20 VC 061: Roxanne Varza on Pitching A VC in 10 Minutes and Maximising Media Exposure For Your Startup

Roxanne Varza is currently the startup lead for Microsoft in France, running both Microsoft Ventures Paris and Bizspark. Prior to Microsoft, Roxanne was Editor of TechCrunch France and has been a guest author for the likes of The Telegraph and Business Insider. Roxanne is also the Co-Founder of Tech.eu, one of the few publications to cover the European tech industry as a whole, with the brilliant Robin Wauters. If that wasn't enough Roxanne is also the Co-Founder of Girls In Tech both in Paris and London, which aims to raise the visibility of women in technology,entrepreneurship and innovation though monthly events, leadership programmes and much more. Roxanne has won a range of accolade including Top 30 Women Under 30 In Tech, Coolest 25 Women in Tech and 10 Women Shaking Up Tech In Their 30s. P. S. If you are looking for an amazing new podcast on the Tech Scene in Europe, check out Tech.eu's new show here: Tech.eu Podcast #4 In Today's Episode You Will Learn: How Roxanne made her move into the tech industry and then made the move from TechCrunch to running Microsoft's Accelerator in Paris? What would Roxanne recommend to people in tech contemplating moving countries? What are the best and most effective ways to learn code from scratch? What is the mission at Microsoft Ventures? What is the deal? What are the benefits? In the 10 minute pitch to Roxanne, what does Microsoft want to hear? How does Microsoft determine product-market fit? What does the increase in US funds entering the European market suggest? What are the benefits for startups of having global investors? What can startups do to increase their media exposure in the sea of new startups? What do journalists look for in emails from founders? How can founders be successful through submitting guest posts? What are the best and most effective ways to learn code from scratch? Items Mentioned in Today's Show: Roxanne's Fave Book: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Roxanne's Reading Material: News.me: Digg Fred Wilson: Investing In Startups In Europe Microsoft Ventures Alumni: Zocdoc: Find a Doctor, Xobni: Your Smarter Address Book Is Waiting As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Roxanne on Twitter right here!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  You are listening to the 20 Minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings. And today we bring you an incredibly special guest in the form of Roxanne Varza. Roxanne is currently the start-up lead for Microsoft in France, running both Microsoft Ventures Paris and BizSpark. And prior to Microsoft, Roxanne was the editor of TechCrunch France and has been a guest author for the likes of The Telegraph and Business Insider. Roxanne is also the co-founder of Tech.EU, one of the few publications to cover the European tech industry as a whole with the brilliant Robin Waters. If that wasn't enough, Roxanne is also the co-founder of Girls in Tech, both in Paris

• 0:41Harry Stebbings?

  and in London, which aims to raise the visibility of women in technology, entrepreneurship and innovation through monthly events, leadership programmes and much more. Roxanne has won a numerous amount of accolades, including Top 30 Women Under 30 in Tech, Coolest 25 Women in Tech and 10 Women Shaking Up Tech in Their 30s. But let's first take a moment to thank HiringScreen, which is the most fantastic recruitment tool that I personally use to hire my brilliant assistant Jackie. We all know that the hiring process is hopelessly broken, so with HiringScreen, all the candidates are displayed through a beautiful user interface and ranked according to HiringScreen's Blink

• 1:22Harry Stebbings?

  algorithm, saving hours of time and money in the recruitment process.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 1:37Harry Stebbings?

  Roxanne, it's great to have you on the 20 Minute VC.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Thank you, lovely to be here.

• 1:42Harry Stebbings?

  Now, you've had a phenomenally successful career from TechCrunch to Girls in Tech to Tech.EU, but where did it all start? What's the Roxanne Varza story?

• 1:54Speaker 02

  So I guess that started actually in San Francisco. I was actually, despite having grown up in the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, actually never really that enamored with tech. I was actually much more interested by France. So my first job out of university was working for the French government's foreign direct investment agency. So today it's called Business France, at the time it was called Invest in France. And I was responsible for talking to all the American startups, mainly in Silicon Valley, about opening offices in France. And it was through that angle that I got in touch with the different Bay Area startups and started kind of falling in love with the creative, entrepreneurial, overly optimistic

• 2:39Speaker 02

  kind of ambiance that there is in the ecosystem.

