truly becoming ubiquitous.
How do you bring ideas to life?
By showing examples of related ideas that already exist (and are doing well).
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
We basically give all business ideas away as it is! But I think there’s a great opp to start a truly personalized online travel guide company.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
Any book that talks about the history of the world; it puts everything in perspective.
What do you read every day and why?
I read tons of stuff, but I truly love Seth Godin’s daily blog posts and Springwise’s daily new business ideas.
Why do so many businesses fail to even get the basics right?
Because they stopped caring a long time ago (as Seth Godin put it a while ago).
If you could have lived in another era, when would it be?
I would have to go for the sixties in San Francisco, seeing Janis Joplin perform and enjoying California at its best.
[highlight]This interview was brought to you by Duncan Murtagh, co-founder of employee suggestion box service Vetter, which could help you find cost-savings ideas in these tough times![/highlight]
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.