I probably should’ve written this post a while ago to kind of clarify where I am writing these days. For anyone who hasn’t yet noticed, I’m not writing for TechCrunch anymore. And it has nothing to do with what’s been going on with AOL in the US – although, the fact that Michael Arrington, MG Siegler, Paul Carr, Sarah Lacy and Heather Harde no longer work there perhaps makes it a little less sexy. But hey. The fact of the matter is that I always said that if I wrote about French tech companies, I wanted it to be in English – so that the news could go even beyond France. That’s why I started blogging in the first place.
Sorry Académie française, but I’ve turned Rude.
So Liam Boogar – who happened to feel the same way as I did about there needing to be English press for French startups – and I decided to team up and launch Rude Baguette, an English language publication about French startups (sorry Académie française). We’re not going to cover all the tech news that other French publications cover because we want it to be relevant for international readers. But if you think there is something we should write about, be sure to let us know. And we are more than happy to take guest posts as well – just come and pitch us your ideas. We won’t bite, promise.
This video was featured in our intro post on Rude Baguette.
Not the only ones.
Funny enough, we’re clearly not the only ones in Europe that feel that the European startup scene deserves more English-language press. Mike Butcher recently published an article in TechCrunch about some similar initiatives throughout the continent. And we’re hoping that ultimately all the English-language publications in Europe will come together and join forces, because really we’re all on the same team.
TechBaguette, the remake.
I’ll obviously keep the little TechBaguette alive with my own, more personal thoughts and experiences. Rude Baguette will be a bit more about startup news in France and less based on my own silly ramblings. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go write a post on why Nicolas Sarkozy is saying that illegal downloads have decreased by 35% when in fact they haven’t.
On Monday, I was hosted a track on creating a cool company at Gotocon (a developer conference) in Aarhus, Denmark. I was rather impressed by the geeky crowd, most of who paid around €2,500 per person to attend the 3-day conference. The price tag and the size definitely made me think of LeWeb – although most of the topics covered were way more technical. But if there was one thing that really caught my attention more than anything else, it was one of the questions that was asked by an attendee.
“What should my startup do?”
Honestly, when the person asked this question, I kind of chuckled in my head. The way it was phrased went something like this: “I’ve gathered together a couple of friends who come from a number of different backgrounds. We have all the right skills to start a company but we don’t have an idea. What should we do?” Ha, really? But then again, this is exactly why people go to Startup Weekend and Garage 48 events – to meet the right people and share ideas. Some of the ideas stick but if not, surely the connections will. And funny enough, France is actually the country to host the most Startup Weekend events after the US – which is definitely fuelling the local ecosystem and allowing people to experiment with entrepreneurship.
That bothers me.
But back to the Gotocon question and the actual response that this person got from the speakers - which I found rather interesting. First, he was told to do something involving his passions and personal interests (pretty standard response). But then, one of the speakers told him that it would be wise to think of a problem that he is dealing with and to try and find a solution. Definitely good advice.
Uh, do we really need that?
I have to admit that I have met a lot of startups where I think to myself “do we really need that?” And I kind of hinted at it with an article I published on TechCrunch France last year concerning the plethora of dating sites that were popping up left and right. I also wrote about it here. Some of the readers kind of lost their minds – calling me anti-innovation, anti-competition and all kinds of fun names. But it was starting to get ridiculous – we were hearing about a new dating startup every week! Did we really need all of them? Were they really providing any added value? But aside from the dating sites, sometimes people are developing solutions to problems that nobody actually has.
Time and money.
Kima Investor Jeremie Berrebi actually posted a great tweet the other day that didn’t go unnoticed by entrepreneurs – he apparently received 9 new projects following the tweet.
For anyone who doesn’t speak French, this tweet says “I’ll invest in any project that allows me to take more vacation.” Brilliant. And Jeremie is not alone. A majority of people want more time and more money – so if you can help them do that, or make something easier or more efficient, then you’ve probably got yourself a deal.
So, who is helping save time and money?
While Jeremie was probably looking for a tool that would either act as a babysitter (:p) or could help him filter through the hundreds of projects and business plans he has to go through, there are several French companies that are addressing the time and money issue for a larger population. For example, I wrote an article a while back on a number of companies that were helping people save time with reserving a table, ordering food, waiting in line, etc. including the likes of DelivrMe, Storific, VousAvezChoisi, Restopolitan and even JaimeAttendre. Jeremie’s Kima has invested in at least 2 of the 5. I admit that I actually really like the idea behind DelivrMe – especially when we all know how efficient La Poste is in France (see video below).
