So I am standing here on the other side of the huge, important and amazing marriage.

What went wrong – well this is the very short story – and all based on how I am / feel / do right now (lots more happened obviously, but then this post would never end, would it?)

Well, for a start, not much went wrong during the 11 years with my beautiful wife. – If you compare with what actually COULD go wrong. Wow, thinking back – what a journey, what a life and what diverse experiences I have accomplished – not alone, but together with a lovely girl; Mette. Whom I am very thankful I have spent extraordinary years with – those years are unforgettable!

First it was all rock’n'roll – well basically I was a pro rock musician, so it actually WAS rock’n'roll – It was crazy – and then suddenly the news popped in: Stefan, I am pregnant. WOW, with all accepted and getting ready for a new era in life, with children – a new chapter starts: Oliver. I guess everybody would agree with me that I can call him a clone; and he came to life. What beauty, what sudden responsibility and what incredible change of priorities do appear.

Then a fantastic wedding appeared – the best party in my life – and sooner to come a bankruptcy and a following success, my media agency – while no. 2 popped – my princess Zofia came along. Now, a girl is definitely ever-changing the life once again. What I soon realized and blew my mind with was; What is life all about? and with no question, kids always come in front beyond ANYTHING. And here is what probably startled and changed my life in this perspective and priority: First kids, then work – and then along the way – oh the wife, oh right – who also worked hard getting to fix the kids and house and stuff.

Having two – why not have three?

It’s pretty fundamental all this for me – in my heart – I always dreamed of having many children, and third one was plain logic to achieve for both of us; the fantastic Caya – another clone of me… appeared. And what a STAR!!!

In the meantime I was struck with the opportunity to create a huge project with my best friend. Finally we said, YES – WE GO FOR IT – and got the acknowledgement from wives and thought everything was good.

For the company, we worked – and at this point – still work 24/7 with this great venture and it is an amazing journey and adventure with everything herein accounted for.

Now, working 24/7 set aside everything else – but the venture and my children basically – EVERYTHING else was sacked. Friends, family, social life – and – well you guessed right: wife… While I am out exploring life, new civilizations (yes, cpt picard!) – I had a strong woman taking care of our kids and the house. And all this in a matter turned out to align each of our REAL dreams. For me to understand, it basically turned into be a game of where one party would be happy and the other one would be unhappy. Very sad but – in retrospective – the right path for both of us. We have both realized what we both wanted in life (and they are different these goals), and that for me (although small stumbles obviously have appeared) can only be considered as the optimal separation. We both have our goals, but top goal is always our kids, so whatever happens, we are both 100% sure of what is important to us : OUR KIDS! anything else is irrelevant and I am so happy to have met this girl, Mette, the mother of my three children – set aside that we unfortunately lost our love and passion towards each other – we still can be friends and grow our children both apart and yet together. That is in my eyes, TRULY amazing!

(hopefully I will make many posts about these 11 years and my lovely children and life – but that is not the goal for this post, however)

My new life!

I ALWAYS dreamed of going out exploring the world. Actually this has been my long everlasting goal – NOT to live in Denmark, but everywhere else in the world. For a start my family is Polish, from Krakow, and with my parents moving to Denmark (before I was even born) – and a Dad who moved onwards to London, I have always understood that it is achievable and interesting for that matter to go beyond where you are. My big sister moved as well to London by the age of 17-18 – and I have always wanted to want to explore the world. However, this was not meant to happen before my age of 33.

He, I am a bit crazy – but it HAD to take me 3 kids and 33 years to start living out my own dream – 100%. What I have really urged for. A new place, a new start: London (the closest to my lovely children) In this case I have a lot of luggage, and I am so thankful for this package. I am only 34 now and have achieved for me the utmost goal: kids > parents (3 > 2) and a career most people would have dreamed of achieving. So many experiences, but in the end trying to answer my statement: my new life.

My new life, hmmmm. interesting thought – I have no fucking clue to be honest. What I know is: I am here, I am now finally a Londoner, have the energy to write this post. AND ready to live my new life. It has begun…

Indulge me, Provoke me, Inspire me… Actually… No, forget it, I’ll do that ALL on my own

ITS TIME TO ROCK’N'ROLL! Once again!

It’s in Danish, but use Google Translate to translate it into your language.

Read the article in PDF: Sofarten16_03

Article in Danish: (from Søfart 16, 23rd April 2010, page 3)

To danske iværksættere gør nu et nyt forsøg på at gøre afstanden mellem rederi og befragter kortere – og ikke mindst reducere det enorme flow af emails, som udveksles på kryds og tværs i branchen.

Hos både rederier, mæglere og ladningsejere bruges der i dag meget tid på at filtrere den store mængde af mails med positioner, laster osv., som dagligt sendes rundt i håb om at sikre et match mellem åbne skibe og laster. Og det er denne spildtid, Jonas Bruhn og Stefan Avivson, personerne bag det nye initiativ, Copenhagen Shipping Exchange, nu har sat sig for at reducere.

Det skal ske via en internetbaseret service, som kan matche åbne laster og skibe.

