tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33524708730843130932024-03-12T21:18:20.057-07:00Arnaud Bertrand, in the eye of the startupArnaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07210879024131230887noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352470873084313093.post-52440668056168896052011-06-12T11:47:00.001-07:002011-06-12T11:47:51.592-07:00Interview in Venture Lab<a href="http://www.venturelab.ch/index.cfm?page=118421&article_id=431">The interview can be read here</a>. It's in German so I can't even read what I said :-)Arnaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07210879024131230887noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352470873084313093.post-72467909890499396562011-05-26T05:18:00.000-07:002011-05-26T05:25:35.194-07:00Interview at eG8I got interviewed by TSR at the eG8 this week in Paris:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xpOkGzuzNaI" width="560"></iframe>Arnaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07210879024131230887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352470873084313093.post-28904625183833783992011-05-26T05:14:00.001-07:002011-05-26T05:14:53.529-07:00An article I wrote for Management Today on the eG8The article can be <a href="http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/opinion/1072053/mt-special-learned-weeks-eg8/">read here</a>.Arnaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07210879024131230887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352470873084313093.post-36097688818878597572011-05-19T07:48:00.000-07:002011-05-26T05:26:21.927-07:00Sarkozy's eG8: why it is a good initiative<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been invited to Sarkozy's eG8 and I'm going. I believe this is an important initiative that goes in the right direction and I think that the many conspiracy theories that start to spark all over the net are simply quite ridiculous.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed, I see that lots of people seem to think that Sarkozy is out to "destroy" the internet by controlling it, reducing freedom of speech, end of net neutrality, etc. This is illustrated in a few articles (like <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/17/fight-back-against-s.html">this one</a> or <a href="http://www.iloubnan.info/technology/actualite/id/61729/titre/Opposition-against-Sarkozy's-%22eG8-forum%22">this one</a>) and an early movement, the "<a href="http://g8internet.com/">G8 vs Internet</a>", that aims at making people "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #202020;">come together and use </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">[their]</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #202020;"> creativity to reject any attempt at turning the Internet into a tool of repression and control".</span> An invitee, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/17/fight-back-against-s.html">Cory Doctorow</a>, has even stated that he won't go because he doesn't want to lend credibility to a "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">whitewash": "</span>I believe it's a whitewash, an attempt to get people who care about the Internet to lend credibility to regimes that are in all-out war with the free, open net".</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my view, this is b*s*. And on many levels:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The <a href="https://accreditation.eg8forum.com/layouts/doc/Program_e-G8_EN.pdf">program of the summit</a> goes completely against these claims</b>. The way I read it, it basically acknowledges that the internet, as is, is a powerful tool for economic growth and for giving back their voices to the people: the summit aims at understanding how to further promote both. I quote: "The Internet has empowered people around the world, most recently and most spectacularly in the Middle East, but also in many other instances. Are we seeing the emergence of a new society: more open, transparent and free?" Why would there be a discussion around that, with so many powerful and influential people participating, if Sarkozy wants to come back and say: "Right, I was kidding, we're actually going to limit freedom on the internet"?</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sarkozy is probably not the best person in the world in terms of PR, but probably not the worst either: it sounds to me that inviting a lot of "credible" internet people (with, by the way, much more "power" over the media than Sarkozy) just for the purpose of manipulating them all in making it look like that agreed with his "evil" plans would be the worst PR strategy ever. Eric Schmidt and Jeff Bezos - both will be present at the summit - are for instance <a href="http://www.concrave.com/content/0080-internet-innovators-join-together-net-neutrality">famous militants for net neutrality</a> and internet freedom: I imagine that <b>if Sarkozy was to make them look like they in fact believe the contrary, they wouldn't exactly give in to that without a fight.</b>.. And, correct me if I am wrong, but if a PR war of that nature erupts between the French government and Amazon & Google joining forces, I am pretty sure Sarkozy would end up having popularity levels in the low single digits...</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This leads me to my third argument: there's a presidential election next year in France and Sarkozy is more than likely to run. Not the best timing to fight freedom and controlling the internet. <b>The French are not exactly famous for liking leaders who reduce their freedom</b> :D</span></li>
