Facebook et le web sans se casser les dents [fr]

[en] A prezi for a conference I gave to 17-20 year olds in Monthey.

Voici le prezi que j’ai utilisé ce matin pour ma conférence à l’attention des élèves de l’ECCG de Monthey.

Facebook et le web sans se casser les dents on Prezi

Le prezi est un peu laconique bien entendu (ce qui était important, c’est ce que je disais) — mais pour ceux qui étaient là, ça vous donne accès aux liens, et pour ceux qui n’y étaient pas… ça vous donne une vague idée!

Je sais, je sais, les jours passent et je ne blogue pas. Ça va revenir ne vous en faites pas, je commence à sortir la tête de l’eau. Je commence.

Kickstarter: un modèle pour financer les projets créatifs [fr]

[en] I write a weekly column for Les Quotidiennes, which I republish here on CTTS for safekeeping. This one is about Kickstarter -- and I strongly encourage you to back my friend Suw Charman-Anderson's Argleton project (writing, bookbinding, and geo-location game all in one!)

Chroniques du monde connecté: cet article a été initialement publié dans Les Quotidiennes (voir l’original).

Dans ma chronique de la semaine dernière, je vous invitais à écouter Dan Pink parler de motivation. Je résume très grossièrement: une fois que la paie pour une tâche (ou un travail) règle les préoccupations monétaires de base (avoir “assez d’argent pour vivre”), ajouter plus d’argent à l’équation tend à réduire la qualité et l’efficacité du travail (à moins que celui-ci soit de nature purement mécanique ou machinale). Les véritables motivateurs sont intrinsèques (autonomie, maîtrise, sens).

Je vois ceci appliqué pratiquement un peu partout sur le web et dans mon milieu professionnel. De ma décision personnelle (et celle de bien d’autres!) de ne pas avoir de tarif horaire à des projets comme Kickstarter, le message est clair: du moment qu’on s’y retrouve financièrement, c’est autre chose qui nous pousse à faire ce que l’on fait.

Je voudrais m’arrêter aujourd’hui quelques instants sur Kickstarter (et ses frères). Etes-vous le genre de personne qui rêve d’entreprendre un projet créatif (écrire un livre, faire un film, partir en reportage à l’autre bout du monde, enregistrer un album, ou développer un programme extraordinaire…) — seulement voilà, pour réaliser votre projet, il vous faudrait prendre trois mois de congé non payé ou réduire votre pourcentage de travail, ce que vous ne pouvez pas vous permettre?

Kickstarter prend quelque chose qui existe (le mécénat collectif, le soutien financier de parents, amis et fans) et le formalise. Voici comment ça marche:

  • le porteur de projet inscrit celui-ci dans Kickstarter
  • il définit le montant dont il a besoin pour pouvoir mener à bien son projet, et une date-butoir
  • il crée un certain nombre de “packs”: par exemple, si vous contribuez 5.- ou plus au projet, vous recevez une version électronique du livre, si vous contribuez 50.-, vous recevez une copie du livre autographiée, etc. (c’est là qu’il faut être créatif!)
  • les personnes désirant soutenir un projet font une promesse de versement via le site
  • dès que le montant total de financement est atteint, toutes les versements promis sont débités (ainsi, les “backers”, comme le site les appelle, ne risquent pas d’investir de l’argent dans un projet qui ne verra pas le jour)

Bien entendu, il n’y a rien de magique là-dedans: il faut un bon projet, convaincre autrui d’y contribuer financièrement, et remercier correctement les contributeurs. Parmi bien d’autres, Robin Sloan a trouvé près de 600 personnes pour soutenir l’écriture de son petit roman Annabel Scheme. Quatre étudiants en informatique récoltent près de $200’000 (20 fois plus que ce qu’ils attendaient) afin de pouvoir consacrer leur été à la finalisation de diaspora, un réseau social décentralisé qui se présente comme une alternative ouverte et non-commerciale à Facebook.