• 2:41Harry Stebbings?

  And then what advice would you give then to people contemplating moving?

• 2:46Speaker 02

  So I think it's been actually a huge asset, living abroad. Sometimes I think, you know, had I stayed in the valley where everyone is just so remarkable, it's kind of like the top tier is really competing to stand out. I think when you change countries, by default, you actually open yourself up to a lot of opportunities because you're very unique, you have a very different profile. So I think actually moving to, especially a non-English speaking country for an English speaker, I got a lot of, I think, opportunities that I may not have had elsewhere. And then going from there to the UK, I think when you have actually access to different ecosystems, you have a completely different network, a completely different vision. So people oftentimes, you know, they come to me and they say, well, I need your help

• 3:30Speaker 02

  with, you know, X, Y, Z. And I think that would not be the case if I had stayed where I was.

• 3:35Harry Stebbings?

  And then for you personally, how have you seen the French tech ecosystem grow since you've moved there?

• 3:42Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh, it's been incredible. So I actually often say, I tell people that. You know, the Bay Area is very impressive and there's a lot going on in Silicon Valley, but the progress and the development that I have seen since arriving in France uh has really just outperformed uh Silicon Valley. So when I arrived, end of two thousand nine, uh I think it was the first startup weekend events. You know, there was not a lot going on in the ecosystem. There were, there were funds, there were startups, and I think beginning of two thousand ten, it just really took off. We started to see new funds getting launched. Later that year, we had announcements for the first accelerators. And since then, I feel like France has just come an incredibly long way.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  We now have um a minister for the digital economy. They're starting to really pay attention to trying to create a stronger entrepreneurial environment, you know, a place where really businesses can launch and grow. And I think that's something we didn't see five years ago.

• 4:40Harry Stebbings?

  And would you say it's an increase in VC funding that's available that's driven this growth?

• 4:45Speaker 02

  Um, not just the availability. I think the government has potentially played a huge role in, you know, trying to make France more attractive. We obviously, France is a place that gets beat up a lot because I think of the, the different tax uh regulations and things like that, that, that don't always uh foster investment.

• 5:04Harry Stebbings?

  Does France have SEIS and EIS alternatives?

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Uh, not to the way that the UK does. So we have had, you know, they played, especially when Sarkozy was in, in the office. Um, there was the ISF kind of tax benefit, which still is, is available, but they're nowhere near as advant- advantageous as uh SEIS and EIS in um in the UK.

• 5:27Harry Stebbings?

  And in the recent tech dot EU podcast that I just listened to, you mentioned uh the, I think it was two billion, uh was it increase in VC funding in Q two?

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't remember the exact figures, but we had, uh, just for France, you mean?

• 5:42Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, well, France or Europe, I'm, I'm not too, I can't remember which.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  That was all of Europe, so we didn't have uh specific numbers per country. But France, I can tell you just by the sheer number of funding announcements that we've had in the last few years, I mean, we had several one hundred million uh dollar rounds that were done by French companies, that, that was Deezer, Sigfox and Blabla Car, which, you know, those are all happened in the last two, three years.

• 6:07Harry Stebbings?

  And do you think this massive kind of growth in funding does signify a bubble? Is that? Something that you've seen or or not?

• 6:15Speaker 02

  But talk about the bubble. I think it kind of cracks me up because we're gonna know we're out of the bubble when we're out of the bubble. So in the meantime, I feel like it's not worth it for us to get all riled up about it. And I think we are seeing incredibly strong companies come out of this. So, you know, I think we'll we'll know at the end, but for now, I actually see it as a good thing.

• 6:34Harry Stebbings?

  But for startup founders in locations that aren't conducive to a startup environment, you'd definitely recommend them moving?

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Um, actually, no, I think there's some environments that we're gonna see grow. Um, we had, for example, one of my co-founders in Tech dot E is based in Croatia. And he recently published a piece on how Croatia is starting to see the first VC funds, local VC funds popping up there. I think Europe as a whole is really gonna start working together. I mean, we started talking about the single digital economy and things like that. So I think, uh, you know, you can stay local and do a lot, but I recommend building a network and having an experience abroad to really kind of strengthen your understanding.

• 7:16Harry Stebbings?