</ul><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All in all, I simply don't see any evil plan in this summit. Call me naive but I am in fact quite bullish about the fact that our governments acknowledge the importance of the internet as a factor of growth (as the founder of an internet startup, this is always nice to hear) and want to think around initiative to further encourage that. As a citizen, I am also quite bullish that governments got the message from the fantastic democratic uprisings that happened in those dictatures recently and that they want to jump on the opportunity to promote a worldwide order of freedom and transparency. If the internet could be used in all dictatures the way it's been used in Tunisia, Egypt, etc., that would be the end of dictatures; something we should all strive for. Again, I might be naive, but I think that's what the summit will be all about.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And if, in fact, Sarkozy was indeed trying to control the internet, etc. rest assured that I would try to raise my very modest voice at the summit against it :-)</span></div>Arnaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07210879024131230887noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352470873084313093.post-54469776152562336212011-05-14T09:54:00.000-07:002011-05-16T04:18:17.741-07:00Le Temps articleNice picture of Junjun and I in <a href="http://www.letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/4faf2540-3e03-11e0-9b64-c7463768b85e/Housetrip_vise_50_000_appartements_%C3%83%C2%A0_louer_en_2012">an article on us in Swiss newspaper Le Temps</a>.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7MkJMgw1uuQCfswUCjQvnX0bDW4_ZcDUlKgYpkB5f6sM7YqueWn1_Cfxn6Kc7TBVSpGqwTkSP6Ln-ot0Bnl-CkRECY4RB72zFLRblxaPxTn9e7kNsLi5lFdWP_K3syA6ub0cTVU7imhI/s1600/web_Housetrip+04--469x239.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7MkJMgw1uuQCfswUCjQvnX0bDW4_ZcDUlKgYpkB5f6sM7YqueWn1_Cfxn6Kc7TBVSpGqwTkSP6Ln-ot0Bnl-CkRECY4RB72zFLRblxaPxTn9e7kNsLi5lFdWP_K3syA6ub0cTVU7imhI/s1600/web_Housetrip+04--469x239.jpg" /></a></div>Arnaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07210879024131230887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352470873084313093.post-60045763494558207552011-05-14T09:48:00.000-07:002011-05-14T09:48:33.506-07:00My first Financial Times interviewon being disruptive, article <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cf3f16b4-65de-11e0-baee-00144feab49a.html">here</a>.Arnaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07210879024131230887noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352470873084313093.post-49903564225705557692011-05-14T09:43:00.000-07:002011-05-26T05:27:15.320-07:00The 9 rules to avoid divorce when working with your wife<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-GB">Or – how come I’m still married while being the CEO of a start up…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-GB">Starting a company with your wife can be the best thing in the world or… the worst. In our case (I co-founded HouseTrip with my wife Junjun), we’re lucky, it’s great. But that’s because we try to follow a set of pretty defined rules:</span></div><br />
<ol><li><span lang="EN-GB">Define your respective expertise</span></li>
<ul><li>I am good (well, hope I am) at being CEO and Junjun is good at being CFO. We respect each other’s territory and do not question – much – the other’s decisions in their area of expertise.</li>
</ul><li>Clear cut division between work and personal life</li>
<ul><li>Every evening there is a point when we tell each others "no HouseTrip anymore" and literally will stop any mention or thoughts about HouseTrip. Being constantly "at work" is perhaps the sneakiest danger to avoid.</li>
</ul><li>Do not question each others in public</li>
<ul><li>Because you want to show a "united front" to the world and also because being questioned in public is generally not well received by the questioned party...<a name='more'></a></li>
</ul><li>One person needs to have the last word on strategic decisions</li>
<ul><li>Being hierarchically at the same level is a utopia and a recipe for immobilism and arguments; someone needs to take the lead.</li>
</ul><li>Remain professional in the workplace</li>
<ul><li>Would be quite traumatizing to our employees if their 2 bosses kept cuddling each others at the office :-)</li>
</ul><li>Have a similar level of commitment to your work</li>
