Meeting with John Bautista

John Bautista met us at the office of Orrick in the Silicon Valley.

We remind you that Orrick is the 5^th largest US law firm in France. Orrick is specialized in M&A. The company works with around 600 companies, almost with start-up beginning at Day 1. They help them to raise capital and develop.

 

For example, they have been working with companies such as :

-         Facebook,

-         Second Life,

-         The re financing of Eurotunnel,

-         Microsoft

-         Cisco.

 

First, he made some comments about entrepreneurship in France. He said that there is a big problem with labor regulation that doesn’t encourage entrepreneurship at all. In the Silicon Valley, merit is based on economy when in France it is based on seniority.

But, some advantages of Franceare not well promoted, for example, this is easier to build a company in Francethan it is in the UK.

His conclusion about entrepreneurship in Francewas these trends were pointing in the right direction and that is the reason why the fact that some investors from the Silicon Valley invest abroad nowadays was not the case 2 years ago.

 

Then he explained why in the Silicon Valley, entrepreneurs’ first move is to go to see their lawyer when in France people go to see founders. This is because in California, the lawyer is used to meet entrepreneurs; as a result, the lawyer knows the community, he will help him to find right people to help him raising money and to help him to start his business. Legal issue are low, the point is networking.

That is why first meetings with a law firm are free and then, if they think you have potential, they will not ask for money but for a participation of the company. Those low fees are made to help company’s success.

In those law firms, they do everything to keep low costs. For example, they have a “ready to go form” to create companies so they don’t have to do X times the same job.

 

Before answering to Q&A, John gave us his advices for entrepreneurs:

-         The objective should be to start a company with as less money as possible;

-         The entrepreneur should be very careful on how to select your team;

-         You have to be sure you know your competitive environment;

-         It’s very important to partner up with an experienced entrepreneur, that shows how well you can generate attention;

-         Do not be shy, go right to see the person you need to talk to;

-         Listen to your customers

 

 

During the Q&A part, we talked about different point:

 

Cleantech, it is a very wide industry. Companies in this field have the most of chances to be found if they have opportunity to become big. Trading energy is an area that has lot of possibilities.