(Guest post) Around one year ago, I’ve grabbed a coffee with an energetic young girl fully motivated after Startup Weekend Fribourg. Anne-Solène Beaujouan explained me what she was trying to build, that she found amazing people to work with her on a startup project. I’ve given her “my 2 cents feedback”, and some advices on what to be careful of… I have to admit that I was impressed by her desire and energy to launch her startup. Anne-Solène is only 20 (!) and full of projects. That’s promising for the Swiss startup ecosystem to have such young people starting projects! Discover her experience from participating in Startup Weekend to launch her project to what she’s doing now! One year ago I was thinking about creating a co-founding platform. I’ve got this idea because I was struggling to actually find co-founders for my …
Entrepreneurs… Beware!
As an entrepreneur, you’re experiencing a lot of cool things.. and some strange things. I’m currently raising my first financing round for my own startup, Coteries. As everything in life, what is paying is to be proactive. You are contacting investors to present them your investment opportunity. Sometimes, you have people contacting you (after a press coverage or so – yes, it happens even in Switzerland!). But I’ve also experienced some really, really strange things 2 weeks ago. I got a call from a guy desiring to invest at least CHF 500k in my startup. He was calling from Israel. Coming to Amsterdam or even Milano soon, so we could meet. OK, sounds great. But such a cold call is quite surprising! I’m a first-time entrepreneur, but I’m not naive. I’m not blinded by money. I know how it works. …
My meeting with one of the smartest startup actor in the world: Mark Suster
End of October, I had the chance to participate to the Dublin Web Summit. The event has grown up to reach around 10’000 attendees, and yes, it was extremely crowded and it was tough to get a seat at least to see the talks of the prominent speakers. And being online was just impossible for most people, and that’s really a pity (a Web Summit without… web connexion! But that’s common to almost every big conference!). Before my trip, I was a bit doubtful about the possibility to talk to the speakers right after their presence on stage, as so many people attended the event. But my doubt disappeared quickly. It’s just a matter of tactic! I made the trip to Dublin especially to have the chance of seeing Mark Suster live. And hopefully meet and greet him! Mark is a …
Why to start up?
Last Thursday, I was invited to give a presentation about “why to start up?” to an audience of around 100 students from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). It was a great opportunity to try to share my passion for startups and entrepreneurship… I hope I’ve succeeded to motivate these young graduates to consider startups as a viable career option (of course, all these guys and gals were already interested by entrepreneurship – otherwise, they wouldn’t have been there!). There were also some entrepreneurs in the room, who told me that the presentation was really complete (honored by such a feedback!). Except that I’ve forgotten to talk about one important point required to start up. The network component (THX to Maximilian for this comment!). For a networker as I am… what a shame ;-)! Or maybe it’s because …
Startup competitions, don’t waste entrepreneur’s time!
If you’re a first time entrepreneur, you’re discovering new startup competitions on an almost daily basis. Some reward startups with money (sometimes great, sometimes just… ridiculous), some with a business travel and finally some with prestige. You get some press coverage, local, national or sometimes international, with every competition when you’re among the lucky nominated or awarded startups. You think that you wonderful amazing project will convince the jury, without any doubt. Yeah, you would not living your startup every minute you breath if you were not convinced you’re on something with a great business potential! But, the maths are simple. You have often a 1% chance (or even less for international competitions) of getting selected. And everyone who has ever filled an application form knows that it’s extremely time consuming. Every competition has another, different application form. Yes, everyone is reinventing …
The Startup Kids – a film that any wannabe founder should watch!
In April 2011, I stumbled upon a film project published 5 days ago on Kickstarter by 2 Icelandic girls. A documentary on young entrepreneurs’ stories from around the globe. They were looking for $ 7’000.- to be able to shoot the film and publish it. If you know my passion for startups, you know that I needed to be in. So I backed the project with $15. Three weeks after, Sesselja and Vala had convinced a total of 364 backers for more than three times what they expected. What a great crowd-funding story! I was excited to watch the documentary and was regularly asking the girls when it will be finished. Sesselja and Vala interviewed founders around the globe, like Drew Houston (Dropbox), Alexander Ljung (Soundcloud), Kristina Segerstrale (Playfish) VC Tim Draper, and many more. Finally, the film was made public at Reykjavik International …
How can I help?
My followers on twitter probably know I’m a huge fan of Mark Suster, a 2-times entrepreneur turned VC based in Los Angeles, who blogs to share his knowledge on Both sides of the Table. BTW, you should definitely follow him if you’re an entrepreneur! Mark had a great post last week named Why you should give before you get. And Brad Feld, entrepreneur, angel and VC that you’ve certainly have heard about, even made “give before you get” his life motto. It sounds to be common sense in my ears, but it’s often not for many people out there. Everyone advises you to go networking. But what is really networking? Is it only exchanging visit cards or shaking hands? No. And the stupidest thing you can do online is to add people you don’t know on LinkedIn without telling the other person …