<ul><li>It can't work if someone is taking it easier than the other.</li>
</ul><li>No jealousy nor competition</li>
<ul><li>We are both working towards a greater goal: being jealous of each others' successes is not only unhelpful but also destructive to the company. We want each others to succeed professionally because that's good for both of us.</li>
</ul><li>Be very honest with each others</li>
<ul><li>If there is one competitive advantage that couples have over other founders is the depth of knowledge we have on each others and the level of truthfulness we can have with each others. Junjun knows me extremely well and therefore knows where I need to improve: trust me, she is not afraid of telling it to me straight!</li>
</ul><li>Have a clear shared vision</li>
<ul><li>Managing a startup means many sacrifices: we need to know why we make them and strongly believe they're worth it!</li>
</ul></ol>Arnaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07210879024131230887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352470873084313093.post-23421879421433939802011-04-12T05:34:00.000-07:002011-05-26T05:27:39.828-07:00My journey so far<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The idea</span></b><br />
<div class="p1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Junjun and I <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 20px;">came up with the idea of </span>HouseTrip while in our 4th year of study at the <a href="http://www.ehl.edu/">École Hôtelière de Lausanne</a> (EHL) – the world’s foremost hospitality management school – based in Switzerland. We both had strong entrepreneurial DNAs (our respective parents being entrepreneurs, hers in China and mine in France) and we were both full of energy and ambition. W<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 20px;">e knew that after graduation would be the perfect time to launch our company, we had nothing to loose:</span> we had no money, no children, no possessions, literally nothing to loose. </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLnRQRd9ghQ7FEO-rb10fncd7yzhP8ms6bkj0w4gw7AkHBqE-Et_Jsc9kdez_2X4zOz3vrvxsCUK7bh9u4WaZvdN892TnCz1OFyNETcM9kYIirUgSGPjFeGLuU07tENM_LqBukegjpECg/s1600/+Al+gore+Junjun+and+I.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLnRQRd9ghQ7FEO-rb10fncd7yzhP8ms6bkj0w4gw7AkHBqE-Et_Jsc9kdez_2X4zOz3vrvxsCUK7bh9u4WaZvdN892TnCz1OFyNETcM9kYIirUgSGPjFeGLuU07tENM_LqBukegjpECg/s400/+Al+gore+Junjun+and+I.jpg" width="377" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Al Gore serving coffee to Junjun and I in Lausanne :-)</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At that point, we had also understood something else: we really didn't want to work in hotels. We found the hotel industry way too conservative for our tastes. This could be seen at EHL: </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the strict dress code (suit & tie, short hear, no beard, etc.), the antiquated classes on "savoir vivre" and the generally stiff behaviour expected from luxury hotels workers. The hotel industry is incredibly static: the most exciting things that were happening were new hotel brands like W or Malmaison, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">really not that much to get excited about...</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We stumbled upon the holiday rentals industry a bit randomly: we were both doing an internship in London and decided to travel to Scotland for Easter 2007. We had both heard about Scottish Bed & Breakfasts and decided to try and book one. To do so, I did what most modern travellers do: I typed "B&B Scotland" in Google. Used to booking hotels online, I naturally tried to find a website where I could do so for B&Bs. I looked for hours and just couldn't find one. I was puzzled. I researched a bit further and to my absolute astonishment I found out that, around the world, holiday rentals and bed & breakfasts could not be booked online!!! You know the Churchill sentence that says "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;">A <em style="font-style: normal;">pessimist</em> sees the difficulty in every <em style="font-style: normal;">opportunity</em>; an <em style="font-style: normal;">optimist</em> sees the <em style="font-style: normal;">opportunity</em> in every difficulty": naturally optimistic, I was faced with the difficulty of booking my holiday and I just saw the opportunity. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2yHGses64bQS47PCFdIkqnZpWlI_1NR1yDYT2v3Ebt_NEnBB_Nl2CLS68aOZYzB3MQ_lP_BGNLm3oFS_BD_gBXm5EfVNesyWm2KQBqwHYew92lGyJQvTigcZgLrXduWY7w7PJHmpmvp0/s1600/Junjun+and+I+Scotland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2yHGses64bQS47PCFdIkqnZpWlI_1NR1yDYT2v3Ebt_NEnBB_Nl2CLS68aOZYzB3MQ_lP_BGNLm3oFS_BD_gBXm5EfVNesyWm2KQBqwHYew92lGyJQvTigcZgLrXduWY7w7PJHmpmvp0/s400/Junjun+and+I+Scotland.