The 2010 TechFellow Awards for Europeans
Today TechCrunch opened the nominations for the 2010 TechFellow Awards, an ingenious awards program to give recognition to the high-tech entrepreneurial elite. Flipboard, Quora and fFlick were all backed up financially by 2009 TechFellows and all three companies have experienced quite a significant growth over the past 12 months.
This is all positive but as usual all of this happens across the ocean and a lot of land. Europe has been lagging in terms of Internet startups and entrepreneurship for quite some time and correct me if I am wrong but according to my calculations it’s been about 70 years since we were true pioneers in something as big as the Internet. A lot of people are trying to change this with a lot of angry politicians trying to implant the idea of the Silicon Valley across various places in Europe. TelecomTV recently published a brilliant special report titled : Can London Compete with Sillicon Valley? following Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron announcement to transform London’s East End into a world-leading technology centre to rival Silicon Valley.
It simply is impossible, you can import great ideas and try to implant them in your own country, but that doesn’t mean they will work straight away. What David Cameron or for that matter any political leader can’t import from the US is the culture and 50 years of experience and mistakes.
In my personal opinion, this is what’s stopping Europeans from being innovators. It’s the hypothesis made by countless hordes of bureaucrats saying that we should make our own “Silicon Valley” instead of starting something new. Why do we have to base ourselves on something else, why do we always have to look at a different place and like a kid in a history museum point our finger and say out loud “I wanna be that guy when I grow up”. We are failing at trying something new, we are failing at creating a culture which would quite literally breed entrepreneurs, ideas and start up companies. The brain cells are there ready to be unleashed, the products are taking shape in heads of individuals scattered all across Europe, yet we can’t pull it all together and come to a mutual agreement. Instead of Silicon Valley we have few illegal coal mines scattered across continental Europe and a what I would call an Iron Ditch in London.
What happened to Engineering Leadership, General Management, Product Design, Disruptive Innovation and Life Science Innovation in Europe ? Unfortunately we still have a long time to go and a lot of lobbying to do before being able to create something similar. Especially after looking at the panel of judges, we have 20 Americans (Tim O’Reilly is practically American) a Swiss and an Ukrainian…there just isn’t anyone out here worth of asking to help in picking the next wave of highly successful entrepreneurs. There simply isn’t anyone out there that can promote anyone to be even considered for an award. To worsen the situation just a little bit just look at the brilliant and inspiring (no sarcasm here !) line up of speakers at LeWeb’10. There is no one else to blame but us and our culture.
What’s the solution? That’s a whole other discussion.
Single greatest article in the history of the modern internet: "Are You a Pirate?" 
Michael Arrington deserves a Pulitzer prize for this article. I don’t think I have ever read anything this good and inspirational yet so true.
Risk is what stops us from achieving great things and incubating ideas. This is why people with nothing to lose or no fear are often so successful. The right entrepreneurial mindset should be all about being fearless and risk management on the no-VC-will-ever-fund-my-idea-because-I-am-not-afraid-of-anything scale. Just stop for a second and think about Jason Fried, Tony Hsieh, Kevin Rose, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and especially Elon Musk. Read about what they did and how they started their businesses. There is a common ground between these people, the “I have nothing to lose” mindset.
As Josh Kopelman states - “Risk Tolerance is a Competitive Weapon”.
So You Want To Start A Web Startup?
(Via TechCrunch)
Social Tribes and Entrepreneurship
Tribes are groups of people with predefined similarities or as HBR defines it - groups of people who are passionate about a topic. Tribes can take up many different forms and shapes, just to name a few we could have national clicks, book clubs, bike enthusiasts or gardeners. They all share a common interest, everyone in the group has some knowledge and is found interesting by the others. Naturally, people change hobbies, interests and social status, they leave one tribe to join a different one, one that’s more applicable to them at the time. Some tribes however, change very rarely.
Ethnic tribes are usually shared by people from the same country, all they usually share is a language and heritage, yet they still manage to find each other interesting. It’s this idea of a connection, the fact that you can be among ‘your own’ and speak the language you have always spoken. The foundation of this lies somewhere between 18th century, China and Jewish people. Back in the day when globalization was in its infancy and international trade was a soundly established idea more and more people started to travel and move around. Unfortunately without a universal language, dictionaries, smart phones and free wi-fi , as you would imagine, people found it very difficult to communicate with each other. Without this ability, the easiest option was to find people who are not dissimilar and they usually happened to be from the same country. This tradition is still in place, this is still what happens most of the time. This is what the Chinese do anywhere they go, they stick together, they help each other in distress and they try to recreate what they had at home. Just look at a typical China Town, it’s not a coincidence. The same concept applies to Jews, they always find each other and they always help each other - these are the values they are taught all their lives and that’s what they follow, mainly because it’s easy and convenient.
Tribes are what we want them to be, they are a collection of people, a recreation of a world we want to live in they are things we miss and things we love. Exactly the same theory can be applied to startups. Collection of people with a common interest - check. Recreation or creation of something we want - check. Things we miss and things we love - check. A perfect tribe - very short of a success.
Now think about individuals who do not want to belong to a click, and I am not talking about joining a Facebook group, I am talking about social outcasts, third culture kids and highly motivated individuals. They very rarely belong to tribes they usually don’t belong anywhere at all or drift between them. I was never interested in joining a national group - I left my country when I was 12. Unfortunately I am ashamed of it, ashamed of the people, the place and the social level they represent. Sure they are exception but even when considering my background, I simply don’t fit in. As a third culture kid I can adopt to any situation, join any click if I want to. I am used to it, I am used to be drifting between people, countries and ideas. And after seeing and talking to people who have been in a particular tribe for a long time, I realized that it’s simply not worth it. It’s not worth trusting people and spending time with people purely because of a similar interest or friendliness. Sure friends are important, but they don’t have to be a part of a tribe. Going alone will take you much further, there aren’t people you need to share things with, there aren’t any heartfelt ideas which you have to accept in order not to ruin a friendship, there aren’t any trust or betrayal issues.
I personally think that the same concept yet again applies to startups, it’s good to have trusted people and partners, but the only thing you share should be the passion for the company, friendship, emotional connection and past history tend to be destructive.
Keep your friends, family and business partners separate - this isn’t a tribe sharing ideas, when it comes to money your best friend can become your biggest enemy.
