'technology' Category
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Alibaba valuation: the comparables method
September 17, 2014The valuation analysis I released on the Facebook IPO two years ago proved popular, so I figure why not do it again for the hottest tech IPO planned this month: Alibaba. Please refer to my earlier piece on this topic for an explanation of the various valuation methodologies. Also, please note that my objective in […]
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LINE continues its global expansion
September 15, 2014Here are penetration figures released by LINE last week on its international adoption. Wow!
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Five French startups best positioned for Asia
September 2, 2014When someone from Journal du Net contacted me about my piece last year on 5 French Startups I Can’t Live Without, apparently they liked it so much that they decided to ride with the theme (hey, imitation is the best form of flattery, I suppose). JDN interviewed a handful of France’s first-rate VCs to each […]
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Email purge (yay!) but Microsoft Outlook blows (boo!)
August 22, 2014I return to my office following a week off on holiday to discover Outlook no longer functions. The Microsoft Exchange online Outlook web access works fine, but the local install on my PC refuses to connect, incessantly prompting for a password. The problem is not machine-specific either, since the identical sympton occurs on 3 different […]
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Echelon Thailand: this merits one night in Bangkok
August 20, 2014Readers of this blog know that I believe European tech startups in certain domains should look East instead of West. Two recent testaments of this notion are France’s very own Feeligo and Quantcube, who accompanied me in July to Fukuoka, Japan for a privileged conference with Japan’s tech leaders, a visit which is already paying […]
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Rebooting the brain on holiday
August 19, 2014I took a short holiday this summer, only one week. I should relativize this: one week falls on the long end for a typical American vacation period, but in Southern Europe taking off for only week in the summer is laughable. Unfortunately, one week was all I could afford given the busiest June and July […]
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Why French startups should consider Far East Asia
July 22, 2014When I first arrived in France from Silicon Valley over ten years ago, I regularly received business plans from French startups that were limiting their sights to the French market. The few that spoke about international expansion would have a line in their financial projections for revenue in year 5 from Belgium or francophone Switzerland. […]
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99/1 is the new 80/20
July 1, 2014The game industry’s largest convention, the E3 Expo just took place. Reportedly, one of the highlights of the show was a demo of a new game called Adrift on the Oculus Rift platform. Adrift simulates a reality in which the gamer finds himself floating above the Earth alone on a decaying space station seeking out […]
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A second wind for second chances
June 27, 2014Four years ago in a piece entitled The End of Second Chances, I openly dwelled on how the web meant the end of forgetting (a gripe which seems commonplace now, but remember this was before SnapChat was even conceived). At the time, this struck me as an appealing investment theme, though I couldn’t find any […]
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Aspiring SaaS converts can learn a lot from Adobe
June 24, 2014Selling software on a cloud-based subscription model has become so commonplace these days that new software startups must have a pretty compelling reason if they intend to pursue the traditional approach of perpetual license sales. The cloud model is recurring in nature and thus provides a more predictable revenue stream. In the traditional perpetual license […]
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LINE vs. WeChat. Get ready to rumble.
May 20, 2014An enthusiastic user of LINE, Mark Bivens faces off against Jerry Yang, a trainee at Truffle Capital and a WeChat apologist, on the merits of each app. MB: First, I think we can agree on one thing: that WhatsApp, BBM, Viber, Telegram, eBuddy, Nimbuzz, SnapChat, and even Kik do not swim in the same pond […]
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How I pitch “La French Tech”
May 6, 2014I’m blessed to have the opportunity to travel a fair amount, and the people I encounter often ask me about the state of the French tech ecosystem. Admittedly, sometimes I’m the one who first puts the topic on the table, but I only share my pitch with those who are interested. Furthermore, calling this a […]