http://www.laurentk.com about everything, and especially the rest Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:34:43 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en There are two types of social apps. The ones that crave for users, and pursue any option (features, dev, PR, marketing, R&D, acquisition, ...) to get them, and the others, who crave for server power and load balancing to handle the massive flow of new users. ... http://www.laurentk.com/2010/08/finding-the-g-spot/ When I was a kiddo, the type of knowledge and skills assessment I hated the most were MCQs. For subjects that I had most difficulties in, MCQs brought doubt when I had little confidence.As startup founders, we face hundreds of MCQs every week. The following thoughts came up to my mind reading ... http://www.laurentk.com/2010/08/startups-and-multiple-choice-questions/ Ok, excuse the alluring post title, but it seems in this world we live in, that there are two types of entrepreneurship blog posts you read. People giving startup lessons to other people (we did it), and startups guys bragging about how well their startup is going (we did it ... http://www.laurentk.com/2010/07/working-at-a-startups-sucks/ We got into a friendly debate with @bjonathan about biz cards. Some argue it's an unnecessary expense, and I don't agree. It costs $5 bucks to make an intern or employee happy.  Luckily (and it's the case at SubMate), he'll even be proud about what he does, it will be his first ... http://www.laurentk.com/2010/07/you-tech-team-is-also-your-sales-team/ At SubMate, we're blessed with a super cool team of engineers. We got Clément, a killer ruby on rails developer who joined the team last month, and Kevin, a ninja iPhone hacker who joined last week. Both are ultra motivated by our project, and don't count hours. ... http://www.laurentk.com/2010/07/getting-your-tech-team-pumped-up/ Our good friend @Romain_David, the cofounder of BalloonUp (an app that helps conference organizers and companies events improve participation and interaction), wrote a rant about ruby on rails. Romain is a business guy, and his partner in crime is a cool dude called @Pierre Valade, an engineer, real rails ninja with ... http://www.laurentk.com/2010/07/availability-of-talent-avoid-ruby-on-rails/ <!-- Begin MailChimp Signup Form --> <!--[if IE]> <style type="text/css" media="screen"> #mc_embed_signup fieldset {position: relative;} #mc_embed_signup legend {position: absolute; top: -1em; left: .2em;} </style> <![endif]-->  <!--[if IE 7]> <style type="text/css" media="screen"> .mc-field-group {overflow:visible;} </style> <![endif]--> ... http://www.laurentk.com/2010/06/untitled/ In short, I don't pretend to have it. However, SubMate can boast about having had some amazing press, great early feedback, thousands of super active users, tons of requests (partnerships, new cities, recruitments), and tens of thousands of uniques over the first 3 weeks of the service. That didn't arrive magically. We ... http://www.laurentk.com/2010/05/the-art-of-the-perfect-launch/ Yesterday, I pretty much took a day off: my interaction with "the world" was limited to my twitter timeline. I took the opportunity to think about the last two months of SubMate.  Being an entrepreneur is not easy. Nothing new here. Sometimes, a potential partner is not as interested as you'd ... http://www.laurentk.com/2010/05/remember-that-youre-beautiful/ I'm pretty sure you've heard it already, but SubMate has launched! The public beta was announced last week on Thursday at TheNextWeb conference in Amsterdam. It was followed by an incredible weekend of buzz, with articles and interviews all over the place (NBC, BBC, Gotahmist, New York Post, Washington Post, ... http://www.laurentk.com/2010/05/submate-has-launched/