Et sans grande surprise, dans ces deux projets (et bien d’autres que vous trouverez), le produit final est mis gratuitement à disposition au public.

A ceux qui se lamentent sur la désagragation des modèles économiques traditionnels des “industries créatives” (quel oxymore!), il y a à mon avis beaucoup d’inspiration à trouver pour l’avenir dans des initatives comme Kickstarter.

Update 31.05.2010: mis en route ce dimanche par mon amie Suw Charman-Anderson, un projet d’écriture et de jeu collectif à soutenir: Argleton.

Cascais, les pieds dans l'Atlantique [fr]

[en] As the editor for ebookers.ch's travel blog, I contribute there regularly. I have cross-posted some of my more personal articles here for safe-keeping.

Cet article a été initialement publié sur le blog de voyage ebookers.ch (voir l’original).

J’ai profité de ma dernière journée entière à Lisbonne (26°C) pour aller faire un saut du côté de Cascais (prononcer “cache-caillche” — comme cache-cache mais avec un “y” vers la fin). J’avais envie de voir l’océan et d’y tremper mes orteils.

(Je sais, je vous avais promis l’Océanarium lors de mon dernier article sur Lisbonne, mais comme Nathalie est passée par là avec l’aquarium de Barcelone, je préfère ne pas vous assomer d’articles aquatiques et pisciformes. En attendant, vous pouvez toujours jeter un oeil aux photos.)

Donc, Cascais. Pas loin de Lisbonne (10-20km), petit village de pêche à l’origine qui s’est bien touristisé, et qui ne semble pas encore complètement pourri par le processus, en tous cas à cette période de l’année.

Cascais 02

Cascais 05

Continue reading “Cascais, les pieds dans l'Atlantique [fr]“

Carotte et créativité ne font pas bon ménage [fr]

[en] I write a weekly column for Les Quotidiennes, which I republish here on CTTS for safekeeping.

Chroniques du monde connecté: cet article a été initialement publié dans Les Quotidiennes (voir l’original).

Plutôt que de vous parler de la nouvelle boulette (je suis gentille) de Facebook au sujet de nos vies privées (le sujet me sort par les oreilles, pour être honnête), je vais faire une petite digression pour vous parler de motivation.

Le monde connecté, ce n’est pas que la technologie (j’espère ne pas vous avoir donné l’impression que c’était le cas). C’est aussi le hasard des rencontres qui n’auraient jamais eu lieu sans cette technologie. C’est les réseaux et les communautés, dopés par ce qu’on appelle aujourd’hui les médias sociaux (rassurez-vous, demain on aura trouvé un autre nom). C’est les choses intéressantes qui vous tombent entre les mains d’on-ne-sait-où, sans qu’on les ait cherchées. Le réseau qui vous les offre en cadeau.

J’écris cette chronique de Lisbonne. J’ai bravé le nuage de cendres pour aller donner une poignée de conseils pour indépendants lors de la conférence SWITCH à Coimbra — conférence mise sur pied par Ricardo Sousa, 17 ans, et son équipe à peine plus âgée. A SWITCH, j’ai fait quelques rencontres marquantes, dont Zé, sur le blog duquel j’ai fait un saut en début d’après-midi après avoir retrouvé mon wifi lisbonnais.

Et c’est là que je tombe sur cette vidéo, que Zé nous dit de regarder et regarder à nouveau. Elle est en anglais — je vous encourage à braver la barrière linguistique durant 10 minutes, et à revenir ensuite ici. Je ne bouge pas.

Dan Pink, l’orateur que vous entendez dans la vidéo, nous apprend qu’il a été scientifiquement démontré (je pèse mes mots) que les récompenses monétaires élevées ont un effet néfaste sur le travail lorsque celui-ci fait appel un tant soit peu à nos forces créatives. Les meilleurs motivateurs sont intrinsèques: l’autonomie, la maîtrise, et le sens. Quand on réalise que le monde du business fonctionne en grande partie sur des principes que la science a démontré comme erronés…

A mon avis, on peut appliquer tout ceci à l’utilisation des médias sociaux en entreprise, et surtout à la volonté hypertrophiée de tout mesurer — parfois à tort et à travers — afin de savoir si on en retire réellement quelque chose. Mais c’est pour un autre jour!

