'technology' Category
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Scaling your startup successfully into the States
November 20, 2012Nic Brisbourne of DFJ Esprit wrote a great piece last week called, “The smart way to expand software companies to the U.S.” I won’t rehash the whole post but definitely recommend you read it. While Brisbourne’s advice is geared for British startups, much of it is relevant for France as well. His money shot is […]
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Infographic: HTML5 mobile gaming
November 18, 2012Many mobile game companies still choose native iOS or Android as their first route to market, only to discover that it’s very challenging to stand out among hundreds of thousands of other games in the traditional app-stores. There is, however, a viable alternative approach that is quickly gaining interest worldwide: HTML5. BoosterMedia has released a […]
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Japan’s renewed appetite for Europe?
November 6, 2012The Rude VC disappeared to Japan last week for a combination of business meetings and some spiritual recalibration. I return refreshed and pumped up. Pumped up because the country that the West likes to deride as the one of the “lost decade” is demonstrating a renewed appetite for expansion abroad, especially in the tech sector. […]
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Pigeons don’t poop in private
October 9, 2012Wow, it has been quite a week ! President François Hollande’s Socialist government unveiled its draft 2013 budget comprising some potentially devastating tax dis-incentives for entrepreneurs and VCs. A revolt ensued, with the birth of the Pigeon Movement, an explosion of emotion on social media sites, worldwide media attention, and the culmination of a dialogue […]
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HTML5 vs Apps, a holy war or peaceful coexistence?
October 4, 2012Like Yin vs Yang, Cain vs Abel, Coke vs Pepsi, another of the universe’s great dualities manifests itself in the face-off of HTML5 vs Apps. I share with you some domain carknowledge from the wisest man I know on this topic, BoosterMedia founder Laurens Rutten… Not too long ago, the HTML5 developer camp was cheering […]
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Google’s insidious plot with Yahoo!
July 24, 2012Anyone reading the tech press last week couldn’t avoid the gushing over Marissa Mayer’s appointment to become CEO of Yahoo!. Google’s first female engineer and the brains behind the elegantly simple white search home page, the 37-year old Mayer will face a tremendous new challenge in taking the helm of the ailing internet company. Whether […]
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Selling early
July 17, 2012Remember Digg ? Less than six months after radical innovator NetVibes caved in to Dassault Systèmes for 20m€ and almost five years to the exact day after navigation firm Webraska lost its way into the arms of Sanef, the social news sharing site Digg was sold to Betaworks for a reported $500k. This sum represents […]
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Owning the dot-com: even my grandma understood
June 26, 2012I remember back in 1996 when my grandmother (since passed, bless her soul) caught me off guard, as she had a knack for doing, with a highly-esoteric tech question. She had invited me for lunch at the Hobees in Cupertino, an annual ritual in which we caught up on each others’ lives, and toward the […]
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How do VC’s calculate valuations ?
June 5, 2012The question I am asked most frequently by European entrepreneurs I know is: “How much is my company worth ?” I’ll pull a Henry Kissinger and answer a slightly different and more precise question, which is that of how VC’s in Europe calculate valuations of tech companies. Even if it’s more precise, the answer still […]
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To IPO or not to IPO ?
May 29, 2012Forgive the bastardization of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, because when it comes to French tech IPO’s, one could argue that MacBeth is more appropriate (“Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble…”). In the last two columns we reviewed the basics of IPO’s and examined some of the challenges that venture-backed companies like Facebook confront […]
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Going public: It’s complicated
May 22, 2012{Note: this post represents the second installment in a Rude VC series on IPO. The introductory post is here.} Last week in this column we reviewed the basics on an initial public offering, particularly the flavor available in France. Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you would know that since then, Facebook has gone […]
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The disruption and renewal of sakura
April 10, 2012As style entrepreneur and design authority Tyler Brûlé once astutely observed, it’s always a good time to visit Tokyo. I had the honor of spending the past week there on a business trip, which by stroke of good fortune, coincided with a week of cherry blossoms (sakura) in full bloom. Appreciation of the fleeting moment […]