Let’s go! – by Stefanos Vasdekis A blog about entrepreneurship, the web2.0 world, and life.

A paradox: LeWeb3 hostages could not communicate

Since the 2nd day of LeWeb3 the hottest discussion topic is how French politicians, invited by Loic, hijacked the conference. I see that over 9 out of 10 attendees didn't like that.
So, what did we do?
First of all, what should we have done?
Simply LEAVE THE ROOM!

During French politicians speeches the room was half empty when it should have been 90% empty... How is it possible the top technologists to be unable to communicate, when they have all the communication tools available?
What tools?
- Most of the participants had their laptops with them and the Wi-Fi was working quite well the second day, so they were online.
- There was a backstage irc channel.
- There was a wiki.
- There was a google group.
- There was the blogosphere.
- Instant messengers and emails could also have been used.
And there was plenty of time to communicate such a message between the visits of the two politicians. Isn't it a paradox?

Leweb3 on a one to ten scale

The best think that happened at LeWeb3 gets a 10, the worst gets a 1. Let's go:

10) The unique chance to meet 1000 like-minded people from 37 countries in one place

9) The conversations that took place at the coffee breaks, lunch breaks, dinners and meetups

The constructive feedback we got from angel investors and venture capitalists about our new project

7) The presentation of Hans Rosling

6) The live comments at the IRC backstage channel that worked the second day.

5) The 40 minutes we had to wait to get our coats after the party.

4) The boring presentations and panels

3) Mike Arrington did not come and nobody explained us why

2) The Wi-Fi was not working the first day

1) The French politicians who used our event for their campaigns.

Overall it was a GREAT way to begin my week and I'm glad I was there!

Silicon Valley’s advantage over Europe – Live from Leweb3

We're on the second day of Leweb3 here in Paris. Since the warm-up meetups on Sunday, one of the hottest discussions is the comparison of being a startup company in Silicon Valley and Europe.

I've heard some negative comments for Europe like "Americans view Europe as a small market without innovation and they can always acquire if needed".

On the other hand, I've heard very positive comments about Europe like "If we're accused of not working hard and we still perform better than others, it means that we work smarter" or like "We have many examples of tech companies that made it big, stop discussing if we can compete with Silicon Valley or not and let's do it. In Silicon Valley nobody discusses if they can compete against Europe...

One thing everyone agrees is that one of the big advantages of Silicon Valley is that a whole innovative community is concentrated in a one hour drive radius. Smart entrepreneurs, developers, angels, VCs, universities and tech journalists. As you go to Hollywood to make movies, as you go to New York or London for stocks, you go to Silicon Valley to make innovative software. I believe that this is by far the most important advantage of Silicon Valley compared to Europe.

I've met smart guys from both sides of the Atlantic. I don't see any signs that Americans are smarter than Europeans. They might be more entrepreneurial, but Europeans have other qualities. For example they speak at least 2-3 languages and better understand the international aspect of the web. Especially those of us who don't come from Germany, UK or France, but from a small market, we're forced to look abroad right from the beginning if we want to do something significant.

Well, if we all agree, why not to build the European Silicon Valley? And I don't mean to expect from EU bureaucrats to build one for us, because it will take a century... If this project was ever to become reality and I had a chance to propose a place, that would be in Mediterranean of course, and specifically Crete Island in Greece.

Why we work in Stealth Mode this time

[update: site sold too early...]

Many people believe that startups in stealth mode suck or that stealth mode is a big mistake, but I like the experience so far... The last weeks I'm working with John on our first project we keep secret. And there are many reasons that we decided to keep it secret.

No, we do NOT try to protect our idea as if nobody else has ever thought of it. We're confident we could beat in execution any other team with the same idea

And no, we don't try to be perfect at launch; we're old enough to know it's not possible.

The reasons are simple. We just try to work quietly and be 100% concentrated on developing the site. We don't need to advertise at this stage. And we're changing things every day, if we were in beta mode, we would have to spend half our day explaining to our first members what has changed and why. By the way, it's not clear yet what exactly our final messaging will be, and this is the only thing we wouldn't like to change soon after it's decided.

So far I see stealth mode as a huge timesaver. We're talking less and we're working more! I hope we don't like this mode so much that we never escape from it...

[update: site sold too early...]