MyBlogNote

Tetris humain

Merveilleux montage donnant un Tetris humain.
Pour les amateurs du genre...
Travail admirable et original.

Lipdub - Flagpole Sitta

Ma vidéo 2.0 fétiche. je me lasse pas de la regarder.

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

Chinese eye test

If you cannot decipher anything, then trypulling the corner of your eyes as if you were Chinese. It works

Evidences trompeuses

Sherlock Holmes et Dr Watson font du camping

Sherlock Holmes et le Dr Watson sont au camping. Après un bon repas et une bonne bouteille de vin, ils gagnent leur sac de couchage dans la tente et s'endorment.

Quelques heures plus tard, Holmes se réveille et aussitôt secoue son compagnon :
- Watson, regardez le ciel et dîtes-moi ce que vous voyez.
- Je vois des millions et des millions d'étoiles.
- Et qu'est-ce que vous en concluez ?
" Du point de vue astronomique, répond Watson, cela me dit qu'il y a des millions de galaxies et potentiellement des milliards de planètes.
Du point de vue astrologique, j'observe que Saturne est en Lion.
Du point de vue chronologique, j'en déduis qu'il est environ 3 heures 15.
Du point de vue théologique, je vois que Dieu est tout-puissant et que nous sommes petits et insignifiants.
Du point de vue météorologique, je pense que nous aurons une belle journée demain.
Et vous, Holmes ?"

Sherlock Holmes reste pensif une minute puis déclare :
- Watson, vous êtes un âne. On nous a fauché la tente.

LBO: guidelines and latest trends

I assisted yesterday to an INSEAD event at the magnificent Interallié (Cercle de l'Union Interalliée). This meeting was about LBO, LBI, MBO, MBI, LMBI, BIMBO (Buy-In Management Buy-Out). Oh sorry: you didn't know that a BIMBO was also a financial operation?

Rich exchanges, strong testimonials, quality contents: this event was true to INSEAD standards. The chosen format was efficient: 4 short speeches about 4 different stories. For each of them, we had the manager who had carried the LBO and the fund manager he had worked with. That way, we got their two points of view. When then had a dinner (with a compulsory tie for each of us!) which was excellent. Talking about ties, we just had… one or two women among the fifty ones of us, which is truly increasable.

So we had speeches about:

1. - Difficulties and opportunities in MBI: Michel Behar and Serge Bonnefoi/MB ENTREPRENDRE
2. - Success story 1: Alain Chamla, CEO / FRANCE CHAMPIGNON, LBO with Laurent Parquet from Butler Capital Partners
3. - Success story 2: Bruno Roqueplo CEO, ALGECO GROUP
   
4. - Success story 3: Philippe Laratte, former CEO of GIBAUD SAS, LBO with Arnaud Thomas, Barclays Private Equity
5. - Success story 4: Dominique Amirault, CEO Newsol Group (Soléou), LBO with Thierry Giron, Initiative & Finance.

Among different advices for those thinking about an MBI, I spot these ones:
- You can leave your sector but you will then strongly increase the risk of failure.
- Pay peculiar attention about the "culture choc" when mixing the teams.
- Your financial partner is not your enemy; be totally transparent with him but stay the only boss of the company.
- Don't never make personal debts to conclude a deal.
- Don't think that, because you successfully lead an important business unit today, you will be a good entrepreneur tomorrow.
- Before signing, make sure your family is totally 100% supportive and remember: "always lower expectations" ;-).
- Be in shape, practice a sport.
- When going through due diligences, be clear about how you will go out and/or have in mind a good build-up strategy.

Deepening the matter, I found Russell Hoyle's guide to completing a successful Management Buy-In:
1. Make sure you don't actually want a job.
2. Allow yourself at least 12 months, ideally longer.
3. Be prepared to search full-time.
4. Be patient.
5. Don't quit.
6. Be completely honest with yourself.
7. Keep detached and be prepared for failure.
8. Know when to walk away from a deal.
9. Generate your own dealflow.
10. Stick to the sector you know best.
11. Do your research.
12. Network. Network. Network.
13. Pick the right partner: deliverability is more important than equity stake.
14. Look for the angle in a deal.
15. Make sure you can deliver the numbers.
16. Know your exit.

Source : Duke Street Capital

LBO: context is getting harder
Another thing frequently said at this INSEAD night was that the global context was getting harder for project carriers:
- Company prices are going up and up every year more. See graph 1.
- The debt/ebitda ratio is touching a historical peak (I am pretty sure this is not the proper English idiom; should I say skyrocketing?). See graph 2.

Graph 1: Average Price EBITDA ratio for LBO 2004 - 2006

Source: Epsilon

Graph2 : Average debt.ebitda ratio on European buyout transactions

Source: Thomson Financial Private Equity where you can download the whole study.

Indeed, I am not too sure that the current financial crisis will turn these figures better for entrepreneurs looking for an LBO.
Emmanuel de Saint-Bon

Mobile Marketing: better knowledge among advertisers

Yesterday, I carried a new training session about Mobile Marketing at the Benchmark Group's. This is the fourth one since 18 months. Like I did before, I talked about push and pull strategies, Mobile Internet, Mobile advertising, contents, Flashcodes, Bluetooth...

My feeling is that the sector remains embryonic BUT, for the first time, I had people in my classroom who were aware of many things about mobile (and to some extent, who knew some features sometimes better than I did). There we are, I can't pretend any longer to know everything about B2B mobile marketing ;-). In short, most of the people assisting the event had tried to use mobile phone in their campaigns. This made our discussion all the richer that they had something to say about their own experience.

Without being bad, the results they got weren't outstanding. But they all have the conviction this is the future and so will keep on using mobile phone in the coming months.

Encouraging…

Leçon de crèpes

Magnifique ! Beaucoup de travail pour ces deux minutes de vidéo. le tout réalisé sur une idée simple mais très convaincante. Un vrai régal ! Bravo pour la créativité !
Plus d'infos sur les vidéos produites par "James".

Crêpes en stop-motion - Koreus

Buy your tyres on the web!

Did you know you could buy your tyres on line too? Did you know that, doing so, you could save up to 40 % on your tyres? If you have something like an Audi or a Mercedes, I am sure you will quickly reckon what you save… But even for little car owners, there is a stake!

Have a look for instance to AZ Pneus (French site): clear offer, easy instructions and you get your tyres in a day or two. I was thinking that, when I go to Speedy's (my usual retailer), I often have to go there twice: one to order my tyres and the second time to get my car back. Here, you just need to move once.
Indeed, you don't have your tyres delivered at home (where the hell would I put them, in my living room?), but at your usual retailer's. That's the magical side of it. Of course, your retailer doesn't make any margin on the sales of your tyres, but it still makes him a customer; so it's worth for him too.

Now the thing that definitely convinced me is that the choice is much larger than anywhere else! This is the living long tail theory. If your query is a little bit specific, you may not find it in the real life but on the web.

What strikes me is that we are on mature market where the online sales channel only weighs about 1%. Given the average weight of e-commerce in France (around 8 % I'd say), we can bet that AZ pneus and all its competitors are currently quite busy.
Now the question I am wondering about is: can all these e-players rise up to 15, 20 or even 30 % of the whole market? Remember the travel industry where Internet weights about 40% in some European countries (UK…).

To be followed…

PS: this is not a sponsored post although I only quote one player.