  And what more do you think can be done to kind of unite the European tech communities together?

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Uh, there's so much that we can do. So I I have to say, I love the initiative for the single digital market, but I still feel like it's very vague. They have kind of like the the basic kind of lines of what they wanna work on. They wanna make legislation much more uniform. They wanna work on their data laws, things like that. Um, but I do think that even when you look at, for example, local lobbies, local initiatives, it still feels like a lot of European countries are competing with each other. And I often use the example of Tech City in the UK and La France Tech in France, which are more or less equivalent. And I feel like there's so little that they do together. And that is something, for example, I'd like to see more of. I think we have lobbies that are doing the same things in in various countries.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  And there's no kind of forum for them to all work together and really collaborate on making that happen. And there's countries that still don't even have these organizations. So I think there's still a lot that we can do.

• 8:14Harry Stebbings?

  And we mentioned the increase in funding, VC funding in Europe. Have we seen also quite a big increase in US funds entering the European tech market, do you think?

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is something I've been surprised at. That's something that we mentioned vaguely in our, in our last podcast. But a few months ago, I started to feel like, I was feeling like a lot of these different US VCs, especially the top tier ones, were starting to look more and more to Europe. So I think there was, for example, Fred Wilson, who published a post saying that they've actually had quite a few investments in Europe. We started to see, we had, you know, it's, it's interesting to see even just which VCs come over for some of these bigger conferences. I think it's like them kind of dipping their feet in and seeing what's going on out here. And then I was surprised to even see, you know, Andreessen has done investment. I think if you look at every single American top tier fund, you will have at least one European investment today.

• 9:08Harry Stebbings?

  And would you say that's a benefit to our European system?

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Definitely. I think it goes both ways. I think, you know, when you're going to have a global business, obviously having a local VC in the different markets that you're going to enter is going to be huge. So having a European VC, having an American VC, that's just going to help the business grow stronger.

• 9:27Harry Stebbings?

  And I'd love to now talk a bit about your activities personally with Microsoft Ventures. So what's the mission, what's the process to get accepted, and what are the kind of deal terms involved?

• 9:38Speaker 02

  So Microsoft actually has had a very long relationship with startups. I think it was probably one of the, the first corporations to launch a proper startup program. So back in 2007, the program was called Ide, and it was launched in France. And then that grew to become BizSpark, and today it's present in 165 countries.

• 9:56Harry Stebbings?

  Wow.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's quite impressive. And we have some great examples of companies that have come out of that program. Companies like Zocdoc in the US, I think it was actually the first company to be in the program. We had companies like Zobni acquired by Yahoo. So we have, you know, solid companies going through the program, but it's a distance program. And I think you're starting to see so many, first of all, so many more startups than we did previously, but also a lot more offers that are targeted to these startups. And so we thought, we'll develop something that's a little bit more hands-on. The relationship is, you know, a little bit more of a stronger relationship that can be built. So we built an accelerator program that's present today in seven countries. So that's the Microsoft Ventures program. So we have globally.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  China, Israel, India, in Europe, we're in France, Germany, the UK and in the States, we're in Seattle. And this program is really a three-month program or four months based on the location. And it's really about kind of accelerating a business that's already met certain milestones and kind of kicking it off to the next level.

• 10:58Harry Stebbings?

  And what's the process to get accepted? Is there interviews, is there pitches? How does it work?

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Yes, so there's, uh, it's actually a three-step process. So we go through really intensive screening. Um, it's more or less the same in every location. So in France, we receive normally about two hundred and fifty applications for the online form. So that's the first piece that you have to do. And we go through F success, very basic information about the business, the team, the funding, that kind of thing. And then we do a first interview, usually with about fifty or sixty teams. That interview will be done by technical experts from Microsoft to kind of verify not only who the team is, but also what their technical capacity is. And then we invite twenty finalists, uh, to pitch in front of us. So the, the interview is by phone. Uh, the actual pitch has to be, we have to meet the team and see them.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  They only get ten minutes each and it has to be in English. We're kind of validating that, you know, they have a strong enough English presentation skill that they can kind of go international. And that is done in front of VCs. So we have normally five to ten different funds in France that will help us select, as well as, uh, two partners, which are other large French corporations. And so that's a really intensive screening process and we only pick ten finalists. So that's ten from two hundred and fifty companies that make the cut.

