World-brand-building mistakes France’s entrepreneurs make

I was the first American manager to be promoted to the Paris headquarters of a software company I was working for. I've had a chance to understand the French culture and see how things work on the inside of French tech companies.

On the use of twitter:
Here's one example of the response that I got from my management after proposing to launch a social media campaign on Facebook and Twitter to engage with our global users last year: “If we do that, our customers will complain about us and then others will be able to see it.”

I have no doubt that France is filled with extremely talented and visionary individuals. It seems the challenge for European entrepreneurs is to create a real culture of innovation that disassociates itself from some poisonous tendencies that you can find prevalent here:

1) Command and control hierarchies in organizational design which kill innovation.
2) Not enough clarity on the purpose or vision of companies which makes for disengaged and uninspired teams (Conversely remember presentation from CEO of Zappos.com http://bit.ly/5dZHfW)
3) Reluctance and contempt for having to speak English. (I have met Chinese people who have never traveled to an English-speaking country, but they speak perfectly -all because they know mastery is imperative in order to get into the game.
4) Inattention to the importance of strong engaging presentation. (I know what you are saying about powerpoint. Here people like to compete to see how many words can be fit on one slide. It can be a nightmare.

There is one book that has some great insights into the cultural aspects of these issues: French and Americans – the Other Shore by Pascal Baudry.
http://www.amazon.fr/French-Americans-Other-Pas…

Robert, no offense but you have a backward view of the world.

Most of what you say is your typical “I'm on top everything and do nothing but read tech news” (while a little unfair to you as you do interviews and meet with tons of people), and you can't imagine how people could miss things that are in your face all the time.

But you live on hype. You're trying to come across as one of the people who wisely pointed out to people in the 90s that companies shouldn't ignore the web. But you sound more like the people in the 90s who were hyping Pointcast, god that whole wall of hype was annoying. Eventually that stuff evolved into RSS feeds that were somewhat usable, but the point is that a CEO who “wasn't even aware of Pointcast” in 1998 wasn't out of the loop, they were probably focused on building something relevant to their business.

So I disagree with the entire premise that a successful CEO needs to keep his eye on the newest shiny thing in Scoble's tech playground.

That said, what you really have a point about is “a startup looking to drum up U.S. blogger attention should read up on the bloggers they are talking to and expect questions about their latest shiny toys”

just as the man said… “read techmeme once per day”. that's it. it takes about 15-30 seconds. if you are in the business of tech, it's worth it.

If Bill, Larry and Sergey were to start MS & Google today, they will definitely use every possible social media to get the word out. That's what smart businessmen from all ages do, making the best use of whatever marketing tool available.

Oh yeah, why do you think Eric Schmidt joined Twitter this week?

Whatever Portland does is awesome!!

Robert – I think you hit the nail on the head previously when you made a comment about “Europe being stuck in the texting age” a while ago. The non-use of Twitter, the non-investigation of the latest hot apps, ….. is a reflection of that. My friends, my colleagues, my bosses don't get it. And it's hard to break out of the rut – your own world works fine without – until it breaks and you find someone with a different world view has stolen your lunch. So I think you latest rant get two things right – the first is the obvious one, the second is that a lot of Europe is really behind the wave in exploiting the wonderful new tools that Web 2.0 / the-real-time-web has brought us.

Oh by the way, I don't think that large US companies are immune to this problem either from what I've seen. I was in The (frozen) Valley last week and it seemed to me that all the front line twitters had left – maybe they were all at Le Web?

Arrogance has its limits. I do agree with folks posting that a CEO's job is do a CEO's job. His team should be on top of it all and keep him in the loop but his time is more valuable than you make it seem.

Your own job and brand equity is based on the latest in the industry. CEO's isnt.

Robert,

I was the one who managed to arrange the Paris Incubator meeting at the last minute, to help the #tg2009 team fill out its agenda with a couple more local startups. The Incubator was asked this on Friday Dec 4th and managed to have 10 startups to present on Tuesday 8th. That was quite a performance.

I suggested that these companies have #1 some international ambition #2 CEOs with good English speaking skills and charisma and #3 favor demos over prez. Not all matched these features for sure. But at least had we the winner of Leweb startup competition in these 10 companies (Nyoulink / Stribe)? The usual ratio : 1 (sort of) winner out of 10… . Not that bad!

