Two days ago, I received a pretty cool e-mail from Cédric, asking me if I would join the Venice Project Beta testing team. Extremely curious about the whole thing (although lots of information have been leaking on the project in the recent weeks – but I think that’s part of their buzz marketing strategy), I obviously accepted, crossing fingers to find the time to really contribute.

I’m not sure I’m allowed to blog about what I’ll be seeing there, but I allow myself to confirm that The Venice Project is both very promising and exciting. This last stance is all the more relevant if you take into account the fact that I hardly watch TV more than 2 hours per YEAR (soccer games excluded).

Peter Rip (see pic), a VC in Mecca Silicon Valley and author of one of my favourite blogs (Early Stage VC, see my blogroll), came up a few days ago with an interesting post on how VC-funded firms could double their valuations. So far, it’s “business as usual” as Winston Churchill once said.

Basically, the main take away from this article is that companies providing effective solutions to problems their customers or clients really have are more likely to thrive than companies ran by geeks looking for a market to apply their brilliant technologies. Right, there’s nothing so revolutionary about this assertion, but repeating this common sense business advice has never harmed anyone.

Now, here’s a short extract of Peter’s post: “Years ago I was on the board of a company that had phenomenal technology for building predictive models from text or data. The team had identified potential applications in CRM, online advertising, search, database marketing, customer support, and others. The CTO referred to the product as a bolt-on brain, because it made many existing applications much smarter. The problem was that the technology was 10% of any given solution, even though it was the piece that differentiated the rest of the system. Capturing the other 90% required domain expertise not present in the team.”

I know there’s a sample bias, but you might have read on this very blog that Microsoft has this IP Ventures program. What is IP Ventures? Basically, Microsoft offers would-be entrepreneurs to use a patent from its huge IP portfolio & use Microsoft’s infrastructure, against something like a 10% share of the new baby (isn’t the technology worth 10% of the solution?). And you know what? I’ll be starting to work in about 4 months on developing the IP Ventures program in France. Peter Rip’s post warned me against one of the big methodology mistakes I could have made when looking for entrepreneurs to incubate in the program: going from research centers to Master in Entrepreneurship programs, presenting Microsoft’s IP catalog of cutting-edge technologies to techies telling them ‘Take this patent: the potential markets for it are just endless!‘ until someone says ‘wow! I like that one. Give it to me and I’ll deal with market applications‘. Well, Peter Rip’s piece of advice is wise: It’s the problem, stupid! Don’t you start from the technology. A successful new venture starts from trying to solve a problem, and possibly use technology to come up with an optimal solution. Patents are not like clothes: if you like a garment in a shopwindow, you can still purchase it and find out when you’ll put in on later. I can live with that, but not with a technology for which you look for potential applications. Wrong way!

Proceeding as such would have been a terrible mistake indeed (no doubt that my managers would’ve made me realize the initial path was a wrong one though). To get the right methodology, I guess I should just turn the tables: scan for market gaps, sound problems, client niches, and see if one of Microsoft’s large IP catalog might help. Then, and only then, we should try to bring in the right people, would-be entrepreneurs without an idea (but there will be very few amongst my readers since I give you out many entrepreneurial ideas ), to make of an invention a real innovation that fills in the market gap – in other words, provide a solution to a given problem. Ali G. for instance, noticed the problem with ice-creams: they drip. So he came up with a revolutionary glove protecting your hand – hence resolving the problem.

More seriously, thank you Peter – and I mean it: I owe you.

Back in October, I had acquired several hundred euros (not enough, I know) of Hubwoo.com shares for 1,29 euros. I sold my shares today at a mere price of 1,95 euros, making a nice +50% in about 3 months! Not that I don’t believe in the long-term potential of the company, but I happened to need some cash in order to make a private investment (see here, in StratosCube – and we’re still looking for a .Net developer by the way).

Hubwoo was born at the time the bubble was bursting, in 2001. Although I heard life has been far from easy in the early beginnings, cc-Hubwoo has brilliantly survived this era, which makes of this Supplier Network Management company stock a ‘Darwin’s fittest’ sort of investment. The management team is at the same time very experimented, really international, and truly ambitious: it seems to run the international development of the company (40% of its forecasted 2006 revenues generated outside France) in a very bold manner.

Although the turnover has steadily increased by 50% to 100% over the last three years, cc-Hubwoo’s P&L account is yet to break even. It shouldn’t happen in such a long time though: the B-to-B Internet market has been tough in restructuring recently, because of all the hype around C-to-C, user-generated Internet players having relegated less sexy B-to-B companies to the media sidelines. Hubwoo seems to be one of the European B-to-B companies best prepared to take advantage of the growing maturity of large corporations decision makers regarding the benefits of making use of electronic marketplaces.

Last but not least, Hubwoo enjoys a really impressive board of long-term shareholders – so to speak. Check by yourself: SAP, Apax Partners, Hoescht, Henkel, BASF, etc. These are not the kind of corporations to exit at the next stockmarket downturn.

All in all, if you’re not too afraid of (crazy) volatilities and ready to invest in the long-run (ie a 3 to 5 years horizon ), Hubwoo is definitely a good pick in a European portfolio of shares (FR0004052561 – HBW).