The YouTube problem.
I remember back in 2008, almost every conference I went to somehow managed to circle back to what I started to call “the YouTube problem” of how to monetize social media. It was before YouTube had integrated ads and whatnot and way before Facebook was where it is today. And finally, I got so annoyed that all conferenced somehow came back to the same topic that I thought to myself “OK, fine, I will try and invent a solution in my head.” I came up with a solution – several actually – but never had time to execute them. I discovered companies that had actually built on my very ideas once I arrived in France in 2009.
#annoyed.
So regardless of whether or not you actually want to innovate the solution, you can definitely share some of the problems you see that annoy you or that complicate your life in the comments. And maybe someday those guys from the conference will stumble on my blog and invent you the solution.
As you can tell, it took me a while to decide whether or not to write something about Steve Jobs. At first, I thought it was perhaps a little cliché. After all, everyone is writing about Steve right now (yes, we’re on a first-name basis) – my words would simply get lost in the crowd. But then again, how could I not? Steve is one of America’s most celebrated modern visionaries – and the footprint he left will forever mark the development of technology, culture, business and much more. And on a much more personal note, he is one of the most inspirational people I have ever discovered.
An excellent King of France.
When I first heard of his death via an email sent to me by a friend who works at Trulia, I didn’t actually know that much about Steve (shock!). Sure, I knew he had dropped out of college, started Apple Computers in a Silicon Valley garage with Steve Wozniak, been fired and made a successful comeback at Apple, contributed to the success of Pixar, and revolutionized personal computing with some truly outstanding products – but that was more or less it. As I started to read the articles on his life that flooded various magazines and the net, I discovered his incredible philosophy, way of living and work ethic that made him loved and hated by so many. He was a moody artist, a near-delusional inventor with conviction and charisma, who Jef Raskin thought would make “an excellent King of France.” (Honestly, I’m not much of a Monarchist but how could I not admire this man? J)
Here’s to the misfits.
Today, many of us think of Steve Jobs as a hero. But looking back over his lifetime, there were many instances where he could appear as anything but. He was a college drop out (no, not Harvard or Stanford – but Reed College) who almost gave up computers in the early days for a life of contemplation in Japan. Wtf? He also eventually managed to get fired from his own company, à la Jerry Yang. As a teenager, he was a contrarian who lived by his own rules, in a John Lennon type of way – amusing himself with strange fruit diets, not bathing and refusing to wear shoes. He read Shakespeare, listened to Bob Dylan, experimented with drugs and sleep deprivation. But despite everything, he was motivated. And he knew how to get what he wanted. Even as a drop out, he would audit classes that interested him and lived off of the money that he made by collecting bottles (now that is some serious bootstrapping).
“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water?”
If there was one thing Steve had in order, it was his priorities. Despite his total lack of professional experience and disregard for personal hygiene during his early post-college life, he somehow managed to convince someone at Atari to hire him. He even convinced Steve Wozniak to work on projects with him for free by feeding his video-game addiction through Atari. He knew how to rub people the wrong and the right way – whether storming out of a board meeting in reaction to a comment from investor Ross Perot or recruiting Pepsi’s John Sculley with the famous line “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?” He never said: “sell computers” – he said “change the world.”
Putting the sex in technology.
In 1988, Ross Perot introduced him to the King of Spain and apparently Steve managed to sell him a computer (ha!). But even if Steve new how to sell he wasn’t a salesman. When he returned to Apple in 1997, he criticized the company’s products because “there (was) no sex in them anymore.” He wanted his products to be something that would sell themselves: an accessible luxury item, a status symbol, an object of desire– like Chanel perfume or a Louis Vuitton handbag. Everyone knows sex sells. So Steve took geekery and made it hot. iMac? iPod? iPhone? iPad? iWant.
Thinking different.
Like many wannabe entrepreneurs, Steve wasn’t an engineer. And that was his strength. Instead of losing himself in the complexity of various features and functions, he obsessed with the simplicity of design and user experience. He was taking what already existed and making it better. During his days at NeXT, Ross Perot had once pissed him off by telling him that he needed to listen more to consumers. But the message seems to have stuck regardless. In Bloomberg Businessweek, DFJ’s Steve Jurvetsondescribes how Steve hated the keyboard and once made a statement by prying off the useless F1 and F2 keys with his car keys. He was a detail-obsessed micro-manager who wanted to control everything from A to Z. But man, did it pay off. As a result, Apple wasn’t selling products – it was selling an entire lifestyle.