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Junjun and I in Edinburgh during the trip that sparked the HouseTrip idea</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Obviously at EHL we had learned a lot on how hotels are distributed online: how each hotel keeps its availability up-to-date on a Property Management System that's connected with Global Distribution Systems on which travel booking websites like Expedia or eBookers connect to sell hotel inventory.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">None of that existed in the holiday rentals industry! Availability was kept off-line and, when rentals were sold online, it was through classified ads websites; so the actual booking was never done online. Concretely in my case, I used <a href="http://guide.visitscotland.com/vs/scout/accs/5,en,SCH1,1359/waitCount,1/result.html;jsessionid=0a0202875bcd686bce067cb04eecae2aa807401b7c75.e38Mc30Oc3iLb40LbhmQbNuMaxiLe0?accsearch.x=56&topNav=1&rls_chd=false&jse=1&langId=en&r=RGN100vs&an=&accsearch.y=22&sbe=0&ac=acc_babguest&rls=Argyll%2C+the+Isles%2C+Loch+Lomond%2C+Stirling+and+Trossachs&mf_chd=0&gra=&season=at1&ref=5&accsearch=accsearch&proxSrchDistSelect=prox_10m&startRegion=Argyll%2C+the+Isles%2C+Loch+Lomond%2C+Stirling+and+Trossachs&curr=GBP&ralt=RGN20vs">visitscotland.com's classifieds</a>, called the owners of about 10 B&Bs until I finally found one that was available for our dates. I had checked availability manually through the phone: so inefficient! I also had to go to a local Western Union agency to send my payment to the B&B: lost 2 hours for that when paying for a hotel is of course immediate online. It was also rather dangerous: who told me that the B&B actually existed or that the person who had received my Western Union money was its real owner? Sending money directly to the owner versus using an intermediate like Expedia or eBookers for hotels is actually very unsafe and the reason for so many scams every year in the holiday rentals industry. All in all, it had taken me 2 whole days to make an unsafe booking.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We had found our opportunity!!! We could not believe it: such a big industry (holiday rentals is a $85B industry in Europe and the US alone) that's so riddled with inefficiencies and problems, such a chance! And with what we had learned about hotels during our studies, we had a pretty good framework for solving a lot of it! Also, launching an internet startup was something extremely exciting for us, we were looking for an innovative field and we had it.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The early days</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">January 2009, graduation! And finally full time on HouseTrip! </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our first big challenge was to actually synthesise the idea in a business plan. Getting the idea right is not easy. We only discovered it a few months later but Junjun and I had fallen in the most common (and dangerous) entrepreneurs' trap --> lack of focus. We thought the simple idea of bringing holiday rentals' bookings online was not clever enough, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 20px;">it was too simple, it sounded like there wasn't enough differentiation.</span> We felt we had to add a little spice. And we did: we absolutely packed the initial - good - idea with uncalled-for additions. This was not Seth Godin's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Meatball-Sundae-Your-Marketing-Sync/dp/1591841747">meatball sundae</a> but rather an ice cream with meatball toppings. We had:</span><br />
<ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An auction system: we thought it'd be cool to allow holiday rentals owners to auction stays in their place</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A "groups" feature: allowing anyone to create a group (for instance the "Golf lovers" group), interact within the group, attach or remove rentals from the group, etc.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Discussion boards on each property profile</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A social layer: each HouseTrip user had a profile, could have friends, send private messages, etc.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so on and so on...</span></li>
</ul><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9h17NdwrE6dJAK4eq8ja78CS4Sx6t9elAS513b_uHzUUR24DTum6u1dSoh09zoCKonQRaMqdjQIbgDYWUAZ8loLNngCtdMXotU4R1pWMMbWEC_Yok3vtmYFyGL7QI14ikuJ0bTctiW5U/s1600/Auction+box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9h17NdwrE6dJAK4eq8ja78CS4Sx6t9elAS513b_uHzUUR24DTum6u1dSoh09zoCKonQRaMqdjQIbgDYWUAZ8loLNngCtdMXotU4R1pWMMbWEC_Yok3vtmYFyGL7QI14ikuJ0bTctiW5U/s400/Auction+box.jpg" width="336" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A screenshot of the "Auctions" tab on the old HouseTrip property pages</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 20px;">So we did a business plan based on on all of the above</span> and off we went trying to raise money and recruit a team. We were rapidly faced with our first chicken and egg question: we needed money to gather the team but no-one wanted to invest in us if we didn't have a team in place (let alone invest in us with that monster of a business plan). The way we solved the problem was as follow:</span><br />