Otherwise, most of your points are valid regarding the (lack of) use of social network tools by local entrepreneurs, and particularly the willingness to become international players and play by the related rules. The whole local entrepreneurship ecosystem, particularly BAs and VCs, is indeed reluctant to play a WW or US game, thus hampering the chance to create WW leaders. That definitively has to change. I'm fighting for that locally. It takes time to change it. And I'm not sure it's just a French problem. Seems it happens in other places like Germany for example. The local market seems “big enough” to start. Companies in these markets should behave as if there were in Denmark or Israel, where the local market is definitively too small to create any kind of successful IT company.

At last, your point although valid was quite “chilling” in the room. The right attitude? Probably not the optimal mix. Some pedagogy on top of some initial rudeness would have made the point more efficient. But it stirred this controversy, kind of a follow up to the one initiated last year at Leweb by Mike Arrington. There are though many more reasons why not enough French web entrepreneurs succeed internationally. It boils down a lot to education, training & skills. To the narrowness of the local ecosystem.

But still, we have Lemeur, Krim, Grinda, we had Kelkoo (probaly sold by its VCs to Yahoo way too early in its growth path), Simoncini and Meetic, and some others. Let’s not just look at the half empty part of the glass!

Olivier Ezratty, @olivez

Resolving The French Other Paradox
December 7, 2009 – 9:00 am | Edited by Frédéric Filloux

Last week, we looked at the two components of the “other” French Paradox.

First, the Valley aura helps a tiny Palo Alto start-up sell its technology in France. But it doesn’t work the other way around: a Lyons high-tech company will get a polite reception but no orders from the likes of HP, Google or Oracle. While the Valley does sell in France, to sell in the Valley you need to be of the Valley.

Second, French taxpayers unwittingly subsidize VC-backed Valley startups. Graduates from public universities or grandes écoles such as Polytechnique, Centrale and many others come to the Valley and contribute their skills and energy to the companies we, American venture capitalists, invest in. (In passing, thanks to a reader who reminded me HEC, one of the leading French business schools is a private institution.)

By Jean-Louis Gassee, From Monday Note | http://www.mondaynote.com/2009/12/07/resolving-…

To focus so much of this discussion entirely on Twitter seems limiting. And I say this as a Twitter fan, an active user and someone who wholly agrees with Robert on the fact that if you’re in business and not in the Twitter game, you may as well tell people you still send faxes for communication. Really. It’s one of the most powerful ways to communicate and engage with an audience period.

And, you better be everywhere else your customers and potential fans are online as well because if you’re not taking the time, remember that your competitor is or will. And, your customers will be listening to them, not you.

So, that message did need to get across in some shape or form. As their guests however, there are other things to also consider. The value of a troupe of us coming to Paris or any city for that matter is to listen, learn, absorb, share and report, which we did, but also to educate and mentor.

Getting on Twitter is only one lesson we can teach them since there’s a lot more involved to making a company successful: do they have a product or service that solves a real need, an easy user interface, the right business model, a solid product but in the wrong market, a missing feature that could make or break them, bad timing, too late to the game, or are they entering a crowded market with no chance of survival……and on and on and on.

Also, reality check: meeting one dynamic company after another with polish is rare. Sure, it’s incredible when you come across a new idea that is earth shattering or a smart new CEO who stands out from the pack and knows how to present his idea like Steve Jobs. Frankly, that’s not the majority of cases, even in the Valley, so it’s not a European-only issue.

Getting it right out-of-the gate requires experience – doing it again and again, access to the best and most powerful people so you can learn from their mistakes and having the right personality to make it a smooth non-salesly pitch when frankly, you might be someone who would rather just be building the damn thing with other smart engineers behind a closed door. And, even among the polished I’ve seen plenty bad PPT presentations. (despite how often I recommend PPT pitches, they still keep comin’).

I also think it’s important to remember that the value is a two-way street. Letting entrepreneurs know how the game is played is one thing we can bring to the table collectively as a group. The French Traveling Geeks team was multi-cultural bringing a wealth of experience and perspectives from 7 different countries, including entrepreneurs from Paris and we nearly had an Israeli on board. Bringing that kind of diversity and energy as a group to sprouting companies in another country is incredibly powerful.

We can act as a sounding board and give back not just by blogging and tweeting about their innovations but also by the time we spend and the advice we leave behind, such as getting on Twitter and countless other valuable insights to what yields success. In return, we learn about the way another culture’s entrepreneurs view the world AND the issues they face that wouldn’t be relevant or even have a market in the states.