Something like Picasso.
Apple made a cultural impact because it understood culture. It communicated with people on a different level than other technology companies – which often seem disconnected from reality. Apple campaigns featured the famous faces of Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King, Jr. and referenced George Orwell (see 1984 commercial below). The Apple story itself reads like a dramatic Shakespearian play. If there were to be a Picasso of tech, well, this wouldn’t be too far.
The richest man in the cemetery.
Steve’s net worth prior to his death was an estimated $7 billion – yet his annual salary since returning to Apple in 1997 never passed $1. Still, he owned quite a bit of Apple shares – which, since its IPO in 1980, has jumped from $22 to $378.25 a share. Nonetheless, he said he didn’t care about being the richest man in the cemetery but doing something he could be proud of.
There is a little Steve Jobs in all of us.
No, I didn’t cry the day that I heard that he died. And while I love Apple products, I’m not a die-hard Apple fan – I’ve only owned 3 Apple products my entire life: a Macbook Pro, iPhone and iPod Nano – two of which I purchased more for work than anything else. It wasn’t until after I’d read enough about him that it actually hit me to what extent the world had lost a truly incredible human being. There are many things to be learned from Steve – yet to me, his determination stands out more than anything else. If my vision of Steve seems warped, I can always blame it on the journalists – who are crafting his legacy as we speak (I only hope that other countries celebrate their star innovators and business heroes in the same way – France, I’m looking at you). Regardless, his story is one of the most inspirational I have ever encountered (and I am surrounded by a lot of inspirational people and stories, as you can imagine). If only I had gotten to meet him while he was alive…
Stanford campus, 1986.
My Dad tells this funny story – I have no memory of it but I like to think that it’s true. It’s 1986 – 6 years after Apple went public. My Dad and I are on Stanford campus and he has to use the restroom. Rather than taking me – a toddler at the time –with him, he asks a stranger to watch me for a few minutes. That stranger is Steve Jobs.
No matter how much we try to avoid it, people seem to always revert back to comparing the European tech scene with that of Silicon Valley. In many ways, it’s a bit silly and irrational. Like comparing apples and oranges. After all, the European market is highly fragmented in dozens of ways and faces numerous challenges that the US market does not. Then again, it’s a necessary step in understanding why entrepreneurship thrives in certain environments and not others. (By the way, I’ll be moderating a panel on this very topic at the Advance Conference in Germany later this month.)
The Transatlantic Divide.
Clearly, Europe and the US are separated by far more than the Atlantic Ocean. European entrepreneurs love to generalize and complain about how local investors are risk averse, how taxes are insanely high and legal procedures are inefficient and overly complicated – and in many ways they are right. The incentive structures in Europe do not provide the same types of protection to entrepreneurs and investors as they do in the US, which makes entrepreneurship all the more complicated and risky. But it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact source of the so-called “problem.” Sure, it is easy to call a European investor risk-averse – but it’s simply because they aren’t protected and incentivized in the same way as they are in the US. I won’t bore you with all the details of my Master’s dissertation here (which I eloquently titled “A Comparative Approach to the Institutional Challenges Facing the Development of European Venture Capital”) but consider the influence of socialism, civil law and coordinated market economies in Europe. The deeply-rooted historical foundations of some of these systems makes it near impossible to import what works in the US without upsetting the local systems – which are not homogenous throughout the European continent. Also, they contribute largely to the types of innovations that are possible to implement and successful in different economies (highly recommend you read Hall and Soskice).
Startups are for losers.
One of the key cultural differences between entrepreneurs in Europe and the US has to do with Failure (yes, capital “F”). I’ve spoken about it specifically in a French context here. But the European failure phobia may be even more deeply rooted than my first-hand experience in French classrooms may allow me to see. While the fear of failure is largely cultural, it is also reinforced by certain institutional complexities – like investors and entrepreneurs that are provided less protection in the case of bankruptcy, for example. Such issues play a huge roll in incentivizing the local entrepreneurial crowd, since startups are a very high-risk activity. Even though we may not be able to make the European startup environment failure-friendly overnight, talking about it is definitely helping to bring awareness to the issue.
(The song that French serial entrepreneur-turned-investor Gilles Babinet used as his “anthem” at the Failconf in January.)
Stay quiet, stay stupid.
