Global Innovation

In full disclosure, my firm is an investor in AllPeers. I have accepted Matt’s invitation to share my thoughts and to take the opportunity to encourage innovation and risk, both of which are dear to me as a venture capitalist.

Taking a step back from the stress of the current product launch, it has occurred to me how truly global Allpeers already is. With French and American founders, living and operating in Prague, the company epitomizes global entrepreneurship, where skills, drive and ambition are the key ingredients and not geographic location. As the Internet continues its spectacular growth, companies with a DNA which allows them to openly consider global strategies will prevail. Being US centric will no longer suffice.

Interest for the product has also come from around the globe as more than 50.000 people have signed up for the beta – a few years ago this would have sounded like madness! This is indeed further proof that the early adopter community has become borderless and is slowly become less American, something which is probably in the long term interest of innovation and global competitiveness.

That great ideas can be born in Europe is undeniable, implementation and marketing have long been its Achilles heel. In the current frenzy surrounding consumer startups so visible in the US and in China, I can only encourage people to take a serious look at what Europe has to offer. Good things are happening.

Of course, users will be the ultimate judge, so judge on…

Bookmark to:

9 Comments »

1. Who’s this American you refer to?

   Comment by Matt — 4/26/2006 @ 9:47 pm

2. Beeing an European, it’s a nice read but still, Europe lacks the VC culture and favour. It’s not ready for knowledge-based economy, or is it?

   Comment by funTomas — 4/27/2006 @ 11:26 am

3. What’s VC culture?

   Comment by GG — 4/27/2006 @ 12:22 pm

4. Entrepreneurship and its eco-system are more present than ever in Europe today. My sense is that we have reached a situation where 1)entrepreneurs believe they can successfully launch, manage and sell companies from Europe and 2) the venture capital community is beginning to have enough serious players to make the difference.
   While it is impossible to compare our situation to that of the US, there is good reason to believe that we are now building an entrepreneur eco-system on solid grounds.

   Comment by Mark Tluszcz — 4/27/2006 @ 2:59 pm

5. Umair Haque had some controversial things to say recently about innovation in Europe. As usual he’s a bit over the top, but he makes an important point: Europe has a lot to offer entrepreneurs when compared to the U.S. Mark hits the nail on the head when he says that marketing has been the stumbling block for European startups in the past. Now that the internet has made getting the word out so much easier (and cheaper!), Europe’s strengths are finally starting to shine through.

   Comment by Matt — 4/28/2006 @ 1:28 pm

6. Has Allpeers truly emerged globlay? Its good to hear that 50000 people has already signed up beta.But can u explain what is the VC culture? Ya consumer is the king no doubt about that. Let us be clear first and then we will pass the judgement.

   Comment by danny — 5/1/2006 @ 7:38 am

7. “That great ideas can be born in Europe is undeniable, implementation and marketing have long been its Achilles heel.”

   In my personal experience the achilles heel is not implementation or marketing, it’s raising finance of any form other than personal loans. And if it’s for a product or service that’s already launched, already has customers and is already profitable, then raising funding is nigh-on impossible.

   Comment by tom gordon — 5/2/2006 @ 1:12 pm

8. Of course AllPeers has not emerged Globally - that will only happen when millions of users from around the world are using the product on a daily basis. The point of my comment was that Allpeers has an international feel and culture about it, which in my opinion gives them a leg up in the deployment of their non US centric strategy.

   Comment by Mark Tluszcz — 5/2/2006 @ 4:14 pm

9. Tom’s point about financing being a problem for young European companies is of course absolutely on the money. European focussed venture capitalist or others providing early stage funding have traditionally been somewhat risk averse to say the least and the Internet bubble has not helped. My sense though is that the European venture capital scene has emerged from the bubble stronger than before and counts today about 30 serious investors, all of whom are willing to look at serious businesses. Such players include Wellington Partners in Germany and Nauta Capital in Spain.

   Comment by Mark Tluszcz — 5/2/2006 @ 4:25 pm

Trackback URL RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>