Si je vous ai donné envie d’écouter Dan Pink mais que votre anglais pédale un peu dans la choucroute, vous pouvez voir ici sa conférence TED sur la motivation, avec sous-titres français. C’est beau le web, non?

SWITCH Conference, Coimbra: José Fontainhas [en]

Running notes from the SWITCH conference in Coimbra. Are not perfect. Feel free to add info in the comments, or corrections.

Jazz and the art of Chaos

About how José became a better musician. Everything not in English at Automattic has something to do with José. But first and foremore, he is a drummer.

Where it began: a few years back, José decided he wanted to be his own boss. Wanted to develop ideas that don’t thrive well in the online world. Generic websites. Found WordPress: open source, easy to use, and named for jazz musicians. Started WordPress-Portugal.

Playing solo doesn’t work for all musicians. Freelancing felt a bit like playing solo, studio work. He came across Automattic.

Automattic does WordPress.com, but many other products: Akismet, BuddyPress, VideoPress, etc. 11 mio blogs on wp.com.

1200 servers running across a whole bunch of data centres. The service speaks more than 60 languages, and this is where José comes in. Portuguese is the third most popular language after English and Spanish.

He sent in his application, and a few months later got an answer. Whee! Felt like getting a positive response from Mick Jagger saying he’d love to play in the band or something 🙂

He thought they would be like other companies, but they’re crazy! Same kind of craziness as him, however.

  • work is completely distributed, everybody works from home (50 people!) — 12 US states, 10 countries
  • everybody sets their own work hours
  • no offices (Pier 38 in SF though, but it’s more a space/lounge rather than an office) — used as a coworking space, open to others
  • communicate using p2; IRC channel, conversations logged, indexed and archived, but it became too busy => but afterwards, moved to p2 (they use e-mail, but really not that much)
  • in-person meet-ups every six months or so, to see each other’s faces, etc.; weeks with fun activities and small projects and workgroups to be delivered at the end

Point: the system is chaotic. No titles. No diagrammes. No PAs. But there are responsibilities. Each person needs to be grown-up enough to find his or her place in the journey.

They push code changes live to production upto 20 times a day. Direct from dev to live.

It’s a jam. Embrace the chaos, don’t fight it. Improvisation. Be a better musician. He is the master of his instrument, and his band mates know he is and trust him to use it the best.

*Here’s a video of Zé’s talk (minus a little bit when my memory card was full, oops!) if you want to listen to it.*

SWITCH Conference, Coimbra: Didgeridoo Demonstration [en]

I shot a quick video of the didgeridoo demonstration we were given at the SWITCH conference (which you can follow live, by the way). Unfortunately my batteries gave out and I was not able to film the second part of demo with the toilet-roll didgeridoo 😉

SWITCH Conference, Coimbra: Out of the Box [en]

Running notes from the SWITCH conference in Coimbra. Are not perfect. Feel free to add info in the comments, or corrections.

Ricardo Tomé

From a 1h talk-show to a 24h talk-show.

Stuff about pizza and sandwiches and what social media is closest to (pizza). Anybody can make pizza.

Be different, do things differently, engage, engage, engage. Different but better.

Important for them to define a goal: engage. 24h talk show! The communication is the content.

*steph-note: trouble following this one, sorry, very bad notes*

Crossmedia: really a challenge. Go from making a show for just TV to producing something that works on all platforms.

5 hosts. 3 of them had never touched a facebook or twitter account. Daily show on TV. On the web, 24/7. The show was never the same, no routine, always something new.

Changed the process: put the focus on the content rather than on the media.

*steph-note: following better now there is no talking behind me ;-)*

Webcam for the TV show 45 minutes before the show and 15 minutes after, so you can see what’s going on, and chat, etc.

