On 06.10.10, In Startups, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet Being an entrepreneur is quite popular these days, in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Everyone thinks they have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. As part of my work with the Founder Institute in Paris, figuring out who will build a great startup is a big topic. Your resume can tell. I know, it [...]
On 06.07.10, In Startups, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet Last Thursday I attended Stanford Design EXPE, where a dozen teams of students present the result of their 9 months of innovative work in relation with a corporate sponsor. The twist is that all projects must build a hardware prototype (I guess because it’s linked to the Mechanical Engineering department). For me, it was [...]
On 06.03.10, In Startups, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet There are lots of myths and dreams attached to starting a company. Will you be the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg? Will you negotiate million dollars rounds of financing with cool VCs? This is what starting a company really means: e-mailing 100 strangers a day, every day. For the foreseeable future. That’s it. [...]
On 05.19.10, In Startups, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet Yesterday night at the Microsoft campus was a great edition of the Founder Showcase. The evening started with a tell-all keynote on freemium business models from Phil Libin, the founder of Evernote. He candidly shared information that is usually impossible to get, such as how many users convert to paying customers or how much [...]
On 05.04.10, In Startups, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet I was on the Paris subway, returning from one of the first sessions of the Founder Institute there. Sitting next to me was one of the founders. Something was bothering him. He finally asked: “why do you put so much emphasis on market size? The team, and surely other aspects must be equally important [...]
On 04.22.10, In Co-Founders, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet I love advising early-stage startups. A question I get frequently is “how to formalize bringing a co-founder on board.” I could write a book on the topic, but it’s really much simpler than that. Here’s how you do it in one tweet: @joe I expect this co-founder position to be worth ~30% equity. My [...]
On 03.13.10, In Co-Founders, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet Yesterday was the third Co-Founders MeetUp of Silicon Valley, which set a new attendance record of 120 people. 12 startups pitched their idea with the goal to attract co-founders. The quality of the ideas was very high. Another thing I liked is that this MeetUp truly opens my mind: it’s like a giant idea [...]
On 12.18.09, In Startups, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet If you have been reading startup advice long enough, you surely noticed two trends repeated ad nauseum. Iterate Quickly Also known as “kill ideas fast”, this advice is saying that your idea is probably not worth the pixels it’s displayed on. Ideas are a dime a dozen, execution matters. You’d be better off with [...]
On 12.07.09, In Startups, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet Recently, I was contacted by a major TV show, looking to do a segment on what it looks like to be an entrepreneur building a startup from scratch. I am talking major TV show, with an audience in the millions, not some local news channel. So I e-mailed a few entrepreneurs I know to [...]
On 10.29.09, In fairsoftware, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet Aucadia.com is a community website aimed at musicians and fans where the fans can get involved with the bands they love. It’s such a cool project, we had to find out more from Robin and Owen Spottiswoode, the two co-founders. Alain: Tell us about your product and maybe where the idea came from, or [...]