• 12:15Harry Stebbings?

  Okay, so they have ten minutes. That, that's, you know, it's not a long amount of time. What would you like to hear? What, what makes you get excited?

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Well, obviously, we're looking for companies, you know, we have certain criteria that we're looking for. So we wanna see, you know, is it a solid team? Do they actually, are they doing the technical development in-house? Do they have actually a technical product? Because a lot of actually startups today are very services oriented and we're actually really looking for something tech. Um. But then I think what actually gets me personally excited for any startup is really, why are they doing what they're doing? And I think you can get any entrepreneur that, you know, sees an opportunity and goes after it, but understanding what drives them, what expertise they have that can really make their business a success, that's actually quite rare. So that's what I'm usually looking to hear from them.

• 13:04Harry Stebbings?

  And what are the deal terms? Is it an equity cash deal term?

• 13:08Speaker 02

  No, actually, the whole program is completely free. Uh. So we don't take any equity. We're not charging them even for space. Uh. It's, it actually comes down to a cloud offer that we're putting in front of them, and we're not even really forcing them to use the cloud offer. But for every company that comes into Microsoft Ventures, we put half a million uh dollars worth of cloud on the table, and a lot of companies choose to take that. And that's really just about it.

• 13:34Harry Stebbings?

  And then in a recent interview, you said about platform dependency and validating customer product fit as two of the biggest problems you faced with companies. With the likes of Meerkat, you know, relying on Twitter heavily and and a lot of startups missing the product market fit, how do you avoid these problems at Microsoft? And what would you advise founders, maybe assessing whether their product does fit the market?

• 13:59Speaker 02

  So I think we're starting to see fewer companies uh that have issues with platform dependency. So we've had a couple of examples. Um. You know, in France, there was a few years ago, a company called Apptice, and they were uh they were in the Apple Store. They were promoting different apps, and Apple essentially just cut them, uh, and that killed their business. Um. So I think, you know, we're since that one, I think we're seeing fewer companies that choose one platform or one distribution channel. Um. And that is really something that we're looking for and we're encouraging, even though obviously, at the end of the day, if everybody was full stack Microsoft, it would be great. But it maybe actually wouldn't be great in the long term for the company. So we're we're trying to get that message out. And in terms of customer product fit, um.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  That is something that actually we do in the beginning of the ventures program to verify that before they even dive into developing their product further or their customer base further, that they're actually developing the right product and working with the right product in front of them. So we do a full week where they actually have to go out into the street or call up whoever they're working with and just get tons and tons of feedback. So it's not about asking one or two people, it's about getting actually tens, hundreds of people to respond uh and to change the product accordingly if they have to.

• 15:14Harry Stebbings?

  And that's the best way to assess whether your product does fit the market through mass feedback.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would say you really have to be asking people, you have to, you know, have that relationship and build that relationship so that you know, if the customers see something that is not working or they have an idea for improvement, that you're actually leveraging that because that's that's who matters at the end of the day.

• 15:34Harry Stebbings?

  And another common problem for startups, I think now, especially with the sea of new startups that's arisen, is just PR and getting media attention in the crowded market. Uh you with your incredible experience um in tech and tech publications, what can startups do to increase their media exposure? Are there any kind of tips or tricks they can do when contacting journalists?

• 15:56Speaker 02

  So I will tell you that um maybe TechCrunch is a bit of a specific kind of universe because I think it's kind of very high level and so all we have so much, we had so much incoming information that we could really choose to be picky. Um but I would say a lot of entrepreneurs think that their product launch is news and a lot of the time I have to sit down and tell them that's not news. Companies are launching every day. There's no reason why yours is special. You need to find that reason, you need to sell that story. And I often think selling, you know, a specific customer story, uh something like that, it's not always compelling, but it can be much more compelling than just saying, oh, today we launched our product.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Um another tip that I actually give a lot of companies when they don't have news, and this worked really, really well for one company uh at TechCrunch. Is actually publishing a guest post because I think a lot of media outlets are still actually looking for really great content and a lot of entrepreneurs are experts in their space and they have great expertise. So the the point of a guest post is not to write about your product, but it's to really show that you have kind of a strong vision or a great understanding of a specific topic. So I had one company that published a post on why they chose a freemium model for their business and that post actually ended up being probably the top post of all time on TechCrunch, friends.