3 months is really short to make something work on the web (in normal TV, it’s 2 weeks before the kill/live decision).

There is no perfect web. The real web is organic. You don’t know what’s going to happen or which direction it’s going to grow. *steph-note: the whole lack of control thing*

Each host made a commitment about their use of social media to support the show. Update Twitter, Facebook, reply to e-mail, moblog, etc etc.

6 hosts doing that => lots of interaction between those platforms, connected accounts etc.

Lots of feedback during the creative process and production, compared to less use of social media.

Daily tracking and monitoring with weekly reporting. Lots of numbers and hard work. But measuring everything means you have tons of data, what do you do with it?

Achievements:

  • more interaction between hosts and audience and amongst them
  • long-tail effect
  • active participation
  • mobilization
  • faster learning curve (season1)

TV show got a 9.7% share (channel average is 4.7%) (double the channel on almost all targets, and peak at 20% share)

Videos on the web, huge jump in views between season 1 and season 2.

*Ricardo is now showing us figures, all impressive — views on the blog, video views, webcam and chat participants, facebook fans, etc.*

Have fun! They were doing a humourous talk-show, so if they weren’t having fun doing it, now way people would have fun watching it…

Rewarded the host with the biggest web engagement, each week.

Prof. Freitas Magalhaes

The science of facial expressions. *projector problems*

Micro-expressions. *showing us lots of moving faces and expressions on screen; steph-note: I’m not sure where we’re going with this.*

  • FACS is a tool for the study of micro-expressions. Code the face.
  • F-MPF is the Portuguese face database.
  • Psy7Faces: detects movement in the face.

what he studied:

  • Psychopaths: they have different facial expressions.
  • Human fetus smile.
  • Alcohol addicts.

Alexandre Lemos

Bubok: we publish every book that comes our way. A recent project! (Not Alex’s project. He just loves it.)

How do they do it? POD (print on demand), I+d, Ebook, Cloud computing, Social networks… A bunch of technologies that give us easy and cheap access to publishing.

Why? it’s a challenge. It allows us to take position, make people look at them. Lots of publishers! Helps them stand out.

Their point: they publish without choosing. But nobody does that! Publishing *is* choosing. The authors choose. They are the ones who choose to publish — self-publish.

  • first book
  • morabilia
  • self-marketing
  • dreams
  • education
  • independance
  • special books

All sorts of reasons to self-publish. Most of the time, books are self-published because the author has a dream.

After only some months of activity, bubok started receiving partnership requests from other publishers. Most publishers gain prestige by refusing books. It’s a strategy! “I’m more important than your book.”

Other publishers get in touch with them, not understanding how they do it — how are they not overwhelmed? how do they afford it? etc.

SWITCH Conference, Coimbra: Technology [en]

Running notes from the SWITCH conference in Coimbra. Are not perfect. Feel free to add info in the comments, or corrections.

Pedro Bizarro

What’s common between a traffic jam, a bad surprise with your energy bill, a heart attack?

Bad surprises can sometimes be avoided if the right person has the right information at the right moment.

Real-time information. Lots of information to process in traffic management, measuring energy consumption, or running a hospital.

steph-note: very dark room and glaring white slides, not helping me focus; grumble: don’t give your whole talk in the dark for a series of dark slides, not worth it — or turn the light down just when you show those slides.

Cheap sensors everywhere, easy to capture information now; ubiquitous networks, no limit to storage.

Use case for this type of technology: monitoring ICU patients to predict risk of cardiac arrest.

Another is monitoring energy consumption in the house, which can give you a prediction for your bill at the end of the month.

Hugo Pinto

Personal journey: getting technology to do stuff to you. Most entrepreneurs have a dream they pursue. Hugo is a bit different — was a strange kid, reading strange kinds of books: SF comics. Imagining he’d play a part in this SF future.

But where are the hover cars, the spaceships, the house robots? A future that never was. Economics have kicked in. Hugo’s probably never going to land on a lunar base anytime in his life.

