2 IDEAS start ups in opaque alarm:clock French Top 10
Here’s alarm:clock Europe’s article providing a list of 10 French wonders on the Web.
2 start ups from Microsoft IDEAS, a program devised to foster the growth of the 25 most promising software start ups every year, namely Criteo & Boonty, made it to the “10 Web 2.0 wonders” blogpost published by must-read alarm:clock Euro with the help of Ouriel from must-read, again, TechCrunch France! Check the latter link: Ouriel is right to mention the lack of seed financing in France (4K business angels & only 4 top early stage venture capital funds (iSource, Cap Décisif, Banexi & Sofinnova) in France vs. 40K business angels & a dozen early stage VC boutiques in the UK).
Working since recently on detecting & helping start ups in the IDEAS program, I am, as you can imagine, rather happy for the buzz the alarm:clock ranking is to generate around Criteo & Boonty. But had the ranking been fully accountable, I would’ve been even more proud.
Actually, I actually wish we had more details about the methodology deployed to come up with the ranking. The Top 10 list doesn’t seem to have emerged from a very scientific process (maybe it did, but then it doesn’t show). Check it out.
Amongst selection criteria were:
- Privately held; okay, crystal clear, that’s definitely an objective criterion
- Great founders, but what does ‘great‘ mean? From the ranking, I guess that means “serial entrepreneurs”. But can’t first time entrepreneurs start up wonders? Look at Bill, Steve, Sergey & Larry, Larry, etc. I think this ‘great founders’ criterion is pretty subjective. A founder being great should be the consequence of building a successful company, not a criterion from which one may decide whether the company is a wonder or not.
- Innovation; again, what does that mean? There’s nothing so innovative in DailyMotion: 450 (source: Philippe Bornstein in YouVoxTech) web start ups providing the exact same VoD service. DailyMotion succeeds thanks to their will to go the extra mile vs. the competition, through constantly upgrading their IT back office and improving the user experience. Let’s take another example: Boonty is an amazing company not because it has innovated like no one: there’s nothing disruptive (like MPX4), or especially creative (like Zlio) about providing downloadable games to consumers. However, the Nouzareth brothers understood before everyone the tremendous potential of online games, and hence came up not only with the right service at the right time, but also with a perfect execution plan. Boonty is a real case study for all online marketers and entrepreneurs willing to go abroad fast. Indeed, the company has pursued an aggressive external growth plan and has offices in New York, Shanghai and Paris.
- User uptake, and again, having all the figures from the mentioned sources (Alexa (which Ouriel hates, and I 100% agree with him on this), Comscore, etc.) would’ve been very useful to many not-so-great-yet entrepreneurs and curious people like me. Okay, no problem, I’ll do my homework on my own
but you know, what’s the user uptake of MPX4 then, as the service hasn’t even been launched yet?
Valérie, Ouriel, I know you know there’s nothing personal about this blog post. I’m a big fan of your blogs and you know it, and on top of this you both help Tech IT Easy grow a hell lot. Furthermore, there’s no doubt all the awarded start ups already are (Netvibes) or will become (MPX4) great successes. However, could you maybe be more specific and publish the intermediate figures that have helped you come up with the list 10 Wonders List? I wish I could run through the details of it as I’m sure I would find it extremely interesting. It’s not everyday that web experts share their thoughts on companies, and as far as I’m concerned, I would have a lot to learn from the full tables.
PS: big congrats to Jeremie’s Zlio, the only bootstrapped (ie non backed by VC money) company awarded.
Addendum:
Here’s more about the Microsoft IDEAS program. On top of the 2 IDEAS start ups awarded, runners-ups vente-privee.com, Looneo & Miyowa (another IDEAS start up) base their architecture on the .Net framework.
Criteo specializes in real-time recommendation engines. It’s clients include eCommerce companies, content portals and…bloggers (the latter, 100% free, has proven to be a truly great branding tool).
Boonty is a leading downloadable video games company.
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Hi Jeremie
Thanks for commenting on the France Alert list. You are absolutely right, to say that the Top 10 list doesn’t seem to have emerged from a very scientific process.
The startups that made the list met two or more of the criteria, not all. And your are right – the critera are mainly subjective.
We considered indicative stats from free sources (like alexa) or other statistics sources if we had seen the numbers in other places.
Greetings from the Limmattal!
Jeremy i helped spotting what i thought what was worth of interest within the field of mostly funded french web startups. I was not aware it would end up in a ranking and i am not sure this is one (btw you will notice it is not a pure ranking with 1 to 10 position but more of a listing)
Therefore i understand your comment and it is welcome. I am not sure Alarm Clock ’s intention was to create “star acadamy” like approach but more to give a snapshot to foreign readers of what is happening in France
Hey Valérie, Ouriel,
Thank you very much for your clarifications.
I get it now: you just wanted to display a list of currently promising French start ups on the web with no aspiration to a scientific approach.
And all the start ups are of huge interest indeed. But it seems there’s so much buzz that not being so accurate in describing the ’selection ‘(although it’s not a “start academy”, got it) will probably foster criticism amongst start up teams that haven’t been selected.
alarm:clock and TechCrunch are such well known blogs that having one’s name on a ‘marvel’ list happens to be a great marketing tool. If I were a runner-up myself, there would be room for frustration.
Thanks again for the fish and the openness of your answers.
Hope to see you soon,
Jeremy
very interesting reading. re the french startup vente-privee.com. feel free to use me djdan8923@hotmail.com as a referrer if you want to check out the site. its pretty graphics heavy – very pretty eye candy.