Trocotel : how solving customer dissatisfaction leads to new business
The Trocotel website is an interactive platform created by Etienne Merlo and Jérôme Rouvront, both former employees of the Accor group. We went to interview Etienne Merlo to better understand the motivating factors behind the creation of this website. The idea of Trocotel comes from first-hand experience. These two employees were confronted each day with the dissatisfaction of many customers who had booked at an Accor hotel, but who,...
What’s the marketing secret behind Frank Woolworth’s fortune?
The Woolworth building is one of New-York’s most iconic buildings. Not only was it the tallest building of the world from 1913 until 1930, but it also conveys the history of a brand that has revolutionized retail before going bankrupt. How did retail look like at the time of Frank Woolworth ? Frank Woolworth was a legendary businessman but also a legendary inept salesman. His inability as a salesman is told to have led him draft...
Twinkind went bankrupt : another startup in 3D printing has died
A few years ago we discovered in Berlin a very hot startup : Twinkind. They specialized in 3D printed figurines in a quality never seen before. Their process was based was unique as we explained in this interview of its founder Timo Schaedel. Unfortunately Twinkind filled for bankruptcy in June 2016. The press realease (in German) doesn’t give much detail on the reasons of the failure but our guess is that the market was...
Innovation at VRT : Appiness “Spott” keeps growing
Last week I was invited by the innovation division of VRT (Belgium’s Dutch-speaking public television) for their creative circle III. It consisted in a series of presentations and testing from startups incubated in VRT’s “sandbox” department. Presentations and demos were given by 5 startups : Fisheye, Limecraft, Moovly, Appiness, Kiswe. Buy what you see on TV with the Spott mobile app The demo which very much impressed me was given by...
Fatal errors for startups growth
Fellow betacoworker Toon Vanagt made an impression when presenting on startups growth at Techstartup 2016. The least you can say is that Toon as vast experience in the field of startups (check his latest baby data.be) and a solid sense of humor. He was not afraid to tell the audience about his failures and I found one of them especially interesting : Casius.be. Toon explained how he burned 4m€ of VC cash to build a … 1.8m€ business....
Sharing economy : revenues to be taxed in France
The good thing with the sharing economy is that it has empowered individuals to make money. The bad thing is that governments haven’t been able to take much advantage of those new business models. In France the sharing economy represents a turnover of €2.5bn and a workforce estimated to 13000. Needless to say, it was more than enough to get the attention of governments in desperate need of money since the financial crisis has begun in...
Highlights of one more year of blogging
It’s now been 6 years I’ve regularly posted articles on this blog (some 2100 articles in 3 languages). The design and technical changes we made in 2014 and 2015 were fruitful. The audience increases regularly and since we fixed a cache problem this summer, the French version of the blog is hitting almost systematically the 100k unique users mark on annual basis. The Dutch version of the blog is not doing so good ; despite all my...
The paradox of entrepreneurship : whom do you create your startup for?
Why are there so many startups failing in the first 3 to 5 years ? One of the recurrent explanation is that entrepreneurs don’t understand their market well. Some may suffer from the knowledge corridor, and what is sure is that market research may have helped to avoid failure. My point today is a more philosophical one. We’ll all agree that market research can indeed help find the right strategy and marketing approach. But why is it...
A new way to finance the growth of startups : bonds ! (Part 2)
In part 1, Jean Carvajal explained the various types of crowdfunding available to companies seeking financing, including issuing stocks, bonds and taking out conventional loans. In his opinion, bond financing is a great method as it provides funding flexibility and customisable repayment options without diluting shares. He then explained what unique factors Investbook’s risk committee considers when selecting projects for its...
A new way to finance the growth of startups : bonds ! (Part 1)
The topic of financing startups’ growth is a recurrent one on this blog; simply because it’s a problem that many entrepreneurs are faced with and that they don’t always solve. Today we’re interviewing Jean Carvajal, President and Creator of Investbook. Investbook is the first crowdfunding platform approved by the AMF (French regulatory body) for bonds investments. IntoTheMinds : Banks are cautious. This...
