I was recently reading a very interesting post by Fabrice Grinda on Venture Capital in 2015. In this article he outlines what constitutes a good tech ecosystem:

  • Entrepreneurs
  • Angels
  • Venture Capitalists
  • Private Equity Firms
  • Exits through M&A or IPO

It's mostly from a financial perspective but hey, that's what counts. I believe the most important are the first one (Entrepreneurs) and the last one (Exits). Because if you have both, all the investors in between will take notice and attract more money to put in start-ups.

In France, we now have a good supply of entrepreneurs. But the last part (exits) is the big remaining hurdle, as is still too rare. Large, established French companies still think of innovation as a 3-weeks workshop you do with a consulting firm. But they won't put their cash on the table.

But there are other aspects than financial ones in a healthy start-up ecosystem. One part that is often overlooked, especially outside of the US, is the role of the media, especially in "hyping up" consumer products.

When has French media ever done something like that? The only entrepreneurs we see on TV are the one who created companies 10+ years ago like Free, Vente-Privée, Price Minister or Meetic, and they're already successful. The sad thing is that they do talk a lot about US startups like Snapchat, Instagram, Tinder or Uber.

I'm starting to think that startups need a law like the one forcing Movie theaters and TV channels to broadcast a certain minimum amount of French movies in their programs. But that would be stupid because the last thing we need is more laws!