• 17:18Harry Stebbings?

  So how do you go about writing a guest post? I mean, do you simply approach the publication themselves with the idea?

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Some publications have a policy. I think TechCrunch announced theirs earlier this year. Otherwise, yeah, just contact someone on the team or contact the editor, pitch the idea. So don't write the post first. A lot of these publications want exclusive information, so don't send them a link to a blog post that you've already published on your website. But usually if you get the idea kind of out there with a couple of bullet points of what you want to write about, they might go for it. And that's definitely what we try to do, for example, at tech.eu.

• 17:53Harry Stebbings?

  And I'm sure at TechCrunch, you've got a huge amount of inbound emails, you know, looking for for stories. So what was your screening process with regards to emails? Were there any that kind of caught your attention from the offset? Maybe they were personalized or had a funny title. What caught your attention?

• 18:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll say I've seen literally every strategy for trying to get my attention. I even had one company and I don't know where they were based, but they called my family in the US, which I thought was, I don't know how they got the number, but it's a bit, that's a bit extreme.

• 18:24Harry Stebbings?

  A little overbear.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  And so I would say probably I would pay attention to emails that were personalized or that came through a referral. So I had a lot of investors that would tell me, you know, you need to speak to this company that we work with, people that I trust that would send me good, good content. Otherwise, every now and then you do get a company that will send you a strong email title that will just get your attention. And it's usually fundraising or it's usually, you know, something that when you see it, you just go, okay, that's a good story. But otherwise, I think smaller anecdotal stories and things like that, it's more when you have time. It's it's really about hitting the timing more than anything.

• 19:02Harry Stebbings?

  And you also said about kind of compelling stories. Are there any types of stories that are much more compelling than others? Because you you stated that, you know, a launch isn't actually that groundbreaking. What makes it compelling?

• 19:14Speaker 02

  So I think it again really depends on the product and on what you can do with it, the kind of difference that it's gonna make in the world. So I I remember I had one company and I use this example a lot. I had one company that they essentially would allow you to make a magazine. So they had a software that would let you kind of make a magazine and you could print it out. And so I didn't actually find that product to be really that revolutionary. I thought, you know, that's that's great, but I don't know what I'm gonna write about that. And they had something like, you know, several hundred customers, but it wasn't anything really that exceptional. But the founder was a bit persistent and he kept saying, no, come on, I wanna meet. And I have something, you know, something in there is gonna be a story. So finally I said, you know, okay, great, I'll meet you.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  And I remember when he started pitching me the the whole story, he said, oh, well, we've had, you know, customers since, you know, this date. And one of our customers was this eight-year-old boy. And I thought, wow, if you had said that, that would have been amazing. So your product essentially allows an eight-year-old kid to make a magazine. And so that ended up becoming the story. And once TechCrunch released, it got picked up by other publications in France. But I think sometimes it can be about looking at a really unique angle of your product. What does it really let people do differently?

• 20:28Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely. And and then shifting slightly to another aspect of your career, which is Girls in Tech. And it's going from strength to strength. What are your plans for the next few years with Girls in Tech?

• 20:39Speaker 02

  So Girls in Tech has come a long way. In Europe, so I was involved, obviously, and involved still with France and the UK. And then we have a whole bunch of other countries that are popping up. So I'm expecting many more teams in Europe to pop up. Today, we have Italy, Spain, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Romania. And we're expecting a few more to come shortly. So aside from team development, I think that we probably have a couple of projects that we're gonna see get even stronger. So in the last few years, we've done free coding classes or intro to coding classes, which were wildly successful in France. And that's essentially not about making someone become a programmer, but just about kind of what is code? Why should you care about it? What does it look like?