<ol><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We got verbal commitment from 3 investors that they would invest if we managed to get the right development team for the website. These 3 investors were 2 classmates/friends of ours and Uli Pillau, a hospitality industry insider whom we had met in a conference in Austin, Texas (yes we went all the way to Texas to raise money!). To be fair, I think the 3 of them were more convinced by us as people than by the actual idea (and this is actually the way one should invest at the very seed stage: always invest on people and not on ideas).</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With that commitment, we managed to get Stephan Wiesener on board who would act as the company's CTO to develop the website. Stephan had been co-founder & CTO of an VC-backed internet company before (Conject, about 170 employees) so he knew what he was doing. In addition to promising Stephan a salary from the investment, we also gave him some shares of the company. Finding Stephan was particularly difficult</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We won Swiss entrepreneurship competition <a href="http://www.venturekick.ch/">VentureKick</a>. That, combined with the fact that Stephan was onboard, gave us enough momentum to convince the investors to wire the money to our account.</span></li>
</ol><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the 3rd of June 2009, the company was created! We had a total of CHF230'000 in our account, enough to pay Stephan, the developers and the designers to complete the website. The day of the creation of the company was probably one of the happiest days of my life.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qjI_-OcWkKnuG1UujWFV6Cf48ZfCvHflcrWBcHxinDto9M2XS7XY1X78MPybixQyJ97au4gyeJL5Le_4FsXwW-I9dLAeWVJ_woored3uKE1sC2BFwPEujyddpMxqpDep5eCmmI3ufw8/s1600/The+team+in+Baron+Tavernier.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5qjI_-OcWkKnuG1UujWFV6Cf48ZfCvHflcrWBcHxinDto9M2XS7XY1X78MPybixQyJ97au4gyeJL5Le_4FsXwW-I9dLAeWVJ_woored3uKE1sC2BFwPEujyddpMxqpDep5eCmmI3ufw8/s400/The+team+in+Baron+Tavernier.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The HouseTrip team at the time of the first launch. Startup life is not for everyone: 1 year after, only Junjun and I remain in the team.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>First launch, first shock with reality</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First time entrepreneurs are classically overpowered by their vision. I have met so many entrepreneurs who have a great vision but who find it impossible to plan the execution of that vision. Executing takes many steps and each steps needs to take into customer feedback into account - this means the vision needs to evolve as the project goes forward. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That was our mistake: we wanted the complete vision to be achieved at launch. A typical example was auctions: could have been a cool feature when you think about it but certainly not something that should have been included in the product at launch. It simply couldn't have worked: for an auction system to work for us, we needed at least 2 people willing to bid for a stay for the same dates at the same place at the same time... which means that we would have needed a massive amount of traffic... which of course no newly launched website ever has.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Needless to mention, when we launched our "mother of all websites" for the first time in September 2009, the public's response didn't meet our expectations. 3 months after having so cheered-up creating the company, we were having a very difficult time. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Something to remember is that we were all working from our living room. This means that for Junjun and I, there was not much work-life balance. Whenever the mood was not good at work, it wasn't very good at home neither; because work was home :-)</span><br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="314" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Route+de+Cugy+40,+Le+Mont-sur-Lausanne,+Suisse&layer=c&sll=46.564935,6.634162&cbp=13,92.9,,0,-2.4&cbll=46.564966,6.633808&hl=en&sspn=0.006295,0.006295&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Route+de+Cugy+40,+1052+Le+Mont-sur-Lausanne,+Lausanne,+Vaud,+Switzerland&panoid=4e_McZrml42ZhxeI_QqXAw&ll=46.556691,6.638489&spn=0.018532,0.048237&z=14&source=embed&output=svembed" width="562"></iframe><br />
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<tr></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We started HouseTrip in the living room of that house. We worked there during a whole year. </td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Lesson well-learned: focus!</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In November 2009, after a few weeks of poor performance of the website despite everything we were doing, I decided to take radical measures. The 3 main ones: </span><br />
<ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I fired our design agency and I learned how to use Photoshop: I was finding it extremely frustrating to be dependent of an agency that was producing bad designs</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cut the fat: I decided to reduce the website to its strict minimum --> letting users search and book places. That's it.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Focusing on one-and-only-one acquisition method for each hosts and guests (simply chose the one that was working best for each)</span></li>
</ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It took me about a week to learn Photoshop and about 3 weeks to redesign every page of the website. It then took the developers another few weeks to implement the changes on the website. We re-launched the website on the 15th of January 2010.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The old design:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYzKig8KQSfGkCylRu4xit1_n4kMqXq0mQJTVTJZQ8E6F3NGY0kqYMHcu5UIO2yI_gMpTWwRSXKhgR75pRb_wQSUszApSfF3QvH7s3kkbbmHyW_QNWb9xVg-g-8EkQFQWiJ_yDDdBeps/s1600/old+PPP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYzKig8KQSfGkCylRu4xit1_n4kMqXq0mQJTVTJZQ8E6F3NGY0kqYMHcu5UIO2yI_gMpTWwRSXKhgR75pRb_wQSUszApSfF3QvH7s3kkbbmHyW_QNWb9xVg-g-8EkQFQWiJ_yDDdBeps/s400/old+PPP.jpg" width="370" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> After my re-design:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqR3oD5-PGu_ovW7hZda_JfJclFqMqP-6rXmi5Y4V-UAWFehfIZWdqhBArqYYVdo-psmEmifCknG1MlsKLzi1CpapYdKcrgDjMJCAL25htYoI8Dm2BTgh90j4JMcsRg2iFf1Pk5_NXpEQ/s1600/new-PPP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqR3oD5-PGu_ovW7hZda_JfJclFqMqP-6rXmi5Y4V-UAWFehfIZWdqhBArqYYVdo-psmEmifCknG1MlsKLzi1CpapYdKcrgDjMJCAL25htYoI8Dm2BTgh90j4JMcsRg2iFf1Pk5_NXpEQ/s400/new-PPP.jpg" width="352" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>It works!</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2010 was our shot at gathering our "proof of concept" with our newly re-designed website. We've always had in mind that we wanted to have a Venture Capital investment at some point and we knew that, if we wanted to have one, we needed a solid proof of concept, impressive growth, well defined metrics and a strong plan to scale. We had enough money to prove that in 2010 (since our original CHF230k investment, we had raised another CHF600k). And we did: </span><br />
<br />
<ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We averaged about 25% growth month on month during the whole year, which means the concept clearly worked</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We defined clearly core metrics such as costs per acquisition, conversion funnel, etc.</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We had a very solid plan on how to sustain and even accelerate the growth</span></li>
</ul><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXPTI969oiOmlU1UWVF00Bb91dhau3mwVkIlAeiWvXwNxpOnIsobQ__7012HucaanooZk5hN8HwY1nYvMnbo0GsCcIgiOaMksh_uluANm5mjsEAP-X2FelPn1d0EaND25c9Aip0_9LFzY/s1600/Daily+turnover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXPTI969oiOmlU1UWVF00Bb91dhau3mwVkIlAeiWvXwNxpOnIsobQ__7012HucaanooZk5hN8HwY1nYvMnbo0GsCcIgiOaMksh_uluANm5mjsEAP-X2FelPn1d0EaND25c9Aip0_9LFzY/s400/Daily+turnover.jpg" width="391" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The evolution of our daily turnover from January to September 2010</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>VC investment, revolution-evolution</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I kicked the search for a VC funding at the beginning of summer 2010. The way I approached it was very simple: I sent emails to contacts I had gathered at 10 interesting potential investors. Out of these I pitched to 8 and 6 made an offer.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We didn't take the best offer in terms of numbers but we took the offer from the investors which we thought would add the most value, Index Ventures. As Neil Rimer (now on our board) puts it, "Index doesn't compete on price, we compete on value"; the deal was still very good and we couldn't have been happier with it. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwNM1Hs44b3521jooUmHZiBelLgddatKHtIDr3TdrbOgmQRqhKlr_RIJS4GxXmi5_1cZfui0b-LZvrXGaf1I_bwh_Hh8Nv1eZIusUOK-lLXG6UCEtg8LJHrRJ_AIqlugSMpfUsVpiJ0YQ/s1600/Index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwNM1Hs44b3521jooUmHZiBelLgddatKHtIDr3TdrbOgmQRqhKlr_RIJS4GxXmi5_1cZfui0b-LZvrXGaf1I_bwh_Hh8Nv1eZIusUOK-lLXG6UCEtg8LJHrRJ_AIqlugSMpfUsVpiJ0YQ/s1600/Index.