Chroniques
Rude VC: The misplaced pride of no marketing
I heard it again just the other day during a startup’s pitch. “We’ve done no marketing, and look how much we’ve accomplished,” boasted the founders of the venture for which they were trying to raise money. Imagine what we could do if we spent money on marketing, was the intended implication of what they were […]
Rude VC: Tech Designers – Hurry over to London by July 10
No, this is not an encouragement to would-be fiscal exiles or pigeons. Nor do I have any specific conference or startup networking event in mind as I write this. In fact, the reason has nothing to do with tech, at least not in a directly obvious way. It’s about an art exhibition. Specifically, Shiro Kuramata, […]
Rude VC: Part 2 of the Alternext liquidity conundrum
Last week I wrote a fairly critical piece about France’s IPO market for tech firms. Specifically, I claimed that the Alternext, which is the main market on which VC-backed tech firms can go public in France, does not represent an adequate avenue for sustained financing and liquidity potential for these firms. Rude maybe, but surprisingly […]
Keep your online identity under lock and key with Experian’s DataPatrol
With approximately 60% of French stating that concerns around data confidentiality and privacy dissuade them from buying online and 64% stating that sites without sufficient payment security also drive them to restrict their online purchases, there’s definitely a market need for services that help mitigate these concerns. Sensing a big opportunity, the global leader of […]
Rude VC: Open up the French Open
On Friday my colleague and I walked by a shop window at lunchtime that displayed a large flat screen televising Roger Federer’s match at Roland Garros. We were immediately struck by the abundance of vacant seats in the stadium during the match. Granted, it was a Friday afternoon (heaven forbid the French cut out work […]
Rude VC: The sun is rising again
As I have crowed many times in this space before, Japan is demonstrating renewed energy and enthusiasm in the tech sector. Mobile gaming giants like Gree and DeNA, explosive social networks like Line, and e-commerce leaders like Rakuten, are inspiring success stories for France which recently began venturing abroad. Now Japan’s overall economy seems to […]
Rude VC: Losing Our Religion
Your Rude VC returns following a week off the grid with family. Part of my travels took me through New York, during which I indulged on two of my favorite weaknesses: authentic New York bagels, and pastrami on rye from a Brooklyn deli. Of course, nowadays I don’t have to travel all the way to […]
Why the Rude Baguette is rolling out Sponsored Content
I love what I have been able to do with the Rude Baguette for the past year and a half. In the first 9 months, I rejected the idea of putting ads on the site – I wanted the experience to be about reading engaging content, and I felt that ugly display ads lessened the […]
Rude VC: Givers, Matchers, and Takers
An interesting conversation I enjoyed last week directed me toward some research by Adam Grant, a tenured professor of organizational psychology at Wharton. Grant’s research, on which he elaborates in his upcoming book, Give and Take, (and encapsulated in a great article by Susan Dominus in the NY Times Magazine), espouses the notion of how […]
Rude VC: Silicon Valley’s secret sauce
Over the past few weeks in this space, inspired by Fleur Pellerin’s current government initiative to replicate Silicon Valley, I’ve recapped some of the history of the region and reconsidered the wisdom of attempts to reproduce the Silicon Valley model elsewhere. I submit that trying to imitate Silicon Valley is futile. However, France’s government and […]
The Key Thing Entrepreneurs Need to Understand About Storytelling
The following post is a guest post by Alexis Niki, a Paris-based founder & CEO of StoryNova, which provides concept and story strategy and development support. You can follow her at @AlexisNiki. On Monday, I’m giving a talk on storytelling for entrepreneurs at a business school. As I prepare, it occurs to me that people are still not convinced […]
Rude VC: Why I’m enthusiastic about HTML5
I find that my best venture investing tends to happen when I structure my thinking around investment themes or theses. One current thesis I hold is that HTML5 will usher in a democratizing force comparable to the advent of web itself. It almost sounds like I’m overstating the obvious when I think about it like […]
“Remember when you sucked my d*ck?” and other things not to do/say on Social Media
A while back I wrote a [rant] called Turning Angry Users into Users for Life – you may not have read it, because well, you didn’t know who we were back then, but the tl;dr version is thus: If someone takes the energy to tell you how much your product sucks, it’s the best opportunity to turn […]
Rude VC: The Valley of Heart’s Delight
Spot quiz: What region is formerly known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight ? Here’s a hint: it’s not Blackstone Valley in Massachusetts, nor is it Berlin, East London, and especially not Saclay, France. A swathe of apple orchards and orange groves spanning Santa Clara County in Northern California is what gave Silicon Valley this […]