Post-mortem – naissance, vie et mort de ma startup — #fail

L’effet domino du fail : sourcez ! Lundi 18 février, aux aurores, un coup de tonnerre fend la twittosphère journalistique : le groupe Dassault serait en train d’étudier un rachat du journal Le Parisien. C’est Laurent Guimier (Europe 1) qui révèle le scoop de France 24. Au tout petit matin, le scoop est repris par une Twittos (éditrice de journaux locaux – EDIT 19/02 : le tweet a été supprimé depuis) qui indique France 24 pour seule source. La presse libre est en danger, les retweets fusent – celui de @Vogelsong par exemple. Mais il y a un hic. Moqué, Jean-Christophe Féraud ne se démonte pas. Moralité : soit vous êtes journaliste et vous vérifiez vos sources avant de les relayer ;soit vous ne l »êtes pas et, si vous n’êtes pas la source de l’information, indiquez de qui vous la tenez, par un « via » ou « v/ » qui vous permettra de vous défausser si l’on vous accuse de colporter une fausse information : alimentée dans les règles de l’art, la mémoire du web peut remonter le fil de la pelote jusqu’à son origine !

Making money with a product: a myth? I’ve realised there was a time I didn’t believe people would pay for a product. In my mind, it was a myth. As an entrepreneur, it’s so vital to overcome that. First, a coffee shop conversation I was chatting with my friend Joss in a coffee shop recently, and he told me about his new project, Open Exchange Rates, which is gaining a surprising amount of traction. From traction to a mini brainwave The traction with the recent project got him thinking, though. Thinking more about paying for products What he shared with me next in our coffee shop conversation was very interesting. A familiar feeling The most interesting part for me about the whole conversation, however, was that I suddenly realised that I had this exact same feeling just before I had the idea for Buffer almost two years ago. Why does it feel like a myth? Clearly, getting past this feeling that it is a myth to make money is an essential thing for any aspiring entrepreneur. $10 seems like a lot of money. How I overcame the myth

Can a Locavore Eat Chocolate, Coffee and Bananas with a Clear Conscience? | Simple, Good and Tasty Chances are, if you’re a regular visitor to this web site, you proudly support the mission of local, sustainable farms: you’re a member of your neighborhood food co-op; you shop at farmers markets; you subscribe to a regular CSA delivery; you spend your Saturdays crop-mobbing; and you eat in restaurants that are similarly committed to supporting local farmers. Pat yourself on the back. You’re an informed and conscientious locavore – and darn proud of it. You care about your food’s origin, its environmental impact, and its connection to the community. So, tell me: Is it possible to honor these values if you eat food that’s not grown within a 100-mile radius, maybe even a 1,000-mile radius, of where you live? I hear you grumbling: “Do you expect me to boycott some of life’s greatest pleasures just because I live in a climate that can’t grow the crops that make them? Put down the ax. Maybe you’ve heard it but you’re not really sure what it is. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Interview: David Karp, founder of Tumblr, on realising his dream | Media David Karp, the founder of the blogging platform Tumblr, was 17 when he decided to cut the apron strings and move to Tokyo. With a smattering of Japanese and a sharp eye for computer code, the impatient Manhattan teenager embarked on a period of self-discovery. "I was holed up in the middle of this world where it was just me on the internet," Karp recalls. Within weeks, he had fine-tuned his computer skills and cooled on the idea of building robots. He wanted to be an entrepreneur. "I was so silly – I tried to be very formal and put on a deep voice to clients over the phone so I didn't have to meet them and give away how young I was," he says. Karp returned to the US with a fistful of contracts (drawn up by his father) and a list of executives' ears to bend. Now 25, Karp is at the helm of one of the internet's fastest growing startups. Wearing a red check shirt under a grey zip-up hoodie, the shaggy-haired Karp has all the attributes of a web wunderkind. But Karp is unconvinced.

What’s the worst thing that can happen? « Startup Marketing Lessons Learnt Matthieu Ricard - Happiest man in the world You have been there too, in a similar situation, I am sure. For me, there is this startup I am running called Buffer. And we are having troubles ever so often. Server issues, investors who said no to investing, annoyed users, who want to cancel. What used to happen, is that I would think the world collapses. What I found is, we keep thinking about that terrible situation, but we don’t think about that big thing in our head and why it is even there. A quote I found most accurate is this one: Worrying is interest paid on a debt that you might never owe. Whilst we keep worrying about the situation, that big thing in our heads is possibly something completely unnecessary. “Joel’s exercise” to battle tough situations The one thing that helped me the most is something I have started to call “Joel’s exercise”. Joel would in every case keep a calm mind and just say:”Let’s think about it, what’s the worst thing that can happen?”

Startup entrepreneurs are ‘arrogant and psychopathic’ The startup economy is well-known for lauding the most successful young entrepreneurs, those twenty-somethings who are turned into millionaires — or even billionaires — through their exploits. Yet there are also plenty of stories about the bad behavior and kill-or-be-killed attitudes that often emerge inside startups. That’s no coincidence, say a pair of German academics. In an interview in Germany’s Der Spiegel, Dominik Schwarzinger and Matthias Kramer, who are researching the entrepreneurial personality, say that borderline personality disorders can actually be crucial elements behind startup success. As part of a study that has been underway since 2009, the duo suggest that there are several traits that may be highly unpleasant in ordinary life but can help startups succeed. In many ways, this is no revelation. The duo admit that in most cases, these are not full blown personality disorders (hence the “sub-clinical”) and merely trends.

Steve Jobs: 20 Life Lessons My feelings about Steve Jobs have always been a little mixed. I long admired his entrepreneurial spirit and business acumen and was in sheer awe of his natural instincts for what appeals to consumers. On the other hand I bristled at what I saw as his — and by extension Apple’s — occasionally capricious and even contradictory actions (App store products in or out, inability to get in front of product issues, antennaegate) and super-secretive nature. Now, having finished the 600-plus page Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, I think I finally understand Steve Jobs. As I read the tome on my Kindle, I highlighted interesting, surprising and relevant passages. Don’t Wait When the young Steve Jobs wanted to build something and needed a piece of equipment, he went straight to the source. “He began by recalling that he had wanted to build a frequency counter when he was twelve, and he was able to look up Bill Hewlett, the founder of HP, in the phone book and call him to get parts.” Be Yourself

How Israel turned itself into a high-tech hub 22 November 2011Last updated at 00:12 By Katia Moskvitch Technology reporter, BBC News, Tel Aviv WATCH: How did Israel establish itself as a fertile ground for hi-tech start-up companies? When a grey-haired grandmother clutching a smartphone mounted the stage at Montreal's Start-up Festival this summer, young Israeli entrepreneur Guy Rosen knew he had pocketed a very special award. His company, Tel Aviv-based Onavo, offers an application that shrinks mobile phone data to help users save money - and appeals to any age. Standing in his office in Tel Aviv, Mr Rosen recalls the moment: "They went on stage and said: 'We love Onavo and we understand what it does... it is such an easy app to understand' - we just save money, that's it, period, they loved us." Guy Rosen is one of Israel's many young, enthusiastic entrepreneurs who, fresh out of the army, decided to set up a tech firm. Formula for success In 2010 alone the flow of venture capital amounted to $884m (£558m). Government's role Lost decade