All posts in RudeVC
On Giving out Equity to Employees in French Startups
One major inconvenience in VC investing in French startups which consistently raises its ugly head is the complexity to incentivize key personnel with equity. I’m not referring to the employees who eschew the upside potential afforded by equity in favor of fixed pay with high job security. While certainly understandable at certain positions in a […]
Rebooting the brain on holiday
I took a short holiday this summer, only one week. I should relativize this: one week falls on the long end for a typical American vacation period, but in Southern Europe taking off for only week in the summer is laughable. Unfortunately, one week was all I could afford given the busiest June and July […]
RudeVC summer reading list 2014
Reader feedback on past editions has prompted me to produce another summer reading list this year. The criteria for reaching this list are not strict, but the guiding principles for the selected books are: i) to have some connection to startups, technology, VC, or Europe; and ii) to not be too heavy or intensely intellectual. […]
Why French startups should consider Far East Asia
When I first arrived in France from Silicon Valley over ten years ago, I regularly received business plans from French startups that were limiting their sights to the French market. The few that spoke about international expansion would have a line in their financial projections for revenue in year 5 from Belgium or francophone Switzerland. […]
There’s no such thing as a free lunch (unless you’re in France)
Years ago wandering the side streets of Leuven, Belgium I stumbled across some graffiti that read, “Franz Ferdinand Found Alive: WW I A Mistake.” I’m not sure if this mischievous street tag represented the original expression (the phrase was often cited and later even titled a chapter in a book by Ned Lebow who revisits […]
Aspiring SaaS converts can learn a lot from Adobe
Selling software on a cloud-based subscription model has become so commonplace these days that new software startups must have a pretty compelling reason if they intend to pursue the traditional approach of perpetual license sales. The cloud model is recurring in nature and thus provides a more predictable revenue stream. In the traditional perpetual license […]