Startup, let’s stop the masquerade
As fundraisers continue to grow, two-thirds of young people dream of becoming entrepreneurs, politicians dream of building a “startup nation”, and wealthy entrepreneurs set up giant incubators in old railway warehouses.
A book presents an intransigent analysis of this new grail called “start-up”.”STARTUP, STOP THE MASCARADE”, highlights the dysfunctions of the current system, which finances and often subsidizes companies, which create, ultimately, few real innovations, few jobs, and whose lifespan does not exceed three years.
But this book is not limited to a simple denunciation, it also presents several concrete solutions so that startups become the pillars more responsible for the economy of tomorrow. An uncompromising inventory – The prism of money vs. that of utility
The authors draw a lucid inventory of the accompaniment and financing of French startups: a state of the art all the more precise and well-argued, that they themselves were actors of the entrepreneurial accompaniment for several years.
Initially, startups had to revolutionize the world, they mostly created fragile capitalist constructions. A combination of factors explains the craze for this “new economic and social utopia”: the emergence of an ultra-individualized consumer society, the digital revolution and the massive influx of capital, coupled with a media frenzy for the figure. from the “start-uper”, raised to the rank of quasi-prophet. From the 2010s, the creation of a digital startup costs almost nothing because the technology is almost free and the money easily available because the post-crisis of 2008 put on the financial market capital in abundance.
“STARTUP, STOP THE MASCARADE”, highlights the dysfunctions of the current system, which finances and often subsidizes companies, which create, ultimately, few real innovations, few jobs, and whose lifespan does not exceed three years. But this book is not limited to a simple denunciation, it also presents several concrete solutions so that start-ups become the pillars more responsible for the economy of tomorrow.
But this book is not limited to a simple denunciation, it also presents several concrete solutions so that start-ups become the pillars more responsible for the economy of tomorrow.
An uncompromising inventory – The prism of money vs. that of utility
The authors draw a lucid inventory of the accompaniment and financing of French startups: a state of the art all the more precise and well-argued, that they themselves were actors of the entrepreneurial accompaniment for several years.
Initially, startups had to revolutionize the world, they mostly created fragile capitalist constructions. A combination of factors explains the craze for this “new economic and social utopia”: the emergence of an ultra-individualized consumer society, the digital revolution and the massive influx of capital, coupled with a media frenzy for the figure. from the “start-uper”, raised to the rank of quasi-prophet. From the 2010s, the creation of a digital start-up costs almost nothing because the technology is almost free and the money easily available because the post-crisis of 2008 put on the financial market capital in abundance.
The problem is that we focus too much on start-up financing when the reason would be to fund projects instead. The majority of start-ups are content to align the digital prowess, closer to a “digital solutionism” than the real invention, the one that brings real new uses. As a result, few convincing results, few jobs created, very few concrete achievements.
How did we get there?
On the entrepreneur’s side, the mistake is often to see everything from the point of view of profit, of return. Today, a large number of entrepreneurs’ projects are not visible because they do not raise funds, whereas they propose original and sometimes disruptive solutions. Problem, not everyone is an entrepreneur!
Not everyone is an entrepreneur
The enthusiasm around the “startup model” raises the question of marketing fundamentals around the customer and his needs: Does the proposed product or service generate value for the customer? Not always sure!
42% of companies that plant, fail because they do not meet a need, reads in a study of French Tech. And 17% because they were not “user-friendly”. Entrepreneurs are happy before thinking about the interest of their customers.
In the book, we discover the story of a fictional young entrepreneur, Tom, who will “plant” his start-up. His social network for the elderly does not take off, and the authors point out all the mistakes that the start-uper makes during the adventure. While some fall under its responsibility, the book shows that others are explained by the functioning of the system, particularly in terms of funding and support. By participating in start-up competitions, Tom mistakenly believes he has the right product, as if the opinion of a microcosm of Business Angels guaranteed the success of his business.