I’m more and more trying to use this blog as a place where I keep track of the best stuff I come accross here and there. And this video, found on founder of vPod.tv Rodrigo Sepulveda Schulz’s very entertaining blog, of software company Business Objects co-founder Bernard Liaudaud definitely is something extremely valuable (and I mean it: EXTREMELY VALUABLE) I felt compelled to share with you. As Julien pointed out recently, Bernard Liautaud (alongside with his partner Denis Payre) is a role model for the new generation of aspiring entrepreneurs I belong to. For those of you with no bandwidth to download the file (70 Mbytes) or who read my blog from the office and hence can’t play a video, I tried to compile a digest of what was said in the video and written on the speaker’s slides (published without permission ). Here it is:

Top 8 mistakes:

1. Thinking the US is just another territory (it’s the biggest market, at least in software)
2. Thinking products matter most (it’s the sales, stupid!)
3. Underestimating marketing (if you build a top product but can’t sell, your product can’t be built anymore; if you sell a good enough product, you can still build a top product)
4. Underestimating category leadership (Americans know who leaders are and don’t care about those coming second or third in their category; position yourself in a definite category and make sure you become the leader of your category)
5. Missing the impact of industry analysts (eg. Gartner; Europeans don’t feel like spending time with Gartner analysts because they believe these former product managers don’t understand their business. Big mistake! Analysts at Gartner and Forrester are highly influential and have a lot of impact on enterprise IT procurement, especially in the US. European companies should learn to devote time to training analysts to understand their products better; I just realized I had also started to look down at analysts, see this post; should change this quick)
6. Poorly adapted hiring tactics (Europeans should learn the American way of thinking: standards are just different. Although it’s equal in value, an American will tend to be more attracted to a package of 10m stock options @ 1$ an option than by a package of 10 stock options priced @$1m an option)
7. Failing to understand sales people (in the US: the more variable the compensation, the better)
8. Ignoring known cultural differences (eg there’s a bigger divide between France and the US than between the UK and the US so you may start with the UK; the French love complexity whereas the Americans love simplicity, are optimistic and fast decision makers as opposed to Continental Europeans).

7 take aways:

1. Taking the US market can be done
2. & must be done to be successful worldwide
3. Treat it with respect
4. Don’t be intimidated by the big US market
5. Don’t wear European sleeves
6. Think ‘marketing’ not ‘product’
7. & don’t be afraid to adapt the organization to the US market from Day 1

Bonus points: interesting links

In English:

• Tech roundtable with Bernard Liautaud on Jeff Clavier’s blog (a French VC in the Valley who specializes on software) here
• Interview from March 2005 from datawarehouse review Kalidoscope here
• Q&A with Liautaud on Silicon.com here
• BusinessWeek on Liautaud here

In French:

• Rencontre avec Bernard Liautaud, an interview innovation strategy consultant & ex VP marketing @ MS France Olivier Ezratty, published in la Revue des Centraliens (both Bernard Liautaud and Olivier are Ecole Centrale Paris alumni); see the interview here
• Journal du Net on Liautaud there

What’s in it for you

Bernard Liautaud, a bright engineer, had partnered with Denis Payre, a management guy, to form Business Objects – now the world leading business intelligence software company. I think BO is a model that may be iterated, provided that the chosen niche proves to be fruitful. So, if you’re okay with the perspective of me being the business guy, I’m officially looking for a software engineer to start building, some day in the upcoming decade or so, a world leader in the software industry. Only requirement: you must have a 4-digit IQ (to compensate with mine). If you like the idea, fell free to contact me so that we can meet up.

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