So, what’s the story? Hugo is a kind of entrepren– dreamer. Programmed during his teens, took computer engineering at university, corporate programming in his 20s, and then management (heck, he lost his way!)

Reboot, back to his dream: can we do pragmatic stuff? Co-started Inovaworks in 2006. Do fun tech stuff that has business value and sell it. Inspiration: read The Muse in the Machine by David Gelernter. (Something about predictive outcomes in creativity steph-note: if I understood right)

Started a company, but ended up getting a state-sponsored fund (around their work on creativity). As always, the company ended up doing some stuff they’d predicted they’d do, and some stuff they hadn’t. For example, more mobile stuff. iPhone apps and casual games. Oropoly (?).

All that they do, they do cheaply (or at least cheapish). Hardware is getting cheaper. Open standards make it easy to exchange knowledge. Globalization helps you connect with people having useful resources, like alibaba.com. 3D printer: horrendously expensive, but they have one for 950$. Not that good quality, but it works great for prototyping!

Unless you’re doing fundamental tech research, technology is about doing stuff. Ideas per se have little market value. Build a prototype, social market the hell out of it, bootstrap or get it financed!

Possible to make great products out of cheap technology. It’s really really hard to protect IP. It’s way easier to just kickstart it by making a product. Going to market is the most important thing nowadays.

Hugo’s company are doing research on interactive 3D. AAA3D as a new enabler. 3D game engines have been maturing, cost of developing this type of interactive media has decreased dramatically.

demo

What about the space thing? Very costly. The chemicals needed to lift you into space are not getting any cheaper. Space elevators and space loops are decades away. Hugo won’t go into space, but can he fake it? Computer imagery, as we have seen, is catching up 🙂 (DID is getting cheaper and cheaper: 290$)

Maybe we’re all going to space 🙂 — 3D cameras on the Mars spaceship!

Here’s a video of Hugo’s talk if you want to watch it.

Frederico Figueiredo

Boosting user experience. Best practices in large enterprises. How to produce good UX. @fredfigueiredo was born the the computer science department of his university 😉

Joined Siemens in 2005 (amongst other things). His passion is usability. Finished his MSc in 2007, papers and talks with people in many parts of the world. Liked basketball — is not just a geek, though he’s probably not in good enough shape to dunk anymore!

Boring ISO 9241 definition of usability. Has to be a better way to explain it!

Effectiveness: accuracy and completeness. Efficiency: ressources expended. Satisfaction: what you gain afterwards.

Fred’s definition: How easy is it for a “user” to do “something” in a given “environment”.

Example: how easy is it for you to know when the next rain is in Amsterdam airport, etc. gives us a bunch of examples of usability fails in offline environments

First step (Nielsen): know your users. This is where you really get value. Observe them in their environment. User-centred design. Put the user in the focus of everything you do.

UX: mix of usability, visual aspects, good design, brand. => nice product people use enthousiastically

In the past, the brands were in control. Now, users are in control, the market is very competitive. Users have expectations based on past experiences, and based on real world experiences. Users are demanding and they don’t always demand the same thing.

Look at the iPhone: less features than any other smartphone on the market, but #1 seller.

But organizations keep providing services and products which are not usable, etc => need usability as a core competence in the organization. Cannot be something external you add on as an afterthought. Quite easy in small organizations, but hard in larger corporations. Nobody gets to meet the CEO. Too much distance between decision power and ideas/concerns. Companies driven by ROI, etc => who cares about usability?

Multiple sites, different cultures, different roles and backgrounds. So many different takes on what usabiilty is.

Bureaucratic processes, turnover.

How can people recognize the brand when they want products that are customized to their needs. Also, hard to know the users as they are so far away. Is usabiity really accepted in a corporation? What can we do about this?

Fight the organization, but intelligently and smoother. Aikido.

  • path to self-discovery, requires a team
  • use the energy of your opponent and make it your own
  • be aware of your environment
  • make the decisions in the action *steph-note: didn’t get that*

Infiltrate. Don’t go in with a big sign saying “I’m here to change your organization”. Observe. Go in as a software designer, etc. Strategy.