• 21:24Speaker 02

  And that, you know, we sold out within two hours. We had eighty percent women because we actually let it, everything that we do is open to men as well. But it turned out to be very, very popular. So I I expect that will strengthen all our technical kind of workshops that we do. And then we do the Lady Pitch Night, which is a pan-European women's pitch competition for female founded startups. And last year, we got a ton of support. We had Sheryl Sandberg, Neely Crowe, a lot of different people that actually supported. We had some of Europe's top tech conferences, Le Web, Web Summit, TechCrunch Disrupt, that actually provided tickets for our finalists and our winners.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  So really kind of getting these women more visibility and credibility for their startups. And so we're seeing the same thing this year. It's going to be probably an even better event. We've already had almost 300 applicants from over 25 countries. So I'm expecting that to really take off as well.

• 22:22Harry Stebbings?

  And are there any further initiatives you'd like to see implemented that could improve the gender balance, be it, you know, government or any other startups? How would you like to see implementations done?

• 22:33Speaker 02

  So I think a lot will actually come down to education. With Microsoft, we actually do this annual event called Digi Girls, where we bring in girls that are usually about somewhere between 10 and 12, and we can show them, you know, we're trying to show them what they can do with a career in the tech space. And last year was the first year I did this event, and I heard some of the most ridiculous cliches you can imagine. Girls who said, "I don't want to, you know, work in tech because I don't want to spend my life in front of a screen. I want to be able to talk to people." I mean, they really just have a vision of working in tech that's not at all the reality.

• 23:08Harry Stebbings?

  It's very sad.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  It is very sad. And when you kind of dig deeper, you realize that, you know, what is presented to them as tech in school, so they have some tech classes, or, you know, how to type and these different computer programs and things like that that they learn, but it's not presented them, to them in a way that really shows how creative one can be, that really shows everything you can build. So this year, when they came to us and you tell them, you know, "I don't know if you realize this, girls, but actually, all the applications you have on your phone that you love, Instagram, Snapchat, I don't know what else, this is all tech. And if you guys have great ideas for products like this, you could potentially be working in tech." And that really kind of, that gets them thinking, that gets them reacting.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  So I almost wonder, you know, maybe we have to completely rethink tech education in classrooms to really make a difference.

• 23:57Harry Stebbings?

  Fantastic, absolutely. And I'd love to now move into the final quartile and a quickfire round. Okay.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 24:05Harry Stebbings?

  So your favourite book and why?

• 24:07Speaker 02

  This is so hard for me, but I think probably one book that I've loved that I I actually didn't read too long ago is uh The Portrait of Dorian Gray.

• 24:15Harry Stebbings?

  I read it, no, no, I read it too. I thought I should expand my horizons and I put Elon Musk's book down for this.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  That's good. I did the same.

• 24:23Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, it wasn't quite as good as Elon Musk's.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  You didn't think so. I I cried at the end of this book.

• 24:28Harry Stebbings?

  Did you?

• 24:28Speaker 02

  I cried at the end of the book. I thought it's really, it's an amazing exploration of beauty, of betrayal, of, you know, I thought it it actually is incredibly deep.

• 24:39Harry Stebbings?

  Oh dear, I think, I think you got a lot more from it than me.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  So I I actually really loved it. Um, yeah, I think I'll say I'll say Portrait of Dorian Gray. And then I think my all time favourite book is Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

• 24:53Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely, that's a great book.

• 24:56Harry Stebbings?

  Um, who's your tech or business inspiration and why?

• 25:01Speaker 02

  So this changes a lot and I think I tend to orient my projects around who's inspiring me. Um, so maybe a few years ago I would have said Michael Arrington. I think today, uh, there's a couple of people in the tech ecosystem in Europe that I really like because I feel like they're doing very ambitious projects. They're, they've launched a company, they're doing investment, they're working on really changing the government landscape. So I will put two people down, one in the UK and one in France. So the one in the UK will be Brent Hoberman.

• 25:31Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely fantastic, yeah.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  I think he's uh, he's remarkable. He probably has no idea that I I think this of him, but I do. And then the other person in France is, yeah, I hope so. The other person in France, which I I tend to quote a lot because I think he is really making a difference and this will come as no surprise to anyone. It's uh Xavier Niall. So he's the guy behind Kima Ventures, behind the forty two coding school. Uh, he has his own telecoms company. He's really just incredible.

• 25:59Harry Stebbings?

  What advice would you give to young females looking to enter into the tech market?

