A mini-guide for European companies

Our first month in Silicon Valley comes to an end… yes, almost four weeks passed since our first post in this blog. For those that will repeat our experience, here is a quick review that hopefuly will help them to land smoothly in Silicon Valley.

Before coming. Take your time to prepare! Time is passing very fast while you are here. It takes time to set up meetings with people, especially when you do not have a direct connection to them. Try to schedule your meetings (at least the first ones) before leaving Europe. Take into account any public holidays that would occur during your stay (like Thanksgiving!) – do not count on too much business interaction during that.

First week. No matter how hard you try to get used to it, you will suffer from jetleg! Do not count on being 100% efficient. Most probably, you will also lose some time on settling down and organizing your work environment.

At the office. If you do not like working in a cubicle, and if you can afford it, then do not rent a cubicle! Otherwise, be prepared for not much privacy and occasionally significant noise.

Driving. Be ready to use the car all the time and take a vacation from cycling. Also, do expect to drive long distances and do expect that to take looong… after all, you do not want to get in trouble with the police.

Time difference. Mornings and/or evenings – time to talk home and make sure that your business is still navigating on the right track. Be aware that this will extend your working days…

Financing. 90% of the discussions going around here concern financing, VCs, investments, raising millions, and so on. Make up your mind quickly, preferably before coming here, whether your company seeks funding, is ready for it or not. If you seek funding, then take your time to analyze the options, there are so many!

Intellectual property. Be careful about what ideas you are disclosing in your meetings. You have to make a trade-off. It is hard to believe that you can convince people to sign an NDA before every meeting, especially when it is a first-time discussion. However, in most cases, you will want to convince them of your ideas and solutions, so you have to give details. Caution is the key word!

Costs. Be prepared for living expenses higher than you thought. The Valley is an expensive area, so you will not find good accommodation and food at very cheap prices. For electronics, that’s a different story…

Weather. Do not bother to bring your umbrella, you are not going to need it!

Weekends. Just don’t be an workaholic and go to see the Pacific coast (at least).

Last week. This is when all things have to be completed or brought to a somewhat final stage. All the important meetings will concentrate then. You will feel that it would have been good to have at least another week.

Afterwards. Well… I guess we have to fill this up after we leave.

That’s all, folks! Inertia is moving next week to Australia, so our global startup adventure continues.

So long, and happy Sinterklaas!

Raluca and Mihai

A couple of days ago, Plug and Play tech center – our hosting business incubator – organized one of its largest yearly events, WebPlay. We attended, interested not only to find out what’s going on in the www world, but also to see a quick and lively start-up presentation session. So here are some brief impressions:

• The current economy crisis does not seem to have affected (yet) the web advertising business. Could the crisis actually stimulate companies to advertise more at a lower price and thus increase the market share of web advertising?
• Nine web-based start-ups presented themselves, each company being allocated less than 10 minutes to convince the audience. Pretty large span of topics were covered, from rating mechanisms to music wikipedia. Impressive to see that more than 75% of the companies were struggling to follow the successful model of Facebook. Facebook appears the have created almost a cliche. And when you think that I was so reluctant to create a Facebook account!
• The most interesting (and controversial) discussion concerns funding. There are two main opinions around. 1) Economy crisis means less money for investments, therefore VCs tend to (re)invest in the companies they already have in their portfolios, logically meaning less chances for new start-ups to get funding. 2) Economy crisis affected mainly business angel funds, as a countermeasure VCs allocate more money to the so-called “seed funds” and spread their investments over new ideas, trying to lower the risks; as a consequence, not a bad time to come up with a start-up.

Let’s see how all these will look like in the next year. For now, happy Thanksgiving!

Raluca and Mihai

It is impossible to stay inside this weekend… Sunny, blue sky, 25-26 degrees Celsius. All these in mid-November! So we decided – all three of us – to spend a day on the Pacific coast, drive along the ocean, admire the scenery and make lots of photos.

First stop was in Monterey, cozy small town by the sea, with a very nice marina (also very touristic, apparently). A loud demonstration was also taking place on the streets – people supporting gay rights in California.

Next item on the agenda was the famous 17 miles drive, an exquisite area between Monterey and Carmel. Great houses, even castles, large domains, endless, green golf fields and, above all, a restless sea. Besides tourists like us, the only occupation around seemed to be golf. The joke goes among us that people living there are the ones that were really lucky with their start-ups

After a well-deserved lunch in beautiful Carmel, we hit the best part of Highway 1, going south to Big Sur, along one of the most spectacular costline scenery ever seen.

We got to to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park before the sunset, just in time to admire the unique beach with an waterfall and to make dozens of photos, of course.

All in all, just a perfect day!

Greetings,
Raluca and Mihai

Today, a short discussion on the differences between American and Dutch start-ups, as seen from Silicon Valley, probably the world’s most dynamic hi-tech business incubator.

US start-ups are more opportunistic, pragmatic, self-motivated and fast-growing (when successful, of course). They benefit from a very large and uniform market, as well as from significant funding opportunities. They follow the model of a “fast-spinning wheel”. Sometimes they might spin too fast and just take a trial-and-error approach, without analyzing entirely all aspects. At the other end, Dutch start-ups are more abeyant, analytical, have strong scientific foundations and seek very narrow niche markets. This can translate sometimes into slow-growth and losing the momentum.

A global start-up, with roots for instance both in US and the Netherlands, is an interesting idea. Obviously, the question is if the best of both worlds can be combined. The pre-market effort will be double, but so will be the potential benefit.

The first day in Silicon Valley started very early – at 3AM… due to the obvious jet lag! Still, a full day, discovering Plug and Play Tech Center, setting up, meeting people, presenting the company to the Netherlands Business Support Office (NBSO).

This is how Plug and Play Tech Center looks like:

… and this is the office of Inertia Technology:

Photos with the “ecological” car that we rented, in a future post. Until then, good night!