The 2012 list: 13 Hot French Entrepreneurs Under 30

For the last 2 years, I’ve been publishing an annual list of some of France’s hottest entrepreneurs under 30. You can check out the lists for 2010 and 2011. Usually I pick all the people for the list myself. However, this year, I decided to take suggestions from the crowd. I got an overwhelming number of suggestions and I want to thank everyone for their contributions. Just as a quick reminder, if someone has already appeared on this list in previous years, they unfortunately cannot be re-selected.

TechBaguette gets a Logo

Every now and then an entrepreneur will make something for me that will totally blow my mind. For example, not too long ago, the amazing DuoApps boys in Corsica reached out and said they would make me an iPhone app. To be totally honest, I have no idea if anyone in their right mind will ever actually download it (maybe, since it’s free!) but I was totally touched by this. Plus, what better way to get in good with a blogger that totally flatter her ego (yes, we love our egos)?! You can also check out GoodBarber, their apps ~~maker~~ shaver.

Do French parents make better startup CEOs?

I recently came across an article in the Wall Street Journal with a title that was a little hard to miss: Why French Parents Are Superior. After it was published, my friends from around the world began emailing me asking my thoughts. So here’s the truth everyone: French kids DON’T CRY.

Europe, Where Does Innovation Come From?

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.

Should France even want to be another Silicon Valley anyway?

If there’s one thing I have a low tolerance for, it’s France-bashing. Sadly, it seems to be a default sport for many journalists. Whenever they have nothing better to write about, a little critique of the oh-so-traditional French Republic will surely fill up the sapce. Take The Economist, for example. It’s a magazine that I actually still highly admire. But I remember reading this one article not too long ago about how London was just all the more attractive for the young, French population – because “France itself is hardly booming.” Uh, right.