Why Silicon Valley kicks Europe's butt

by Loic Le Meur on Jun 14, 2010

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I love Europe and I created 7 years ago LeWeb with my wife Geraldine to help european entrepreneurs get more competitive, but Pablo Larguia and Jose-Maria Figueres invited me to keynote La Red Innova on the reasons why Silicon Valley is ahead.

I wanted to be honest and share a few reasons why I think Silicon Valley wins, some are easy to fix, others much more complicated.

I think the most important one is what goal you set for yourself. If your goal is to dominate Madrid or Paris in your niche, you might just succeed, but if you set yourself such a local goal, there is low chance you’re actually going to build a global success and be the best in the world at what you do.

It’s the key, most people I know in Silicon Valley dream about building a world leader, not a local leader, it’s a question of attitude, and THAT is easy to change. Think more in english and more global, you might be able to achieve your dreams, but they have to be the right dreams.

stay in touch? twitter.com/loic and facebook.com/loic

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Why Silicon Valley kicks Europe’s butt — Presentation Transcript

Why Silicon Valley kicks Europe’s butt (and what you can do about it) @loic Madrid, La Red Innova, June 2010

Hi I’m @loic founder of popular social networking app Seesmic and #1 Internet event in Europe LeWeb.net

I love Europe. But you won’t like my presentation. It’s all positive and honest though.

The main reason why Silicon Valley wins is how much time we take for lunch

Silicon Valley is all in one place: best internet companies and never seen as that many bright people concentrated

It feels like a campus

Business happens 24/7 even when you don’t expect it

There is more seed funding and VCs

Social environment is very flexible (hire fast in growth cycle, fire fast in recession)

“ How can I help” attitude

Easy to get an appointment and meet pretty much anyone

People tend to trust you by default if you say you can do it

Diversity is actually higher than in Europe with so many immigrants in Silicon Valley

Key tech bloggers and press care much more if you’re a Silicon Valley company #fact #toughtochange

European entrepreneurs wake up to dominate their city or country first, not the World

In Europe, too much copying US stuff (Foursquare latest example), they could not do that in Silicon Valley

Tend to hire locally: only french, spanish, german teams => more difficult to go global

Think in english by default is challenging

You guys can fix it. Go ahead and kick ass like Vente-Privee or Meetic

Find a niche, innovate, aim at being the world leader of something, not local leader

Focus on execution, the idea doesn’t matter that much

Gather an initial (global) community of users and iterate like crazy based on feedback

With social networking it’s become really much easier, you can do it, believe in yourself

Stay in touch? Twitter.com/loic Facebook.com/loic Loic at seesmic dot com Loiclemeur.com

gionyy If it were for you to start your business in Europe what would you do? How would you do it! What are the best things we can do from Europe ? 1 year ago

Are you sure you want to Yes No

Loic Le Meur , CEO at Seesmic thanks 1 year ago

Jeanne Trojan , Presentation trainer & coach at Outstanding Presentations Great message! Lots of truth in it. Thanks! Jeanne 1 year ago

Why Silicon Valley kicks Europe's butt

by Loic Le Meur on Jun 14, 2010

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Why Silicon Valley kicks Europe’s butt — Presentation Transcript