Unvalidated Learnings

“Reinventing The Calendar”. Or Why Ideas Are Not Unique, Execution Is

“Right now, 100 people are already working on your idea.” 

This is the story I will tell every entrepreneur who doesn’t want to give me details about her idea, or asks me to sign an NDA before she will even give me her name: 

9 months ago, I took part in my first Startup Weekend in London (you can read about it here: Startup Weekend London: “It’s the team, stupid”). I pitched a very simple idea, which actually took the form of a question: “If we were inventing the calendar today, what would it look like?”.

I didn’t have the answer but it sounded pretty safe to bet that it wouldn’t look like the terrible, grid-based, paper-inspired apps featuring on the home screen of every single smartphone around the world. Look at your calendar app. Then look at Path. Then look at your calendar app again. And now you know that something needs to happen. That something is going to happen. 

This is the presentation we gave:

Indeed, at that very moment, two teams (that I know of today) were starting to work on the exact same problem - Cue in San Francisco and Sunrise in NYC - and have now released the first version of their apps. Which no doubt will become really amazing after a few iterations. Proving once again that no idea, especially one as simple, obvious and universal as this one, is unique, and that only its execution can be. 

This may be stressful for entrepreneurs but it’s a blessing for consumers: it means that, at any given time, tens of teams around the globe are working on solving your most pressing needs (assuming they are big and universal enough. But if people are building purpose-built rings for thumb wrestling competitions, they will build everything). 

Meet France’s unsung heroes. #RejoignezUneStartup

As my partner Saul Klein said in his recent speech at the European Pirate Summit in Cologne, it feels like Europe is screwed. And France is no exception. But, as he soon pointed out, it doesn’t mean we should be discouraged, but rather, take inspiration from the countless examples of people who have managed to exploit uncertainty and crisis to innovate, challenge the status quo, and build massive businesses in the process.

And, all over Europe, more and more people are doing just that. Investing all of their hard-earned savings (and often their friends and families’) into daring ideas, at a time of almost unprecedented economic uncertainty. Chasing seemingly impossible dreams, much bigger than the wealth they could create for themselves if they happened to succeed. To prove to the world that they are not crazy: that their vision is reasonable and can be achieved, that change is possible. 

Who’s got the guts?

That requires guts. The ability to withstand the pressure and the stress of seeing your bank account edge back to zero, and your professional life back to square one. To bear the weight of guilt that comes with losing your investors, your friends and families’ money. To forget about the flat you could have bought, or the great wedding reception you could have given. Those of you who have ever experienced these feelings of cold rocks in your throat and acid in your stomach that come with it will know what I’m talking about. 

How many among us are ready to take that kind of life-changing risk? Very few. And those who do should be handsomely rewarded when they succeed, cheered up when they fail, and cherished all the way. And the morons who call them parasites or selfish, while living off the taxes they and the jobs they’ve created are paying (French readers will know who I am talking about), deserve nothing else than a cream pie in the face.

Let’s join them

If you want to see what these entrepreneurs look like, more than 50 of them will be holding a big job fair in Paris on Saturday (the 22nd September). Together, their companies will be offering 140 full-time, well-paid jobs, to over 500 candidates. They didn’t wait for anyone’s permission or money: they just decided to get together and do it, within their limited self-sufficient means. Because this is what they do: they put things in motion.

So, if you are a developer or a designer and want to work with the best in the business, while taking a decisive part in these incredible individual and collective adventures, you should apply here: www.rejoignezunestartup.com.

Let’s thank them

Not all of these startups will succeed. Actually most of them will fail. And most of these entrepreneurs will lose a lot: savings, years of hard work without a salary, and, maybe worst of all, the opportunity to realise their dreams. They know it, and still, they are brave and crazy enough to give it a go, and give everything they’ve got. To create services and products they think will make their customers’ life better, creating jobs for themselves and hundreds of others in the process. 

It is all too easy to forget the risk they first took once they have succeeded. To bash them for being selfish when they claim they don’t own their success to anything or anyone but to their hard work, intelligence, and nerves of steel. This may not be entirely true, but they are entitled to think that without their self-starting energy, nothing that we built would exist today. 

Successful or not, those entrepreneurs are heroes, and should be praised as such.