Rose Cantine » entrepreneurs

Pajama Entrepreneur is back

esme — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 17:07:11 +0000

I will resume posting on my other blog, Pajama Entrepreneur, about tech and entrepreneurship. I realized that dumping my tech obsessions into this blog together with food and shoe obsessions, was not a good idea. So, from now on, check out www.pjentrepreneur.com for posts on Wi-Fi, gadgets, Web 2.0, etc.

Hollywood entrepreneurs shake up the studio system

esme — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:33:09 +0000

Here’s an excerpt from a post on Marc Andreessen’s blog about the rise of Hollywood owner-entrepreneurs who don’t need the old studio system to bring their works to the public:

“The world is about to change,” Frank says. “Anyone with an Apple computer can make a movie now — it’s never been a more democratic medium. The studios should be very afraid. Once the independent financiers start going directly to writers, things could change really fast. I ask myself every week — why aren’t we all working with them? Look at the movies they’ve made. They are the new Medicis. While the studios peddle dreary remakes and special-effects extravaganzas, the movies that really get people talking — such as “Crash,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Michael Clayton” and the upcoming “Juno” — have been financed by outside investors. None of the films had a big budget, but fiscal discipline and artistic autonomy often fuels creativity. “Ten million dollars to $30 million is where ambiguity stays alive, where you can have complexity in storytelling,” Gilroy says. “When you get up to a certain budget number with studio films, the bad guys have to all wear black hats.”

Please read the entire article, it’s very well written.

Interviews with entrepreneurs on NPR website

esme — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 03:57:28 +0000

Check out this series of interviews with entrepreneurs on the NPR website. The series is called From Scratch. I enjoyed the interview with Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse (the famous Berkeley restaurant), and champion of “Slow Food”, good eating, organic farming, and enjoying food in the company of friends.

More money for European Web 2.0 companies

esme — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:27:01 +0000

The Silicon Valley Business Journal reports: “Investors directed at least $464.2 million into 101 Web 2.0 deals worldwide in the first half of the year, according to a report released Monday . . . Overall, the number of global Web 2.0 deals climbed 14 percent in the first half, the report said — but the gain was in Europe and Israel, while U.S. investments were virtually unchanged from the first half of 2006 with 67 deals and $357 million invested.”

The face of European tech startups is . . . MALE

esme — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 04:21:52 +0000

It’s 2007 and by now, things should have changed, especially in this part of the world – “progressive” Europe that likes to look down on those backward Americans and unwashed Third Worlders with weird ideologies. But check out this video and the Financial Times stories about Seedcamp. Who do you see? Men, men and more men.

Where are the women? Sitting at home knitting cute little sweaters, baking cakes, filing their nails?

This is a serious question because according to the Chamber of Commerce here in Amsterdam women have been starting a large number of new enterprises, including in technology. Indeed, across the European Union, women have started a lot of new businesses but you wouldn’t find them in the super-macho world of VC backed technology companies.

I dumped on Seedcamp a few days ago as being a total joke and watching that room full of male geeks only reinforces my argument.