If we tout community, then the game should be played on and offline. After all, isn’t it often what we give back that provides the most magic in our lives? And, when we all return to our own worlds, I hope the conversations continue. It would be great to keep the dialogue going with French companies we met with, get regular updates and have them visit us in the states.

Just curious, are you getting lot of high quality presentation with Google Docs Presentation? I would be curious to know if the average CEO can do a high quality presentation in Google Docs?

— No “ReTweet” button on your posts
— No link to your Twitter profile anywhere on this page
— The World is not revolving around the USA, and Twitter is not “THE shit” in most part of it, sorry to disappoint you (but how would you know?). Some of the sparse valid points you had in the middle of all your bullshit would have been even equally relevant if you had replaced “Twitter” with “LinkedIn”.

Twitter is just a tool, a brand, but not even a business as of yet (no profit, no business model, should I go on?). What's the point of having 106,378 followers on twitter when what you do is basically tweet shortened URLs to your blog or to some websites you deem interesting? If I were interested in reading this blog I would subscribe to your RSS feed. If I wanted to find shared bookmarks I would end up on Digg. I 100% agree with the faulty CEOs you mention in your first paragraph: Twitter is a gimmick, with an added cost and no ROI.

Actually, I think Scoble misunderstood that dialogue:

> I asked “why have I never heard of you then?” He answered “because we’re French.”
> I should have answered back “no, it’s because your Twitter feed is French.”

Nope: what (I assume) he meant was: “Remember last year, when a 600 millions €/y. company came on stage, and no one on the Gillmore gang heard of them, or even cared? That only one guy [Scoble] was polite enough to wonder: “Wow! How come I never heard of you?” — well, that pretty much sums up how we feel about you the 363 days of the year: if we aren't in Silicon Valley, you will be too prejudiced against us for our efforts to be worth it.” Of course he is wrong not to behave properly on the two days when he can make an impression—but his reply was pretty a call for less injustice in your coverage. Instead of assuming you knew his company's PR issues better then he did, you should have asked him: Why being French impacts your coverage?

I'm getting old, but I've learnt two important things in life. #1, I learnt from you: when seeing a new face, come with a broad smile and ask “Who are you?” like the answer will be so great, it will make the Sun brighter. #2, I learnt from being wrong: whenever someone says something you disagree with, don't try to be witty; just ask “Why ~ ?” where ‘~’ is his exact sentence. (I also tend to include #3: when asked a question, re-use the exact word of the sentence to reply, just like you do when you learnt about phrase structure & how to ask questions in a new language — but that's tedious.)

Regarding the language of their tweeter feed: Deezer —like all music-based company— is very dependent on diffusion rights that are very different internationally and extremely hard to settle. Apart from majors & iTunes, no one managed to get close to any relevant portfolio. Because of that (and language, and peer-effects) the market is very, very much country-wide. They are trying to prove that their business model work to the authorities voting laws about music diffusion, or they are hoping to be bought by an international equivalent (rather then competitor): in either case, it is their interest to grow big in one country before spending more to go into another market. Why should they cater to English-speakers (or rather, to a handful of Californians who will never be allowed to use their service) while what they should be doing is addressing their users (remember that guy ranting about how the only people that matter are your users matter?) — well Deezer's users like English Pop, but are not so keen on English blogs. They don't read you, just like VentePrivee.com users don't read you either. (Trust me: *everyone* I know off-line uses both sites intensively; not one has heard of you.) Talking to you won't help a hundredth as much as talking to Ariel Wizman (you must have heard of him: he's a very well-known DJ — Really? No? At all?) or being featured on Elle Magazine's blog. (Both have an order of magnitude, or three, more fans & readers than you.) Unless they are planning to sell to Pandora or eBay, of course. Oddly enough, once they start thinking about exit strategies, they get invited to conferences that you attend; you stubble on an “under-publicised” company, and analysts at eBay quote you in their internal estimates explaining that the company their are considering to acquire is a hidden gem (while it actually passed its peak a few weeks before that).

TechMeme is great: I personally read it once every hour (that's too much) like a dozen equivalent (too much, I kid you not) including non-English ones (anyone in tech not reading at least one Taiwanese aggregation site a day, preferable in Chinese, is lame. There. I said it. — What? You don't feel comfortable working in a foreign language? Welcome to, not the nightmare, but the actual daily issue everyone you've criticised in your post.) I wouldn't have any of it recommend to a CEO —especially mine— otherwise he'd change his strategy every fortnight. Unless, of course, he *lives* in the Silicon Valley and has the reality at his doorstep to help him cope and realise how developed many of those projects are.

