From silicon valley to europe and back again. In 3 startups.
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Guillaume Decugis co-founded three startups - one in France in the early 2000s building the first mobile music platform, another in 2007 focusing on mobile internet which pivoted to a social news reader in 2010, and finally Scoop.it in 2010 addressing information overload through content curation. While the first two startups met with challenges around funding, distribution, and business models, Scoop.it found product/market fit and has grown monthly uniques 5x year-over-year by addressing how people discover and share ideas that matter. Through these experiences, Decugis learned that teams are more important than ideas, super powers are not required, and that sometimes the real risk is not taking any risk
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From silicon valley to europe and back again. In 3 startups.
- 1. @gdecugis From Silicon Valley to Europe and back again. In 3 startups. Guillaume Decugis Co-Founder & CEO, Scoop.it #mystartupstory
- 2. @gdecugis In ‘94 I went to Stanford and, being French, this is what I expected
- 3. @gdecugis Of course this is what it actually was
- 4. @gdecugis Upon graduating in ’95, big question: lifestyle or startup?
- 5. @gdecugis Went for lifestyle but… I couldn’t help hearing the music ’95 ’97 ’00 The first Mobile Music Platform
- 6. @gdecugis Exercise: calculate the odds of success for a startup… + Launched in 2001 i.e. between the Internet bubble burst and 9/11 On an idea that required 3G and multimedia phones … that eventually hit the market in 2004 In France a.k.a. the Silicon Valley of Wine, Cheese and Luxury brands = 0.0000001% said a lot of VC’s
- 7. @gdecugis We couldn’t raise money so we took it from the only possible source Customers = $$$
- 8. @gdecugis To do that we had to innovate constantly 2002: mp3 ringtones 2004: full-track downloads 2005: smart radio
- 9. @gdecugis We finally met success • Late 2002, we painfully raised $5m • 3 Months later, we realized we no longer needed them by becoming profitable • We grew to $35m revenue / 200 FTE • Late 2005, Openwave acquired Musiwave for $121m (and sold us back to Microsoft late 2007)
- 10. @gdecugis Why not being in Silicon Valley didn’t matter • Carrier relationships (local, regional) • Music labels deals (local, regional*) • Mobile phone manufacturers (regional*) *back then
- 11. @gdecugis Was that just luck or can I do it again?
- 12. @gdecugis Back in 2007, we had a great idea for Mobile Internet
- 13. @gdecugis But so did Steve Jobs AppStore launch: July 10, 2008
- 14. @gdecugis We iterated the product Became a social news reader
- 15. @gdecugis We failed • Distribution • Business Model • Stickiness • Fat Startup
- 16. @gdecugis In 2010, we decided to pivot We had learned a lot We had identified a pain point in social media We had trusting VC’s We had burnt little cash so far We had built a scalable social media platform And…
- 17. @gdecugis We had built a great team!
- 18. @gdecugis Back to (entrepreneur) school
- 19. @gdecugis Information Overload: A big problem and a big opportunity Whoshould I listen to? How can I beheard?
- 20. @gdecugis The Interest Graph: where Social Discovery meets Search Relevancy relevantnoisy find discover Search Social Graph Interest Graph
- 21. @gdecugis We became Scoop.it: a new way to organize and share ideas that matter • A publishing platform optimized for content curation • A big data semantic technology connecting content and people around interests • A quickly-growing community of curators who develop their online visibility faster Scoop.it
- 22. @gdecugis 3 Share 2 Enrich 1 Discover Your content curation hub
- 23. @gdecugis Publish once. Be discovered everywhere. Search Engines Newsletters Blogs Social Networks
- 24. @gdecugis This time we found product/market fit Monthly uniques Year-on-year growth 7MM 5x
- 25. @gdecugis Why we moved to Silicon Valley • Social Media early adopters & influencers • Partner with the ecosystem • Halo effect to other markets
- 26. @gdecugis These however were not reasons • Raising money • Recruiting engineers
- 27. @gdecugis So what are the take-aways?
- 28. @gdecugis
- 31. @gdecugis Sometimes, the real risk is not taking any
- 33. @gdecugis Super powers not required.
Editor's Notes
- And it was better!
- Eventually decided to go back to Paris kind of forgot about doing a startup…But after a few years I finally did
- Caught between giants, innovation was our only added value.
- TRANSITION: so this is the first part of my story but after having been successful once, I wanted to see whether it was just luck and I started another company.
- TRANSITION: so this is the first part of my story but after having been successful once, I wanted to see whether it was just luck and I started another company.
- I didn’t actually go back to school but it felt like I had to re-learn everything and meeting people in SF really helped.
- But I guess it all depends on the VC and job market in your own area.