#10: Tamara Brisk

Episode 10 - Tamara Brisk - How to successfully break into the French market

Key take-away points:

• Tamara was experienced in consulting, real estate & startup cultures

• WiredScore was created in NY to highlight high end internet readiness for office space

• French market is largest in EU, third largest in world

• To succeed, it’s critical to study & adapt before jumping in

• Commercial office space is highly centralized in France & well organized

• Challenges remain:  slow hiring process which might hinder growth

• Global clients helped open the market, French clients adopted quickly

After working in France for years, Tamara Brisk was frustrated with her career options in France. So, she moved back to the US to join a cool new startup in San Francisco. Equipped with an MBA from a top-tier US program and a high-end consulting background, she wasn’t afraid of the risks associated with joining a startup the way she had seen in France. Tamara is North American, so shifting gears comes relatively easily to her.

But as exciting and fun as it was living and working in California, there was still a special draw for her to Paris. When the opportunity popped up to lead a hot new startup into the French market, Tamara jumped on it. The new company that would bring her back to Paris was only a few years old, but it fit with her previous experience in the real estate business, only with a tech angle.

The New York based startup, WiredScore, originated from a program started under Mayor Bloomberg, who was looking for something that would be a selling point for businesses in New York City. The point of the project was to provide a ratings certification system for high-end fiber networks in office buildings.  A strong rating would make an office more attractive to global businesses who were looking for office space.

For any company operating in the office space market, France is critical: it’s the largest market in Europe and the third largest in the world. Despite its reputation for being a challenging market for startups, Tamara explains why France is extremely well suited to a company such as WiredScore, and why Paris in particular is so full of opportunity.

Like any smart business person, Tamara thoroughly studied the local market first before launching WiredScore here in Paris. The conditions in France are ripe for adopting this innovative tool, and WiredScore could not have found a better fit for building out the business.

#9: Timothée Rebours

Episode 9 - Timothée Rebours - Seald: Not your father’s encryption product

Key take-aways:

• Formed team with complementary skills during UC Berkeley program

• No interest in working for a large company

• Always loved encryption, sought an easy answer to a serious problem

• More secure for large organizations, consultants, going to the cloud

• Paris makes good business sense thanks to lower costs, BPI & ecosystem

• French businesses are more engaged with startups

• Focused on building base in France, then take abroad

Ten years ago, students often dreamed of hopping into the corporate world following graduation.  It was safe, it was comfortable and that’s just what one did in France.  While it can still make sense for many, more young graduates want to dive straight into the startup world.  Sure it’s tough and there’s not the security blanket of a big company and a big team, but for people like Timothée and his co-founders at Seald.io, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

The idea behind the encryption product was one that started years ago for Timothée.  He always had a strong interest in security and encryption so when he needed to create something for his graduate studies program at UC Berkeley, he thought back to his childhood idea of encrypting his dad’s email messages and the ongoing problem of sensitive data being encrypted.

Another continuous challenge is making it easy.  As a kid, Timothée would explain to his dad the dozens of steps he could take to secure his emails. His father was already interested in the concept, but Timothée knew that all those steps would make it impossible to implement in the corporate world.  

To bring all this together, Timothée joined up with Mehdi Kouhen and Maxime Huber to form the initial team. Each brought something to the table and together they delivered a really nice, easy-to-use encryption solution that protects sensitive data on email and beyond. It’s hard to underestimate the importance of ease-of-use, whether it’s one or even zero-click functionality.  It’s a core focus of the team.

The end result for users is a product that makes it easy to properly encrypt sensitive information that’s being distributed via email, Dropbox, or other tools.  For companies moving sensitive data into the cloud, they too now have a solution to sleep well at night.

Seald.io has enjoyed market success with early-mover accounts in France, where they’re close to customers and have received helpful impact.  Timothée asserted that large French companies are changing and are engaging with startups better than in the past.  This is indeed a welcome sign and we’re thrilled to hear it.

The benefit for Seald.io and the rest of the French tech startup world is that it’s easy to build our your initial product offering with local customers and then take it on the road to other markets.  It’s an enormous expense for startups to have to travel to another country - this means train or plane tickets, hotels, etc - when getting started, money that could be better spent on building out the product and the team.

On the subject of future growth, Timothée gave high marks to BPI and the rapid help they provided.  It’s hard to underestimate the positive impact BPI has had for the startup world.  As for launching in Paris, when San Francisco or London could have been an option in the past, he sees the benefits of setting up in Paris over the rest.  Timothée says that the cost in France is lower for developers and the overall support structures for startups has improved dramatically.

Once the team is comfortable with its initial product, they will explore market expansion, but only after they’ve properly studied and understood those other markets. An unwise decision of jumping in headfirst could be a fatal move, so besides a smart product, the Seald.io team is also making some smart business decisions.

Delivering an easy-to-use encryption product that can protect sensitive data has been a market challenge for years but Seald.io is building a tool that will finally make this a problem of the past.

#7: Edouard Alligand

Episode 7 - Edouard Alligand - Techies are terrible listeners, and other fake news

In 2008, Edouard Alligand decided to make a career change, which is normal for most people at some point in their lives. The problem?  He moved into the banking sector...in 2008. Ouch. That’s a tough market to break into in the best of times and in the worst of times, the transition was difficult.

It was during that time that Edouard noticed that stocks were especially volatile and big money was made and lost because of that volatility. Through talks with customers in the banking market, he noticed that the systems being used could not keep up; so he applied his background in math and system programming to address the issue.

While working with one particular client, he built a new database that was able to run computations on thousands of CPUs.  Making this work would be the difference between financial traders making or losing money, and the stakes were even higher in the wake of the financial crisis.

Out of this chaos, QuasarDB was born. It helped that the initial product was built based on the needs of a client, but Edouard realized that this tool would be useful beyond just that single client, so he raised money, product-ized it and built an early model to sell to others.

Edouard’s story is smart and enjoyable as he walks us through how he leveraged assistance from Business France and IMPACT USA to build out QuasarDB and enter the US market. While Edouard is a very serious person, he also has fun along the way. Launching a startup comes with enough stressful days, so it’s essential to learn how to laugh through them.

Another key point to note is Edouard’s assertion that yes, France has a deep talent base for developing tech products for global customers. That said, the business market in France is lagging behind other countries. It’s an important point and one that we hear from many startups focused on selling to big accounts. French business is too slow moving, they want to build rather than buy and negotiations can be painfully long, if they even work.

For a startup, having prospects who spin their wheels only to not buy anything is a progress-killer. If your early stage startup is trying to build a local market before going elsewhere, it’s a very big risk trying in France compared to engaging with prospects in other markets such as the UK, Scandinavia, or the US. Imagine the possibilities if more local companies here invested in startup technology!

In the case of QuasarDB, they did find local customers but they also learned that prospects elsewhere were more open to new technology companies and engaged with them as a serious partner. Deciding to focus on markets outside of France became an easy decision to make for Edouard.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned here on so many subjects - product creation, listening to customers, obsession with quality, moving to the business to the US, working with an accelerator and more - so you’ll probably want to listen a few times to soak it all in. Edouard has the industry experience as well as proven success, so he’s a wealth of information for all.