From my experience as a bilingual twitterer, I'm assuming the main reason twitter didn't take off here is that 140 character (minus the usual twitter codes) isn't as much in French. It's impossible to shorten a sentence like you would in English by skipping words without causing tons of misunderstandings. I'm also assuming that we, lazy as we are, are too busy uploading videos to the only credible Western competitor to YouTube, Dailymotion.

Now that you mention it: it's odd that UStream is so heavily promoted, while videos of the event could be stored on Dailymotion afterwards. I mean: Loïc knows about them, and wants to play the Gallic Knight, doesn't he? Well, maybe they don't have US-based analysts to impress.

There are many more startups that I haven't seen on that list, and that are very active on twitter. Those happen to focus on tech-crowd oriented services.

> Because I'm a spoiled arrogant ADD child, right? They all joined Twitter because of ME! Geesh. Get a clue.

Wheren't you at that SxSW that put twitter on the tech scene? We know you've tried to share a lot, and got *dunked* by Shaq's ability for disclosure, for sure — but don't hide behind His Cuteness AK or the remains of the Hudson plane: you have your responsibilities. I remember posts about not having limits to follower count. Don't act offended because @ev won't poke you back: he owes you. You are the man.

Now, about you being spoiled: you have all the gadgets; you even are allowed in Q's secr… — Microsoft Research it's called. I mean: as long as you shoot those in HD, I'm fine with it, but don't pretend like you don't have the latest cool camera when we can see it *on your pic*.

And ADD… I'm sure someone kept screen grabs of your FriendFeed streams. B^O
The Surgeon general came that close to demand a disclamer about possible Seisures.

> […] by a French startup incubator. So the startups […]

See what you did there? You forgot about internal politics!

“The French” are not a coherent, uniform group. I mean, if you've heard of any group, country, trying as hard as we are to look like a disorganised, fighting, bitching bunch, who'd hang anyone claiming to speak for everyone… Well, get out of the Open Source forum.

It's likely that the guy behind the incubator is a TechMeme-fed internationally oriented guy (he believes in the concept of a start-up-based economy, rather then in an actual, individual idea) while the start-upers are mostly caring about either explaining their jobs to their moms, and making money fast enough (ie. without loosing three months translating everything) not to have to deal with one of those crappy meetings planned by the incubator with… “What again this time? American bloggers? Why!? Why!? — I mean: yes, we should have some visibility, but we are about a platform to simplify filling on-line *tax forms*. How can a guy who can't figure out how many numbers there is to a French phone help me with my issues, ie. incoherent government standards?”

Oh: you've never been to Sweden, then.

Hi Robert,

As a frenchman, I agree with you on a lot of things you say.

But you know, while we can theorically have access to the same information as you do, the place where you live still matters. We, the french start-up entrepreneurs, would love sometimes to be able to go in a café or a bbq party in Palo Alto and accidentally run into the big guys of the internet. I'm sure that the place where you start and run your business, even in a globalized world, is still very important and that's on of the reasons why american tech companies are doing so well : because they start in a 300 million people market with one laguage and one currency. If you suceed then you have the critical size to go anywhere else then. That's why Loic le Meur for instance had to move to California to start his new business and have a chance to succeed on a global scale. I think that's what Jonathan from Deezer meant and he knows that if he wants to succeed in the US they might have to move there sometimes.

My company, ooprint.fr is still very french-market focused for the moment, even though we have a .com website and ship everyday to american and other countries customers. Meanwhile, to answer your #7 about business cards, I can assure you that many people here put their twitter, facebook and so on on their business cards, and we even launched a special category of free business cards with the theme “social networks” : http://www.ooprint.fr/socialnetworks
and you know what ? it will be very soon available on the ooprint.com website too !

Vincent

To focus so much of this discussion entirely on Twitter seems limiting. And I say this as a Twitter fan, an active user and someone who wholly agrees with Robert on the fact that if you’re in business and not in the Twitter game, you may as well tell people you still send faxes for communication. Really. It’s one of the most powerful ways to communicate and engage with an audience period. And, you better be everywhere else your customers and potential fans are online as well because if you’re not taking the time, remember that your competitor is or will. And, your customers will be listening to them, not you.