Challenge: don’t know what the difference is between a customer and an end-user.

Build a team, an identity, get peer recognition, network, convince other people to pay attention to usability, educate others and train them, and only then can you make a change, make a difference.

It’s all about selling usability, in the end. You don’t sell the concept of usability, but the end product, the value it brings. Sell it with emotion and enthusiasm.

Two of Fred’s favorite tools:

  • presentations: with results/value (what you have gained by applying usability) — but don’t do crap powerpoint, target to the audience
  • just do it!

Luis Borges

We are at war! An information war. Fast, tech-based, and global.

We need new tools to deal with information overload, check for information quality, and support knowledge. steph-note: related, addicted to technology — I’m a bit tired of that topic

“No, you weren’t downloaded. You were born.” comic strip

Time and space.

Places are important for us: where human activity takes place; central for life, learning, work, fun.

Time and space change in the digital world. We’re not sure yet how to use these new “time and space” to support our human activities.

Digital time and space are more independant, elastic.

But! More time to do, less time to react. Space is almost impossible to control, but easy to reach.

The digital world allows time and space to overlap in different ways than in the physical world.

The world suddenly becomes our place, no more boundaries at human scale. We can be in more spaces at the same time. But we cannot not be where we are, or be at another time.

Human limits still apply! Physical location and place remains important.

The world has changed and will never go back.

Digital is part of any place, but we always come back to offline.

steph-note: this is interesting — I’m not sure I agree with everything, but I like the idea of rethinking space and time in the light of the presence of digital technology.

We need tools that free people from data-information-knowledge tyranny steph-note: I disagree, we simply need to set boundaries, learn to say no, etc.

SWITCH Conference, Coimbra: Entrepreneurship [en]

Running notes from the SWITCH conference in Coimbra. Are not perfect. Feel free to add info in the comments, or corrections.

Celso Martinho

CTO of Sapo. A frog’s perspective on entrepreneurship.

University project became startup. 6 students in the beginning. Now, 250 people. Celso does not consider himself an entrepreneur anymore — was once, but not anymore.

Was there a secret formula to create Sapo? Beer + time + a black swan 🙂 (they had a lot of fun doing stuff they liked, had a lot of time on their hands to do it, and… luck) steph-note: read the book if you haven’t

Open source rules.

Growing is painful. Accountability vs. Flexibility. Had to build in processes as they grew, but wanted to keep the spirit and flexibility they had when they started — big challenge they face today.

Success is a balance between the things you do right and the things you do wrong. OK to do things wrong, but you have to be doing enough things right for the balance. Learn from mistakes.

Stay close to talent. (Some kind of programming contest, workshops, emergent technology…) Keep the work environment fun. Work hard and don’t give up. Irreverence.

Fred Oliveira

Fred (@f) is a UX designer and founder of We Break Stuff. Non-funny talk: do NOT become and entrepreneur. (Fred doesn’t consider himself an entrepreneur.) Joined TechCrunch in 2005 (early one), joined another company, and came back to Portugal and thought it was a good idea to found his own company.

Do not do what he did, he tells us. Your life will become a mess!

“Entrepreneurs are idiots because…”

  • their brains act differently from normal people => work work work work work lobes all over the brain
  • they do not have clocks or watches, no sense of time (when they go to bed, when they get up…) — the hand of the clock si always on “work”
  • they wallets are empty; weird relationship with bank accounts: empty, then get a lot of money, then spend it all… (emo-piggy-banks)
  • their social life resembles that of a carrot (carrots do not have fun, go out to night clubs, have coffee… — they sit at their computers all day)

What motivates these people? (you must be crazy to be an entrepreneur, so…?)

  • take pride in working for themselves, are their own boss
  • they get to work on “new ideas”
  • they fix “real problems” (whatever that means, look at foursquare)
  • they enjoy failure (WTF)

Odd, awkward, often lonely people, as you can see. But they’re actually changing the world. Even if I’m not using foursquare now, it doesn’t mean it’s not going to be a big thing at some point. You CAN change the world.