Mens tidligere forsøg på at lave lignende løsninger bl.a. er strandet på et utilstrækkeligt antal brugere og for besværlige arbejdsgange, mener Copenhagen Shipping Exchange at have fundet en løsning, der virker.

Vores ide er at opbygge en platform, hvor man kan handle online. I modsætning til tidligere forsøg har vi valgt at opbygge hele systemet med informationer først, før det bliver lanceret i stedet for at gøre det modsatte, fortæller Stefan Avivson, en af de to personer bag projektet, og fortsætter:

Der er også den forskel, at rederier og mæglere ikke selv skal taste informationerne ind i vores system. De skal bare sende os deres positioner og åbne laster, som de gør i forvejen. Så tager vores system informationerne og lægger dem i en database.

Kritisk masse

Ideen er, at et rederi, der lægger en åben position ind på Copenhagen Shipping Exchange, automatisk vil få et svar med åbne, relevante laster nogle få sekunder senere – og omvendt. For at dette skal fungere, skal systemet dels kunne foretage en intelligent – og stort set fejlfri – systematisering af data. Dels at et meget stort antal aktører er med på ideen.

Ifølge Stefan Avivson er der stort set styr på den tekniske side af projektet. I øjeblikket arbejdes der på at få så mange rederier og mæglere som muligt med, og når en kritisk masse er nået, vil Copenhagen Shipping Exchange åbne for forretning. Stefan Avivson håber, at dette kan ske omkring 1. november i år og forklarer, at der allerede efter et par ugers indsats modtages åbne positioner fra over 200 rederier.

Betalingen for Copenhagen Shipping Exchange’s service skal foregå i form af et fast transaktionsfee, som kun skal betales, hvis et match mellem skib og last udmønter sig i reel forretning.

Ifølge Stefan Avivson kommer systemet bl.a. også til at indeholde en filtreringsfunktion, så brugerne selv kan vælge, hvem der skal have adgang til deres informationer.

Input fra branchen

Stefan Avivson siger videre, at både rederier og mæglere har bidraget med input til udviklingen af systemet, men at ejerskabet til gengæld holdes helt uafhængigt af interesser i branchen. En del af finansieringen hentes i øvrigt i USA.

Teknologien bag Copenhagen Shipping Exchange er primært ny og egenudviklet, og programmeringsarbejdet er stadig i gang, oplyser Stefan Avivson.

Det er vigtigt at understrege, at vi ikke ser os selv som mæglere. Vi stiller bare en funktion til rådighed, som skaber et bedre overblik. Man kan selvfølgelig diskutere, om ikke vi tager noget af det arbejde, som de kompetitive mæglere har i dag, men den service, de tilbyder mht. forhandling og rådgivning, pilles der ikke ved. Så jeg ser os ikke som en trussel for de seriøse, kompetitive mæglere, siger Stefan Avivson.

cl (Christian Leer, Journalist, Søfart – Danish Maritime news)

Thank you

For more information please see: http://copenhagenshippingexchange.com/i-receive-too-many-emails

Stefan Avivson

• born on the 3rd day in the week Wednesday, the 3 day in the 3rd month, March in the year 2010 (digit sum is 2+0+1+0 = 3).
• My wife – was lying in bed no. 333

So you can probably imagine that at this point – 3 has become part of my life  -  and now – I am getting ready to my 3rd “serious” venture where I am going all in. My first venture i went bankrupt, my second venture I came in plus again – and the third – well the third venture I should sky rocket – that is the goal. So I am counting for that 3 is a magic number.

My lovely wife and Caya:

And a beautiful moment:

As an entrepreneur I have always been very restless – I need to see things happen, when I execute them.
This time, it has been a very hard battle and alot of thoughts has been put in to securing the plans being perfect. This counts for the two – probably most important things that will happen for med this year – and maybe also counting 2011 in this equation too.

One of the above mentioned major things is the birth of my new baby girl. My wife was set to the 24th february – and if you look at the date – well you can see that it is a problem. It’s like going in robot mode fixing all things in daily life meaning, work, playing with my two kids, cleaning, talking, eating are suddenly just means to kill time, because, well, you are waiting.

The second major thing is my new venture Copenhagen Shipping Exchange. We have come to the point that the business plan has been completed, strategic and tactical plans have been scheduled and Lead Investor is going in. We started february with a visit from our Bostonian based Lead Investor in Copenhagen. An incredible week that strengthened the connection and an amazing amount of business development was made. Our investor though has an incredible network, and we have all agreed that we should try to invite some of them into the venture in order to fill out even more weakness points – so all areas can be covered. At this point – the founders – have done what they can – and all what is left to do is to wait for their participation. We hope to present the wildest owner team enabling us to create the venture and create a huge success for all stakeholders – especially the market – that are screaming for help – but for now we must wait for the term sheet to be signed… – so waiting – It’s all just a big waiting game.

Here is the link to the page, where they have announced the Advisory Board of the E Trade Foundation in Denmark: http://www.e-maerket.dk/sw4015.asp