So, that message did need to get across in some shape or form. As their guests however, there are other things to also consider. The value of a troupe of us coming to Paris or any city for that matter is to listen, learn, absorb, share and report, which we did, but also to educate and mentor. Getting on Twitter is only one lesson we can teach them since there’s a lot more involved to making a company successful: do they have a product or service that solves a real need, an easy user interface, the right business model, a solid product but in the wrong market, a missing feature that could make or break them, bad timing, too late to the game, or are they entering a crowded market with no chance of survival……and on and on and on.

Also, reality check: meeting one dynamic company after another with polish is rare. Sure, it’s incredible when you come across a new idea that is earth shattering or a smart new CEO who stands out from the pack and knows how to present his idea like Steve Jobs. Frankly, that’s not the majority of cases, even in the Valley, so it’s not a European-only issue. Getting it right out-of-the gate requires experience – doing it again and again, access to the best and most powerful people so you can learn from their mistakes and having the right personality to make it a smooth non-salesly pitch when frankly, you might be someone who would rather just be building the damn thing with other smart engineers behind a closed door. And, even among the polished I’ve seen plenty bad PPT presentations. (despite how often I recommend PPT pitches, they still keep comin’ – the tips Robert provides are spot on).

I also think it’s important to remember that the value is a two-way street. Letting entrepreneurs know how the game is played is one thing we can bring to the table collectively as a group. The French Traveling Geeks team was multi-cultural bringing a wealth of experience and perspectives from 7 different countries, including entrepreneurs from Paris and we nearly had an Israeli on board. Bringing that kind of diversity and energy as a group to sprouting companies in another country is incredibly powerful.

We can act as a sounding board and give back not just by blogging and tweeting about their innovations but also by the time we spend and the advice we leave behind, such as getting on Twitter and countless other valuable insights to what yields success. In return, we learn about the way another culture’s entrepreneurs view the world AND the issues they face that wouldn’t be relevant or even have a market in the states.

If we tout community, then the game should be played on and offline. After all, isn’t it often what we give back that provides the most magic in our lives? And, when we all return to our own worlds, I hope the conversations continue. It would be great to keep the dialogue going with French companies we met with, get regular updates and have them visit us in the states.

Hello
I am really surprised how arrogant are people from the US… One example, but all the article is in the same spirit: Deezer is twitting in french for 1 reason… the followers are french… And if you don't know this service this is because you didn't do well your journalist work …

Hello rdpnda
In fact this post, but not only, the discussion about mid east is also a good example, rise this question to my mind: do the us people understand that they represent only 5% of the WW population? And further than this do they understand that following the last year economic crunch their economic power (but further than this the one of the whole western world) is going to decrease dramatically? I am not sure of this. And even if this is understood, I am now sure that some of the top known blogger/journalist understand that there will be a big psychological move to be done. The world is going to not be US/western centric anymore. This means that if you are not able to understand and support that kind of LITTLE cultural differences, you will hallucinate when you will see (and have to adapt to) that 90% of the world is just not thinking in the same way (it is not a matter of using twitter or not, it is a matter of how you see life…).
Get back to the middle east panel, there are some starts there (even if I promise you that for people on the middle east this guys are more americans than something else).
Best regards

Never forget to be gracious for what you have been given. You grew up in the Valley and saw technology bloom from a very early age. It's easy for you to “get” it because it's been a part of your life. That's not the case in France. You are acting like a art snob would act to people who don't grow up around art. It's not their fault that they don't get to speak directly to executives and startups like you do.

You know I share your frustration, but we'll have to be patient and inspire them to make these connections on their own. Maybe you could go tradesies. If I were you and in France, I'd have some startup take me to the nicest restaurant in Paris, buy a big bottle of wine and a good dinner, and then I'd teach them what I knew. They could teach you about French wine or food, or maybe art. It's hard to deny that French food, wine, and art are amazing. Then you both win.

There is more to life than technology. At least for other people. Don't forget that.

I can't believe how much push back Robert is getting for stating something that is so obvious. If you are a CEO of a tech company and don't think you need to keep up with the industry, then you should reconsider your role.

It takes literally 5 minutes a day to read the tech headlines and is time well spent.

No, RT buttons are lame. whover regularly shares stuff on Twitter has a tr.im or bit.ly Bookmarklet.

If you put buttons for all services on your page that is just noise.

whoever whines for a RT-button just shows he/she is not a geek ,)

im waiting for my 'bring in revenue' execution tactics to pay off