That being said, Fred is really happy with his life. Go make something special (but don’t become a carrot). Ask him anything.

Robert Boogaard

One of the fun things about being an entrepreneur is you can wake up in the morning thinking you’re just going to the SWITCH conference, and around 11:30 you learn that you’re giving a talk after lunch! 🙂

The tough time Ricardo and his team have been through these last days show exactly what entrepreneurs need to be made of. You take risks. Portuguese entrepreneurship.

Robert has always been an entrepreneur. Now invests in startups.

There are a lot of great people with great ideas in Portugal, but because of the fear of failure, not many happen. Entrepreneurial spirit is picking up. In Portugal it’s really hard to raise money. So: Financing Your Dream. Actually, Robert believes raising money here is quite easy: the competition is pretty low. If you have a good idea, you have your chances. Investors in Portugal struggle to find good projects and good entrepreneurs.

Most people, when they start out, are very bad at raising money. First of all, you need to identify what your dream is. Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. You need to decide if your dream is something you want to do for a living, or actually enjoy 😉

Being an entrepreneur is a very unstable life, you don’t make that much money, you work hard. It’s not for everyone.

How do you raise cash, once you have that fantastic idea you want to make a living of? Most people go for the “easy” options, business angels, etc. One of the best ways of financing an entrepreneurial venture is actually your job. Work part-time and grow your business on the side. steph-note: exactly what I recommend too for freelancing!

Second source of finance: bootstrapping. Make sure you don’t spend much, and reinvest all the money you make into the company. The company remains yours!

If you really need additional funds, friends and family, but be really careful. There are also a lot of support structures in Portugal but it’s a lot of paperwork.

Expensive ways of getting money: Business Angels and VCs. Expensive because they take away a chunk of your company. Robert doesn’t understand how somebody would give away 80-90% of their company! Investors invest money as well as know-how.

VCs look for scale. Not a good first step. Identify the right source of finance.

You need to be clear about how much you want the finance, once you’ve identified the right source. How much do you want? Not realistic to want a huge chunk of money to be all expenses paid for the next x years. (You’ll also have to give away a huge part of the company!)

Also, for valuation: what makes your company worth what you claim it is when you’re raising money? You need to be able to explain that.

Right time of investing: not easy to figure that out. Research the people you approach. Know who you’re talking to. Tailor your approach. The more passionate you are, the more chances. Be yourself. Don’t tell the investors what you think they want to hear. (steph-note: just like with dating, no use pretending you’re somebody you’re not!)

If you have weaknesses, talk about them, and say how you’re adressing them. Entrepreneurs tend to get carried away by their dreams. Investors receive tons of proposals. You need to capture their attention immediately, stand out.

Follow the process your investor asks you to follow.

Loïc Le Meur

Loïc by Skype! steph-note: not an easy way to give a talk

If you’re thinking about launching a startup, stop thinking and try doing as much as you can. Do something, even if it’s a bit broken.

It doesn’t matter if you change course. Many businesses start out by being something else (Skype, Seesmic, Flickr…).

Start small, and start collecting support and people around an idea. Go for something you have a passion for. Loïc has a passion for social networking, so working on seesmic doesn’t feel like working at all. Invest time and energy in gathering a community around your project.

Another rule: share your idea. Don’t go the NDA route. Develop your idea openly. It will be enriched by others. steph-note: this way of doing things puts the idea at the centre, rather than the person — it’s more selfless, benefits the community more, and therefore has more chances of actually happening and making a difference

Don’t pay too much attention to the people who tell you that you will fail.

Ship a product, then ask for feedback! Use that feedback, and learn. Interact with people directly. Gather all the feedback on a site which will help you decide what’s possible to do. Then you need to act on it. People like a company that listens — and answers.

Read Loïc’s do’s and don’ts about starting a business.