On 12.16.10, In Startups, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet Inventions are hard to come up with. If there was a method to find them, it would be patented. Many people have heard the story of how the Mac user interface was born: Steve Jobs toured Xerox PARC and was shown some basic window-based computer. It was a short demo. When he went home, [...]
On 10.28.10, In Co-Founders, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet I’m proud to announce tha the Co-Founders Meetup is expanding to Austin, Texas! I was tired of people saying “how come the co-founders meetup is only in Silicon Valley”. “We need one where I live.” Fine! If you live in Austin, just sign up on the Meetup website. Locally, Ricardo is graciously helping me [...]
On 10.15.10, In Co-Founders, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet I just responded to that question on Quora, and since many people ask me the same question during co-founders meetups, I might as well post my answer here once and for all. Q: I just met someone who looks like a potential co-founder for me. What should I ask to tell if he is [...]
On 09.30.10, In Silicon Valley, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet Can I pay you to delay your tweets by say, 60 seconds? Why? Because some people will pay to read your tweets before everyone else. Sixty seconds is not long, but it’s the difference between free and millions of dollars of revenue. Here’s how it works. Imagine a new premium Twitter client. It costs [...]
On 08.26.10, In Founder Conference, by Alain Raynaud
Tweet Possibly the most popular part of the Founder Conference this year was the live pitch feedback, a workshop run by Adeo Ressi. We actually extended its allocated time by 20 minutes because it was so popular. The rules are simple: you give your best elevator pitch, in less than 1 minute, as if you [...]
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 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 [...]
