Hollande needs to get Big Business off of Engineering School Boards
François Hollande, the socialist candidate currently running for the French presidential election, will be elected in May. He says he counts on the small and medium companies to boost the French economy, which dearly needs it.
Sacha Greif's eBook "Step-by-Step UI Design" goes viral
Earlier this week I received an email from French freelance designer Sacha Greif – the subject of the email was entitled “I wrote an eBook.” I chuckled to myself as I looked at it on my phone: of course I knew he wrote an eBook. Even if I didn’t follow him on twitter, I undoubtedly […]
Why I don't advise entrepreneurs to work from home
Yesterday I wrote an article about the difference between accelerators, incubators, co-working spaces, offices, and houses; the article was meant to talk about how certain locations are best suited for certain types of startups and types of entrepreneurs. In the comments section, readers got upset that I said that people working at home tend to […]
RUDE VC: Asking a VC for a job. Do's and Don'ts.
Last week I received a job inquiry which consisted of a CV attached to the following email (translated more or less verbatim): Dear Mr. Bivens Student at [local university], I’m looking for a job in private equity in Paris. Competitive, aggressive, and dominant on the French private equity market, Truffle Capital is the enterprise corresponding […]
France's best startup digs #1: BeMyBoat
It’s Friday, so let’s get out of Paris. The first winner of our weekly French office contest is BeMyBoat, a Nantes-based online yacht charter agency. Their beautiful offices are located on an island in the middle of the Erdre River. Special thanks to Yoann Grange for the great photos, and thanks to the higher powers […]
Paris's LeWeb conference to invade London and rival London Web Summit
LeWeb is hands-down France’s biggest tech conference. With the last edition in 2011 hosting over 3,500 participants from over 76 countries and speakers like Karl Lagerfeld, Eric Schmidt and Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan, there are very few conferences in Europe that measure up. At most, some would say the only other conferences on […]
The rise of Social Shopping in France
As the market share of smartphones in France grows, so do the different markets which are ripe for innovation – one of them is shopping. While initial hypotheses may have assumed that price-comparison would be the way to go, it seems that not only are major supermarket chains unwilling to play the price comparison game, […]
Mobile 2.0's Hackathon – A great place to scout developers?
Coming up in a week is Mobile2.0, the two-day Paris conference dedicated entirely to mobile. In addition to speakers, fireside chats, and the Appawards – a contest which has already closed and which will present 12 mobile applications with awards and prized – there is, indeed, a mobile hackathon. Throughout the 48 hours of the event, mobile […]
Pimp your digs: The Rude Baguette's French office contest
Let’s face it: France is a pretty enviable place to live and work. Working in Silicon Valley might be good for meeting VCs, but your office is probably in some anonymous office park located among mind-numbingly boring suburban sprawl. But here you might be in a regal Hausmann building along the Seine, or in a […]
SHUT UP! President Sarkozy's not-so-brilliant social media strategy
Just last week, I published an article on digital side of the French presidential elections. At the time, French President Nicolas Sarkozy didn’t have an official Twitter account. After announcing his intention to run for reelection on February 12th, he and his social media team got their act together. Well, kinda. There’s only one Sarkozy […]