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In between the moment we signed the term sheet and the moment we had money on the account, it took about 3 months. As CEO, the process took about 50% of my time (due diligence, gathering signatures from shareholders, etc.) during that period. This was a somehow stressful period: not only because due diligence is inherently worrying but also because I had to keep doing everything that had made me work 15 hours a day for the past year. Namely: designing the website, managing the developers, all performance marketing, managing the team, all the legal stuff, PR, recruitment, helping on customer service, etc. I wasn't</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> getting much sleep during that period :-)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also rather stressful during that period: when I pitched to Index for the first time, the team was composed of the 5 people pictured above (although Stephan was only part-time). By the time we received the money on the account, we were still 5 people but only Junjun and I remained from the "initial 5". The reasons behind this desertion are different for each person and probably the subject of another blog post. The point is... it was stressful :)</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">November 2010: we have money on the account, now it's time to scale! We had 3 very short term goals at the end of last year:</span><br />
<br />
<ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Redo the HouseTrip branding</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recruit a great design team to re-design the website based on the new branding</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Find an excellent COO</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Delegate the customer service from the HouseTrip management team to dedicated customer service agents</span></li>
</ul><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In consideration of the above 3 goals, it looked increasingly difficult to justify doing everything from Lausanne. Not only Lausanne is not famous for being a hub for Internet/eCommerce talents (and it isn't) but also it probably has the world's highest salary levels. A customer service agent needs to be paid an astounding $6'000 a month there!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our will to hire <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidnorris">David Norris</a> as our new COO finally convinced us that we had to open a London branch. David had the perfect profile: he used to run eCommerce Operations at Expedia and was COO of LiveBookings (a marketplace for restaurants bookings) when we started talking. Having a London office not only meant that we could get him onboard but also that we would have access to Europe's largest Internet talent pool. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 20px;">We decided to go for it and opened our branch in Wardour Street in Soho at the b</span>eginning of 2011.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lisbon was also a no-brainer: we needed to hire customer service agents but we knew we could not sustainably do so in Lausanne. By the time we also had Vanessa onboard who was a Portuguese citizen heading our customer service from Lausanne. We offered her to run a newly constituted customer service team in Lisbon and she agreed.</span></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVERAB36fird7KaMdWwUyx3RW57-vfOjYy2lLiuqoD_aTLaiVJR8KYVFZKj-HxdaculJGv64lZ7D4KYXKrTN6oZBMtbYbGn9J7agGMAXLhtZNGQ1pUsuMEhgPwSZUTekUEPWCTKA1sXUc/s1600/Offices.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVERAB36fird7KaMdWwUyx3RW57-vfOjYy2lLiuqoD_aTLaiVJR8KYVFZKj-HxdaculJGv64lZ7D4KYXKrTN6oZBMtbYbGn9J7agGMAXLhtZNGQ1pUsuMEhgPwSZUTekUEPWCTKA1sXUc/s400/Offices.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our 3 offices</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We had kicked off the rebranding project with an agency in December and started in January to look hard for 2 designers who could re-design the website in-house from London. We eventually found them (Anders and Rachel) and they started work in mid-February.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Now</span></b> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A mere 5 months after Index came onboard, we now have 3 offices, a staff of 25, a re-designed website and have tripled the company's revenue since the investment. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are still far away from achieving our ultimate vision - holiday rentals, bookable online, everywhere - but are getting closer to it every single day.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRaEOWut8VB6YE0lWyEzruPvI4AMIYzh_U3h_wd0ysHBQZBuAaTN2w9-jSpX3e-Y8SfD99mUITf6ZNSJD7lb-82eJCkzIhwcH8DK7Ou0SnAZDzk_bbGPYbx-Sw9EqIeZuUufkxUdLL0Z4/s1600/Homepage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRaEOWut8VB6YE0lWyEzruPvI4AMIYzh_U3h_wd0ysHBQZBuAaTN2w9-jSpX3e-Y8SfD99mUITf6ZNSJD7lb-82eJCkzIhwcH8DK7Ou0SnAZDzk_bbGPYbx-Sw9EqIeZuUufkxUdLL0Z4/s400/Homepage.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The new HouseTrip homepage</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>Arnaudhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07210879024131230887noreply@blogger.com2