So as many of you already know, I decided to team up with Cass Philipps – who organizes the famous Failcon in San Francisco – to bring the event to Paris on September 22 (you can buy a ticket here). While everyone agrees that Europe needs to get more comfortable with the idea of failure, getting people involved in the conference has proven that there is still a lot of work to be done. Many sponsors said they would sponsor “the next one” and a number of speakers actually struggled to admit that they had, indeed, failed. It’s almost ridiculous. How is the entrepreneurial supposed to progress if people brush the issue under a rug? I actually felt that this kind of happened when Microsoft France held a similar event in January; French entrepreneurs knew they were there to talk about failure, but very few of them could actually discuss their own mistakes candidly.
World Failures.
Because the local entrepreneurs were reluctant to actually approach the subject head-on, I felt that it was necessary to go outside of France and outside of Europe to get to the heart of the matter. I decided to team up with Cass Philipps – who runs the famous Failcon in San Francisco – in order to really put an international spin on things. And rather than sticking to French entrepreneurs and investors, we’ve invited a number of international speakers from the UK, Canada, Portugal and the US to talk about their experiences.
Does it get any worse than this?
So rather than approaching the topic lightly, Cass and I got together and brainstormed some of our favorite failure stories. I have to say that I am really excited to hear two of our speakers in particular: Tapjoy and Sprouter.
Tapjoy, ouch.
For anyone who doesn’t already know Tapjoy, they have had an absolutely dramatic turnaround. You may remember a little fiasco that TechCrunch decided to call Scamville. Well, at the time Tapjoy was called Offerpal and the company was publicly attacked by Michael Arrington himself for being involved in scams (video below). Afterwards, the company went through a series of different CEOs and somehow managed to make a comeback. Honestly, I cannot wait to hear how they did it.
Closing doors.
We initially invited Sprouter founder Sarah Prevette because her previous startup had failed. But then she announced that Sprouter would also be closing its doors because it hadn’t managed to secure enough funding to continue. I was horribly sad to hear that the incredible online community dedicated to entrepreneurs would be going offline. But then, in a rather interesting twist of events, Sarah followed up with a rather positive-looking announcement (image below). I guess we’ll find out what she has in store when she’s on stage at Failcon next week…
If at first you don’t succeed…
In addition to the stories on stage, we’ll have an open mic for people in the audience to share errors, mistakes, failures and lessons learned throughout the day. I honestly hope that the entrepreneurs in the room come prepared to share and really step up. Because honestly, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain…
(If anyone knows this scene from the movie Swingers, I think it demonstrates brilliantly how someone can make a big deal over something in their head and end up making a bigger mess than necessary…)
It’s funny – one of the more popular posts that I’ve written on this blog was the 13 hot French entrepreneurs under 30 list. It still gets hits and it was published over a year ago. So I figure it’s time to give it a little update for 2 reasons: first, because some of those people are no longer under 30 and also because there are definitely new names to add to the list! Yes, my friends, there has definitely been a dramatic increase in the number of young entrepreneurs in France. So in no particular order, here comes some names that I feel should be added to the list.
1. Anne-Béatrice Sonnier (MyArchiveBox)
Anne-Béatrice just made the age cut-off but definitely deserves to be on this list. Going against the grain, she made the move from investment to being an entrepreneur in a Katy Turner or Avid Larizadeh type-of-way. With an insanely technical product – digital archiving – she’s managed to launch and run things without a co-founder. Pretty. Impressive. Follower her @annebeatrice
2. Emilie Gobin & Charles Digby-Smith & Vincent Plazen (L’Usine à Design)
To be honest, I can’t really say that I know Emilie’s co-founders as well as I know her. But these 20-something-year-olds are definitely doing a stellar job in a rather hot yet difficult space (remember MyFab?): e-commerce for customized furniture. Her team has already managed to secure over 1 million in financing - plus she’s the one stole the show at our Girls in Tech Lady Pitch Night! Follow the team on Twitter at @enamilys & @charles_ds & @vincentappearstobeMIA (Emilie & Charles pictured)
You may think these two are brothers but I can assure you they are not. The beauty behind the story of youngster team Antonin and Sacha is not just that their company was born from Startup Weekend…in TOULOUSE…but that it also managed to secure €200K in just 3 weeks (What? You thought it was hard to get funded in France?). Sacha also left his cushy job at Orange/France-Telecom (somehow still considered one of “THE” companies to work for in France) to live the bootstrapping dream. Love it. Follow the boys @antoninjf & @sachabn
