Written on April 8, 2008 – 5:56 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
In a discussion on TechCrunch about where Europe’s own Silicon Valley would emerge, some interesting suggestions were made (warning: many links to specific comments follow). From Moscow to Lisbon and from Estonia to London.
The latter was the most mentioned location, followed by Finland and Switzerland. Finland has an USP that is their biggest pro and con at the same time: Nokia. On the one hand, it’s THE European tech company, on the other: it sucks up all the talent.
Switzerland would be a fair option, since it’s an innovative country and home of some important venture capitalists like Index Ventures. Yet a new development makes the question even more complicated: Nokia has just announced that it would establish a research center in Lausanne. It will be a joint lab with two Swiss federal institutes of technology. It will open its doors in June.
According to All About Symbian, the research agenda will focus on persuasive communications:
- Exploring new interaction experiences and technologies utilizing all the human senses;
- Services and applications based on the user’s context, such as location, and personal preferences, e.g.,
information provided by sensors within a mobile device or in the surrounding world;
- Internet services and technologies - enriching the Internet experience on mobile devices.
Nokia’s Chief Technology Officer Bob Iannucci said to Reuters that Nokia ’sees the fusing of the digital and physical worlds as a key objective in mobility.’
So, will this cause some sort of local brain drain? Kai Lemmetty from Floobs told me during The Next Conference that this is the case in Finland. Nokia just picks out the talent and makes them an offer they can’t refuse. As you can imagine, this is deadly for local start-up action. And a good start-up atmosphere is one of the most important conditions for a Silicon Valley-like area. So all you European start-up experts, please lend me your thought on this matter.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on March 24, 2008 – 12:15 pm
Reinout te Brake, online gaming expert
The last few days I had some time and look around over the Internet. As you know, there is a lot of news about companies like Facebook.com and Google. Their success is the motor of a whole industry, they are the fuel for lots of new business ventures. In loads of business-plans you will see entrepreneurs compare their ideas against that of these companies. It is very difficult to create and come up with something unique, I grant you that, but what is it that these companies mentioned above have in common? The answer is; simplicity! Already I hear loads of people wonder if I lost it, but let me assure you, I didn’t.
During the last years I have come in contact with many VC-companies and they all are looking for companies that look like Bebo.com, Facebook, Google and MySpace. The “why” is simple too, these companies re-present high valuations today and therefore the investors who backed these companies made a great “return of investment”. These VC companies contact me if I know entrepreneurs with similar good ideas. In most cases I do send them info about young companies that look for funding. And then it starts; benchmarking! The business plans are going to be compared to the successful companies of today. After a while I have come to believe that VC-companies want something they can understand and compare, they want it too; simplicity! (more…)
Written on February 12, 2008 – 9:06 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
A week ago I reported that start-ups had a hard time seducing European venture capital firms to invest in their companies. The VC’s are backing the fewest companies on record since research group VentureSource began tracking investments in 1999.
Telefónica office in Madrid
After this disappointing conclusion, it may well be time for positive news about European venture capital. Well here you go: the Financial Times reports that Telefónica, the Spanish mobile operator, will on Monday announce a €40m venture capital fund to invest in new technology companies.
This move by Telefónica is part of their strategy to increase the accessibility to new technologies for mobile phones and the Internet.
Telefónica is one of the largest fixed-line and mobile telecommunications companies in the world. They’re second in terms of number of clients and in the top five in market value. The only companies that are doing better job globally are China Mobile, AT&T and Vodafone.
[WebTipr: David Petherick, United Kingdom]
Written on December 22, 2007 – 7:11 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,
“They take advantage of the natural flow of traffic from people who type ’software.com’ in their browsers and hope for the best”
It wasn’t Search.com that became THE search engine but Yahoo at first and Google later. Just as Amazon became the online bookstore and not Bookstore.com. Although a name is extremely important to any company you could say that online companies have historically been looking for the stranger names to build a brand on. Flickr, Del.icio.us, Digg, all names that need to be explained and aren’t very self-explanatory.
In general, companies come up with a plan or technology and then go and look for a funny and noteworthy name which, very important, is still available as a domain name. If it isn’t available they simple add ’ster’, ‘r’ or ‘le’ to the end and/or leave a few vowels out. The good news is that these domain-names can be registered for only a few dollars. The bad news is that these names then have to build into a brand which might take millions.
Venture Capitalist Mike Mann of WashingtonVC has a different approach. He invests in expensive but self-explanatory domainnames like Software.com, Phone.com, Graphics.net, RockConcerts.com and HappyBirthday.com. Once he has acquired these domains Mann, and his partners, come up with a business that takes advantage of the natural flow of traffic from people who want software and try getting it by typing ’software.com’ in their browsers and hope for the best.
Just last month WashingtonVC launched The Download Superstore (Guaranteed and Virus Free) on Software.com and a ‘Next generation full service telecommunications’ company on Phone.com. They had acquired these domains earlier for a rumored 7 million+.
“spend nothing on a good name and millions on marketing or nothing on marketing and millions on a good name”
Today DomainMarket.com and WashingtonVC announced the acquisition of VaticanCity.com, NorthernIreland.com, Angola.com, Cameroon.com, IvoryCoast.com, Mali.com, Namibia.com and Rwanda.com. They are planning on building a ‘nextgen geo specific portal with each domain we acquire focusing on the targeted region’s Business, Travel, Nonprofit, and Social opportunities’.
Some people will say that anyone willing to spend millions on a domain-name is out of his mind. But when you think about it it starts to make sense: you either spend nothing on a name and millions on marketing or nothing on marketing and millions on a name. But all that money you invest in marketing is just gone. It isn’t invested, it is spent. A good domain-name will likely only increase in value.
These entrepreneurs reversed the standard model of coming up with an idea and then a name. They focus on great domain-names and then try to build great companies based on that.
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