A Fresh Start (up)

I currently work a lot for my finals about entrepreneurship ideas, and I am imagining some of them in the two sectors I like: the Internet and the food industry. I recently had an idea in the latter one, and I just wanted to get some feedback on it. 

I think that we have all experienced (ok, I amend myself: all the women have experienced) a sudden longing for a specific dish, sometimes in the middle of the night. When I work late at night, at around 2:00am, I am sometimes starving for a “fondue au chocolat”; pregnant women are also well known to feel like eating strawberries in the middle of the night, and I am sure that you can come up with a moment when you think “I would love to have that in my fridge right now”.

Hence the idea of creating a 24hrs delivery service allowing you to make a call and order anything you want, from basic strawberries to the most complex dishes. The company doing that would of course charge a large premium, that I believe some customers (at least women!) would be willing to pay to get what they want when they want it, and have longer delivery time than traditional delivery services. In terms of operations, the “kitchen” would have to be located really closed to a 24hrs food wholesaler so that the company wouldn’t carry any unmanageable inventory.

Of course it is a raw idea with plenty of hurdles, so:

- First, do you think there is a market for this service or am I just the only one ready to wait 2 hours at 2:00am to have some “fondue au chocolat”?

- Do you know if this service already exist? I couldn’t manage to find anything like that on the web. But if it hasn’t been done in any part of the world, it should definitely mean that either there is no market or it is not profitable.

- Do you think that it is manageable in terms of operations?

- Do you think that it is possible to make a profit, knowing that there is absolutely no economies of scale?

It is definitely not an idea I will develop, I’m just surprised it doesn’t exist already, so do not hesitate to bash it, it is just a trial to see if I can get some feedback on my ideas thanks to this blog.

I feel really ashamed that I haven’t updated this blog for weeks, and I apologize sincerely to my (few) readers who doesn’t find here any updates. I have the impression that the more exciting my life is, the less lively this blog is. The thing is that I would have plenty of things to say, but I don’t find the time, or don’t try hard enough.

The courses at UCLA are very demanding but still really interesting, and I am starting to work on my final projects.  In Technology management I am analyzing the VoIP market, in Global Operations Strategy I will study the digitization of entertainment industries and in Corporate Entrepreneurship my project is to compare Google and eBay in terms of innovation strategy. So you can guess that I have a lot of material to cover, especially since I also have to make progress on my thesis about “Internet and the democratization of contemporary art”. But OK, I acknowledge that I am obviously looking for excuses, because I manage to find some time to travel (San Diego was great!) so I should find some time to blog!

I am also really busy preparing my relocation, and I still hesitate in going back to Silicon Valley for one week end to find a place to live before coming back to France for Christmas. Otherwise I would have to find a temporary housing in January, and this is a nightmare

This is it, I promise I’ll try to share the great lessons of my final projects with you soon

Update: I forgot the most important: I bought an iPod Touch! After long hesitations between the iPhone and the iPod Touch, I realized that it is before all having a cool wifi device that interested me the most, and the iPod Touch provided it without being obliged to accept the deal with AT&T and without paying $500 deposit! And of course now I can’t stop playing with it

My boyfriend, who is a software and web developer, has launched his first Facebook application (like every developer at the moment ;-)) a week ago. It is called “If I were” and allow you to create your Chinese portrait to display on your profile and to guess your friends’ portrait to see if you know them well. He has reached today 700 users, which is a pretty good number. You can learn everything about the conception, the development and the launch of this application here on Tech IT Easy. It is particularly amazing to have first-hand data about the famous “network effect”.

Of course, this article is everything but neutral, so I acknowledge that I would be glad if you could try this app and give me (or him on Tech IT Easy) feedback about it.

My boyfriend is also looking for a job in Silicon Valley, starting in January, so if you know some companies that might be interested, do not hesitate to tell me

It’s always difficult to speak about my expatriation, to communicate what surprises me, what I like and dislike about it on an ongoing basis on this blog, because it would generate really short articles about some silly things. Twitter would be the ideal way to do that but as most of my friends are not geeks, I know that I don’t reach the people I want with this medium. So I decided to make regular updates gathering all the news and practical details of my expatriation, my opinions and feelings about it. It is particularly important for me since I use expats’ blogs a lot, to discover great things to do, to understand some cultural aspects, or simply to know how to get my Internet access repaired in this country! So, in bulk:

• I love studying in the US, because I realized I really lacked some concrete experience about the fields I am studying. I get to listen to business angels, VCs, entrepreneurs, corporate entrepreneurs, innovation directors… and I simply love it, because I put a face on these functions and I mitigate my thoughts and stereotypes.
• L.A. has plenty of advantages (amazing weather, both great cultural and night life, great entertainment, lovely areas…) but a big drawback: it’s huge. As my budget didn’t allow me to rent a car for 3 months, I am obliged to plan days in advance what I want to do, because you can’t simply wake up one morning and go to downtown, because you have to remember that it is at least 1hr30min bus drive to go there. I have no impression of “knowing” L.A. as I can’t do multiple things in the same day, so I can’t manage to “connect” the different places I go to. Fortunately my neighborhood is one of the nicest (Westwood, between Santa Monica and Beverly Hills ;-))
• Today is Halloween, and it’s a big deal here, but it has been celebrated everywhere for a week now (you can see my costume of devil here)… Originally I thought that Halloween was supposed to be scary, but it is in fact the equivalent of Mardi Gras… And most women (at least in L.A.) preferred the sexy costume than the scary one!
• I kept the best part for the end: I just accepted an offer to work as a Business Analyst for the Marketplaces Strategy team of eBay in San Jose, California (headquarters), and I will start working there in January. Obviously I’m delighted, especially since I enjoyed my internship at eBay France, but also because it’s a great opportunity to discover the challenging environment of Silicon Valley, and to work with the best people of the sector, all sharing the same amazing corporate culture. I would have so many great things to say about eBay (the core values, the amazing portfolio, the great challenges to face, the vision, the campus…ok I stop now) but I have decided that it will be the only time I will speak about it. There are a lot of legal aspects involved when blogging about the company you’re working for, and the limit between what you can say or not is often really vague. I will of course share my knowledge of the Internet sector and what I will learn by interacting with bloggers and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, but I won’t say a word anymore about eBay itself.
• My boyfriend also has to find some work in Silicon Valley, so if you know a company needing a top notch software engineer and having no problem in sponsoring visas, please let me know, that’d be great!
• I will move to Silicon Valley in January, and have to find a place to live: I’m hesitating between living in San Jose to be close to eBay or finding a nicer area… If you have any advice then do no not hesitate! I think I will try to rent a place for one month to give me time to find my “ideal apartment”.

That’s it, I will keep you posted about the many practical things I will have to overcome to settle down