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My story of entrepreneurial failure and success on both sides of the Atlantic. Or how I discovered entrepreneurship as a Stanford grad student, moved back to Europe, met success with Musiwave there, failed with Goojet and came back to Silicon Valley for Scoop.it. Special thoughts and thanks to the former and current team members of Musiwave, Goojet and Scoop.it.
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@gdecugis
From Silicon Valley to Europe and back again.
In 3 startups.
Guillaume DecugisCo-Founder & CEO, Scoop.it#mystartupstory
@gdecugis
In ‘94 I went to Stanford and, being French, this is what I expected
@gdecugis
Of course this is what it actually was
@gdecugis
Upon graduating in ’95, big question: lifestyle or startup?
@gdecugis
Went for lifestyle but… I couldn’t help hearing the music
Stanfo
rd. M
y
entrepre
neurship cl
ass
idea project
idea:
Music
Sagem. F
irst M
obile
Intern
et dem
os. My i
dea
for p
otentia
l applic
ations?
Music
’95 ’97 ’00
Met with
Gille
s and
Nicolas.
Startu
p.
Music
The first Mobile Music Platform
@gdecugis
Exercise: calculate the odds of success for a startup…
+ Launched in 2001 i.e. between the Internet bubble burst and 9/11
× On an idea that required 3G and multimedia phones
… that eventually hit the market in 2004
÷ In France a.k.a. the Silicon Valley of Wine, Cheese and Luxury brands
= 0.0000001% said a lot of VC’s
@gdecugis
We couldn’t raise money so we took it from the only possible source
Customers = $$$
@gdecugis
To do that we had to innovate constantly
2002: mp3 ringtones
2004: full-track downloads
2005: smart radio
@gdecugis
We finally met success
• Late 2002, we painfully raised $5m• 3 Months later, we realized we no
longer needed them by becoming profitable
• We grew to $35m revenue / 200 FTE• Late 2005, Openwave acquired
Musiwave for $121m (and sold us back to Microsoft late 2007)
@gdecugis
Why not being in Silicon Valley didn’t matter
• Carrier relationships (local, regional)
• Music labels deals (local, regional*)
• Mobile phone manufacturers (regional*)
*back then
@gdecugis
Was that just luck or can I do it again?
@gdecugis
Back in 2007, we had a great idea for Mobile Internet
@gdecugis
But so did Steve Jobs
AppStore launch: July 10, 2008
@gdecugis
We iterated the productBecame a social news reader
@gdecugis
We failed
• Distribution
• Business Model
• Stickiness
• Fat Startup
@gdecugis
In 2010, we decided to pivotWe had learned a lotWe had identified a pain point in social mediaWe had trusting VC’sWe had burnt little cash so farWe had built a scalable social media platformAnd…
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We had built a great team!
@gdecugis
Back to (entrepreneur) school
@gdecugis
Information Overload:A big problem and a big
opportunityWho
should I listen to?
How can I be heard?
@gdecugis
The Interest Graph: where Social Discovery meets Search
Relevancy
relevantnoisy
find
discover
Search
Social Graph Interest Graph
@gdecugis
We became Scoop.it: a new way to organize and share ideas that matter
• A publishing platform optimized for content curation
• A big data semantic technology connecting content and people around interests
• A quickly-growing community of curators who develop their online visibility faster
Scoop.it
@gdecugis
3 Share
2 Enrich
1
Discover
Your content curation hub
@gdecugis
Publish once. Be discovered everywhere.
Search Engines
Newsletters
Blogs
Social Networks
@gdecugis
This time we found product/market fit
Monthly uniques
Year-on-year growth
7MM
5x
@gdecugis
Why we moved to Silicon Valley
• Social Media early adopters & influencers
• Partner with the ecosystem
• Halo effect to other markets
@gdecugis
These however were not reasons
• Raising money
• Recruiting engineers
@gdecugis
So what are the take-aways?
@gdecugis
@gdecugis
Roller-coasters are fun…
@gdecugis
… or not.
@gdecugis
Sometimes, the real risk is not taking any
@gdecugis
Teams >>> Ideas
@gdecugis
Super powers not required.
@gdecugis
Enjoy the ride!