Never Mind the Valley: Here's Paris. If you're capable of seeing past the old stones of Paris and the picturesque rural villages, you'll realize that France is every bit as technologically advanced as any other Western country - more so in some areas.
Not only does the country have a higher percentage of homes with high-speed Internet than the U.S. (plus it's faster and costs half as much), it ranks first in the world for number of blogs per Internet user, and has a formidable market of Internet consumers who spent €5.5 billion online in the first quarter of this year. When I came to Paris in 2006, I had a well-developed idea for a startup and nothing else.
It's now been about three years since I joined the fray as an entrepreneur and tech blogger. In that time, I've discovered that the startup scene is infused with passion, energy and a strong spirit of collaboration. Pamela Poole is a blogger, translator and tech writer, and founder of Francophilia.com, a social startup for Francophiles. Want to start up in France? 6 Steps to the Perfect Pitch. Learn to succeed with investors–from a guy who failed.
Shortly after my college graduation, a few friends and I started a new media company. Within a few weeks we fleshed out the concept, wrote a business plan and set out to seek financing. With a little hustle, I managed to get us a meeting with a well-known investment firm to discuss the opportunity. Even though our business had yet to bring in a single dollar, and none of us had ever been the CEO of coffee shop let alone a multi-million dollar enterprise, we were all confident that we had a sure thing on our hands.
After all, our financial projections forecasted gross revenues of $200 million. We’d be rich. I remember thinking, “How hard could it be?” Finding an Investor Starts With Finding Yourself As a Startup, an Entrepreneur, a Person. Entrepreneurs must WANT to succeed rather than NEED to.
Enough pressure exists without this added weight. Passion is a trait to be demonstrated and not serve as a talking point, when speaking with and presenting to investors how one presents, deports themselves are just as important as the substance and content of the presentation. The process of finding the right startup and the right investor is much like the final hand at a poker tournament: one-on-one, both parties sizing each other up playing it close to the vest. A good deal has been said and written about investors investing in people, and on the face of that sounds warm and good, but in reality the idea/project/service must be seen as viable and fundable, and then the team must be able to execute on the sales and marketing to bring about scalability so financial projections start down the road to real revenue, break-even, and profitability.
Startups must be comfortable in their own skins and that of their companies. Bottom lines: How to Find Your First Investors.