Boom, it’s done.
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Archive for the 'mental bites' Category
One way ticket for Paris |
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5 years in 5 blocks |
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As I was walking back home from lower east side tonight, it hit me. Passing by Max Fish, Piano, Orchard, Stanton, Avenue A, Rivington, the homeless on 7th and A, the punks on St Marks and A, I realized:
I’m leaving new york. Boom, in 10 days I’m gone.
Wow, with all the troubles renting my apartment, preparing my move, my departure from Air France, my plans for the coming months and calculations reg. my budget, I guess I didn’t realize what was about to happen: I’m leaving New York, the city I love, the city I dreamed to live in as a kid, the city I’ve lived the longest time in since I work, …
5 years just flew by, and walking home tonight, I saw myself at every intersection of my life in New York. 5 years, 260 weeks, as much time coasting down Avenue A or B, Stanton, Ludlow, Allen, Rivington. As an intern, young and dumb, as an employee, heart broken, joyful, in love, sad, with a camera, with friends, with dreams, without. 5 years.
The wine might make this post sound quite tacky and cheesy, but this is my second-to-last week end in New York, and it just hit me now. This is gonna be tough…
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Business ideas are a dime a dozen |
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Business ideas are a dime a dozen
Pamela Slim in this interview with Guy Kawasaki.
I said it in the past, and any accomplished entrepreneur (like Charlie O’Donnell here about YouDeparted) will say the same. It’s all about execution - and risk.
Yesterday, I took a first step in that direction. Many of my friends told me they admired the risk I’m taking, and that they would love to do the same, but have no ideas.
Imagine if someone told you “Hey! Let’s build Notre-Dame de Paris in LEGOs!”. Nothing new there. However, the result is stunning (see the picture above). And is exposed for hundreds to see at the Lego World in Cologne.
That’s execution and marketing. The idea was worthless without them.
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The first day of the rest of my life |
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Like everyone with an entrepreneurial spirit, I’ve had many business ideas.
The one I pushed the further until CabEasy was SubMate. Saddly, SubMate didn’t fly. It didn’t fly for many reasons, but the main one is that I didn’t commit full time on it, keeping my day job and trying to pursue my project (development, fund raising, marketing and PR, …) on evenings and week ends.
I’m not doing this mistake again.
Today, at noon, I tendered my letter of resignation. From now on and for the next few months, I will work full time on CabEasy. With the little money I have aside, I will work my a** off on three things: product, partnerships, money. In pretty much that order. Product will lead to partnerships, and partnerships will legitimate the project.
Wish me luck - I feel like jumping off a plane, without parachute, by night, over a desert, without water. But I’m confident that CabEasy has a real potential, and I’m determined to listen to my users and partners to make it a huge success. Stay tuned, big ideas coming!
And if by fall I haven’t pushed three major updates of the site for three different potential types of customers, I will update my resume and get on Path101 for some career and job hunting tips ;)
See you soon - in a cab!
[photo credits: Jumping ...., by JPhilipson]
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The world is not enough |
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I was writing recently about OLX and am happy to congratulate Fabrice on his new funding round.
However, half of the comments are bashing OLX and/or the founders, Fabrice Grinda and Alec Oxenfofd. And part of the substance of the negative comments was “You’re not big in the US”.
Big news guys: global internet population might be close to 1.6 billion nowadays and North America (where Craigslist is strong) only accounts for 248M users, about 15% of 1.6 billion. If something is not big in the US, if something is not covered by TechCrunch, it might be big anyways…
And in another flash news: the “World Series” aren’t really worldwide… ;)
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FrogVentures needs you! |
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A great initiative from Jean Carl Cohen, founder of Capital Booster and managing director of Shagya Capital: Frog Ventures, an early stage fund that Jean Carl is trying to launch in Europe.
The aim is to gather up to 100 business angels in this first fund and then invest up to €30K in early stage European startups.
The process would be similar to the YCombinator process.
If you’ve ever been tempted to invest in startups but were afraid of doing it on your own, this is a unique opportunity to join seasoned and experienced investors while keeping the risk and the entry ticket low: the minimum participation is €2.5K!
So get in touch with Jean Carl if you want to know more!
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Career evolution in advertising simplified |
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Want to work in advertising? Check out this career evolution paths by WorkForFood! ;)
The software logos are for Dreamweaver, Flash, Ilustrator, Photoshop, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF and of course Champagne!!
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Wordpress Update… |
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I just updated my blog from an old wordpress to Wordpress 2.7.1. Seamless on Dreamhost, I’m quite surprised (especially due to the number of tweaks I have done…). Let me know if anything is broken!
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Flickr is Dead |
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… or not.
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I was recently speaking with a friend about how Flickr was an amazing tool. I have been using it for years now. I love the ease of upload through the Flicrk Uploader, the flexibility of the API, the feeds for tags/sets/collections/….
However, I was also saying that for my last trip in India, I uploaded my pictures on Facebook and a specific site I did for the trip. But almost none on Flickr.
And I was arguing that on Facebook, pictures get a second life. Yes, you can comment pictures on Flickr, but that’s all. On Facebook, you tag your friends, they are notified, their friends see the new pictures, you can comment the pictures and your comment will be in your news feed, … and your pictures live longer. Numbers are here to prove it: Facebook hosts more than 15 billion pictures, as Flickr only hosts 3.4.
I was advocating for a more social use of Flickr, which hadn’t come to surface yet. Imagine if you could tag your Facebook friends no Flickr. You would benefit both from the Flickr interface and platform (dedicated to make sharing pictures online better) and your Facebook social graph.
And BOOM! Last week I read about Polar Rose and tried it this morning: powerful and great service that does exactly that. The seamless integration of Facebook Connect and Flickr Authentication makes it a brease to connect your account to your flickr pictures and facebook frends. Then Polar Rose finds faces in your pics and your can tag them.
Works pretty fine, see the screenshot below of the interface: it recognizes my father and a friend - impressive, no? I then pushes back the tags to Flickr (see 3rd screenshot). Continue reading ‘Flickr is Dead’
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What if …? Gmail vs Facebook vs Twitter |
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Some random free-thinking this morning…
Gmail Labs introduced the “Sender time zone” into Gmail. It displays in which timezone the person who sent you an email is, and if you should/could call or not.
Nothing fancy, just useful.
Useful - that’s what Gmail is about, and has always been for its now 110M+ user base. And since the introduction of Labs and Gadgets, if became even more powerful. For instance, you can now share emails with embedded YouTube videos or Flickr images. You now have a full twitter client inside Gmail with TwitterGadget. You can also have Google docs right inside your sidebar. In the side bar too, Google Calendar, with private or public events. And so on.
Add to all of this the voice+video chat, that allows seamlessly to share files, videos, images, and chat one-to-one or one-to-many, and you have many ingredients for a successful social network.
Finally, Gmail status. Poorly implemented today, but it could be very powerful, and when you think about it, it’s not far from the Facebook status updates (commenting, and easier posting). Add search, which is not where Google lacks knowhow, and Boom! you have a twitter.
Would people use Gmail as they would use Twitter or Facebook? Probably not. Gmail is for emailing. Facebook to exchange pictures, videos, updates and messages with friends. Twitter for crowd-messaging.
But could they? Definitely.
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