4. Arthur Philbé & Florian Galby (Weblib)
How could I not write about a successful team in the Sciences Po Incubator?! I’ve talked about this company before as an innovative way of adapting the “Velib” or bike-rental model to tech. Providing tablets, netbooks, etc. in tons of public locations and businesses, co-founders Arthur and Florian are not at all in an easy business – especially in a world where people usually just turn to their cell phones for internet. Regardless, they have done an amazing job at providing access to a bigger screen in places you would probably want it most. Follow the dynamic duo @floriangalby & @oùestarthur
This is the one team on the list where I have not yet had the chance to meet either of the co-founders. That being said, Quentin and Mathilde have been turning heads with their local Birchbox competitor, Joliebox. But not only are they up against the Accel-backed US sensation, locally they compete with Glossybox – founded by Germany’s ruthless Samwer brothers. But according to TechCrunch France readers, these youngsters have a much better product in place! Keep tabs on them @quentinrey & @lavieenblonde (Mathilde pictured)
7. Olivier Issaly & Vincent Guth (Owlient)
I mentioned these 20-something-year-old founders at the end of last year’s post. I’m a huge fan of their story and also invited CEO Olivier to speak at our TechCrunch France Remix event last november. Launching the company while in school – the team ultimately said au revoir to their classmates after they realized they were making a proper living with their terrific gaming company. And as if that wasn’t good enough, they were just bought by French gaming giant Ubisoft for an undisclosed amount. Follow the talented team @oissaly & @vingtcent (Olivier pictured)
8. Olivier Desmoulin & Marc Chataigner (Super Marmite)
Yes, I know what you’re thinking and yes, these two names bring us to 14 entrepreneurs and not 13 (oh well). Another team born from Startup Weekend, these guys set out to redefine home cooking made it to the top 3 LeWeb finalists of 2010 after just a few months. Killer. Follow them @odesmoulin & @marcchataigner (image of Olivier pitching at LeWeb)
Honorary: Ismael Nzouetom (I-dispo)
OK, yes, there are many more deserving names that should be on the list. I adore Aurélie Perruche of Likiwi and MaSpatule, the boys at Ykone (as always), Tumbup and a number of other startups. But one entrepreneur that absolutely blew my mind was Ismael Nzouetom of I-dispo. I saw him pitch for the first time at Microsoft Windows Phone 7 app competition (yes, in front of Steve Ballmer & Co.) and I think it was hands down one of the absolute best pitches I have seen in France. He may not have won the app competition that day but he did manage to bring Kima Ventures and Jacques-Antoine Granjon on board as investors. Nice. Keep tabs on him @ismosoft
I love them youngsters.
Before you start thinking that I have some sort of unhealthy interest in young entrepreneurs à la Lewis Caroll, let me explain pourquoi. It’s hard to name the European equivalents of Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin Rose and Sean Parker. The job market is more hierarchical so it is harder for young entrepreneurs to gain the credibility they need. Some of the young entrepreneurs we invited to discuss this issue last year at TechCrunch France Remix have incredible first-hand stories of how they had to overcome this situation. Many people would argue that young entrepreneurs have it easy because it is “easiest” to get into the startup world when you are fresh out of school with no expectations – but there are other challenges that youngsters have to face that someone with more experience and a developed network may not. And to top it all off, these kids are the ones that are really changing the local face of the startup scene and making it seem cool to have a startup.
Oh, Peter Thiel.
I’ve mentioned before how I feel about the French educational system and its impact on failure. And I don’t expect things to change over night. Entrepreneurs have certain character traits that may be easier to develop at a younger age. While there are mixed opinion’s of Peter Thiel’s 20 under 20 program, I do think that it is nice to have programs like these to give young people the option of going into entrepreneurship – especially in a country that still has a very traditional approach to education. I would love to see more programs fostering and supporting young entrepreneurs throughout Europe.
If you know of a young European entrepreneur that deserves a little credit, feel free to mention it in the comments or shoot me an email.
1. Anne-Béatrice Sonnier (MyArchiveBox)
2. Emilie Gobin & Charles Digby-Smith & Vincent Plazen (L’Usine à Design)
3. Antonin Chartier & Sacha Bostoni (Jimmy Fairly)
4. Arthur Philbé & Florian Galby (Weblib)
5. Quentin Reygrobellet & Mathilde Lacombe (Joliebox)
7. Olivier Issaly & Vincent Guth (Owlient)
8. Olivier Desmoulin & Marc Chataigner (Super Marmite)
Honorary: Ismael Nzouetom (I-dispo)
