Through the blog of Bruno Giussani I discovered the latest book by Hervé Lebret - teacher at EPFL in Switzerland and manager of INNOGRANTS. The book is about the lessons to be learnt from “the valley” in terms of their start-up culture. Bruno Giussani interviewed the author for his blog; so here is what we Europeans can learn from Silicon Valley:

* It is essential to bet on individuals ready to take risks, ready to face uncertainty; the age of the famous entrepreneurs when they created their start-ups shows that youth is indeed a key ingredient. Passion and dreams have to be the keywords for these people. You can not succeed in a start-up without them. Remember Hegel: “Nothing great on the world has ever been accomplished without passion. Of course mental age is as imporant as real age so you also have mature “young people”.

* Ambition has been missing in Europe. Entrepreneurs are driven by their ego; they are most of the time impossible people because they are focused on a single thing, their success. Betting on ambition is compulsory. Speed is a linked ingredient; and speed requires resources and money; too many entrepreneurs fear venture capital which is essential; talking about “vulture capital” will not help; business is tough… Without feelings of urgency, your competitors succeed. (BG: see also this previous post)

* Innovation requires entrepreneurs and investors who understand each other; there is a virtuous circle of ideas and money which has to be well digested; of course this implies losing control and dilution, but a small piece of a big cake is better than a big piece of nothing. Understanding venture capital is another component of that world; oftentimes, the investors were themselves previously entrepreneurs. And… money may still be seen as a taboo after the speculative fever of the Internet bubble.

* Of course experience is necessary and Europeans may have nice ideas and technologies but seem less capable of developing them. Silicon Valley has many, many Europeans who may be willing to help, mentor the ambitious young entrepreneurs. These should not be mercenaries, but experienced people interested in sharing, helping. Silicon Valley has been known for this openness; networks of people are very efficient in SV such as Indian, Chinese, Taiwanese, Israeli associations and today these people help their native country.

* The main error that Europe and other areas have made is to put in place first an infrastructure (sciences parks, innovation agencies, fiscal, administrative support and so on) whereas Silicon Valley is an ecosystem, i.e. people who interact informally; the culture came before the infrastructure and there is not much you can do about it… infrastructure does not hurt but has too often been seen as the solution, it is a tool only.

* Finally, Silicon Valley is a cluster of people where the fluidity of the exchanges is the major cultural element. When start-ups are about team, team, team, SV is about people, people, people…

Have a great 2008!

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