@gdecugis From Silicon Valley to Europe and back again. In 3 startups. Guillaume Decugis Co-Founder & CEO, Scoop.it #mystartupstory
Jan 15, 2015
@gdecugis
From Silicon Valley to Europe and back again.
In 3 startups.
Guillaume DecugisCo-Founder & CEO, Scoop.it#mystartupstory
@gdecugis
In ‘94 I went to Stanford and, being French, this is what I expected
@gdecugis
Of course this is what it actually was
@gdecugis
Upon graduating in ’95, big question: lifestyle or startup?
@gdecugis
Went for lifestyle but… I couldn’t help hearing the music
Stanfo
rd. M
y
entrepre
neurship cl
ass
idea project
idea:
Music
Sagem. F
irst M
obile
Intern
et dem
os. My i
dea
for p
otentia
l applic
ations?
Music
’95 ’97 ’00
Met with
Gille
s and
Nicolas.
Startu
p.
Music
The first Mobile Music Platform
@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
@gdecugis
We couldn’t raise money so we took it from the only possible source
Customers = $$$
@gdecugis
To do that we had to innovate constantly
2002: mp3 ringtones
2004: full-track downloads
2005: smart radio
@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)
@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
@gdecugis
Was that just luck or can I do it again?
@gdecugis
Back in 2007, we had a great idea for Mobile Internet
@gdecugis
But so did Steve Jobs
AppStore launch: July 10, 2008
@gdecugis
We iterated the productBecame a social news reader
@gdecugis
We failed
• Distribution
• Business Model
• Stickiness
• Fat Startup
@gdecugis
In 2010, we decided to pivotWe had learned a lotWe had identified a pain point in social mediaWe had trusting VC’sWe had burnt little cash so farWe had built a scalable social media platformAnd…
@gdecugis
We had built a great team!
@gdecugis
Back to (entrepreneur) school
@gdecugis
Information Overload:A big problem and a big
opportunityWho
should I listen to?
How can I be heard?
@gdecugis
The Interest Graph: where Social Discovery meets Search
Relevancy
relevantnoisy
find
discover
Search
Social Graph Interest Graph
@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
@gdecugis
3 Share
2 Enrich
1
Discover
Your content curation hub
@gdecugis
Publish once. Be discovered everywhere.
Search Engines
Newsletters
Blogs
Social Networks
@gdecugis
This time we found product/market fit
Monthly uniques
Year-on-year growth
7MM
5x
@gdecugis
Why we moved to Silicon Valley
• Social Media early adopters & influencers
• Partner with the ecosystem
• Halo effect to other markets
@gdecugis
These however were not reasons
• Raising money
• Recruiting engineers
@gdecugis
So what are the take-aways?
@gdecugis
@gdecugis
Roller-coasters are fun…
@gdecugis
… or not.
@gdecugis
Sometimes, the real risk is not taking any
@gdecugis
Teams >>> Ideas
@gdecugis
Super powers not required.
@gdecugis
Enjoy the ride!