• 26:03Speaker 02

  So I tend to give three pieces of advice to everybody regardless of their gender, their age, whatever. So I would say the first thing is to launch a project. Doesn't have to be a startup per se. So mine was actually just launching a personal blog, Tech Baguette. Uh, it was kind of supposed to be a joke actually in the beginning and it ended up getting me into TechCrunch, so. Something like that.

• 26:25Harry Stebbings?

  Pretty successful.

• 26:27Speaker 02

  I was not expecting that and I remember my dad was even trying to discourage me. He's like, who's gonna read your blog? Um, so I would say, yeah, just any project and I think being at the initiative, uh, being able to initiate something and really kind of see it from the beginning to the end, uh, will be a great experience no matter what. Uh, something that will also allow you to be in touch with people. So if you want to organize an event and invite speakers or invite attendees, I think that will allow you to expand your network. Um, my second thing, which we already touched upon, is obviously change countries and you don't have to live abroad, but I would say there's a lot of people that don't even attend conferences in other countries. They, if they want to do a startup weekend, they do it in their home country. I would say those tiny experiences, if you do them outside of your country, it actually can really, really help you.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  And my final one will be learn basics of code, which I should take this advice myself. I've started a little bit but haven't done enough, um, but I think code is gonna be tomorrow's English, so.

• 27:23Harry Stebbings?

  Okay, on, on the back of that then, coding from scratch, where should one start?

• 27:30Speaker 02

  So I think you actually have tons of online resources, uh, that are available. You have, you know, tons of webinars and MOOCs and things like that. You have a lot of different programs. I think there's, I know Econ 42, which is the 42 school that Xavier Nell has launched, is, um, is a great program as well and it's free and it's for everybody of all nationalities. So I think, you know, there's some initiatives like that which are really exceptional. But otherwise, I actually love to recommend, um, the Le Vagabond, which is a French program. Actually very inexpensive and I've heard a lot of people have a really great experience with it. So I think that's a great one. Otherwise, obviously I'm a fan of Girls in Tech Intro to Code classes as well.

• 28:09Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely. And then your favorite newsletter or blog?

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Oh, that's hard. I have so many. Um, but actually, I would say that what I do, uh, which tends to work well for me, it's the dig product news.me.

• 28:22Harry Stebbings?

  Okay.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  And that actually brings in, uh, articles from my network. So it emails me that every day. And that's actually what I tend to turn to. So I don't have a blog, a media outlet that I read every single day. I'd say probably TechCrunch headlines. I read a lot, obviously, my own Tech.eu and whatnot as well. And then I still love The Economist, so I read that too.

• 28:43Harry Stebbings?

  And then finally, the company from Microsoft Accelerator that you're most excited about.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  I hate this question because it's like asking me to choose between my children or something.

• 28:52Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, I know. Yeah, I'm sorry.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  But, okay, I'll pick one that has recently done extremely, extremely well. Um, this is not the first time I talk about them, but they're called Reminis. Uh, they're an application, uh, that essentially does visual face recognition. So you point your smartphone to a photo of somebody and it can tell you who they are and they're linking it to all kinds of databases that will pull up additional information. Um, when they came to Microsoft, it was one person, one algorithm. Today, they're a company with a full team. They went through the Orange Fab Accelerator program after Microsoft. They have gotten grants from uh, Bouygues Telecom, which is a telecoms company in France. They recently signed a great contract with Orange and they're going to, uh, a program in Las Vegas to get more exposure in the US. So I'm really, really proud of these guys and I'm expecting us to see a lot more from them.

• 29:39Harry Stebbings?

  Well, Roxanne, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure having you.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you so much.

• 29:45Harry Stebbings?

  Now, I am sure many of you will be dashing to the bookstore to buy The Portrait of Dorian Gray. However, if that is not for you, as always, all the resources and items mentioned in today's amazing interview with Roxanne can be found on the blog at www dot the twenty minute VC dot com.

• 30:04Harry Stebbings?

  But before we leave today's show, Jeff Feiner at LinkedIn said that data is critical to this next wave of innovation. And that is why HiringScreen's Blink algorithm is the most effective way to go about building your team as it compiles all the data from all the candidates and then displays it in a beautifully designed UI and a ranked table of the most suitable candidates for your job. Simply head on over to www dot hiringscreen dot com to check it out. As always, we are so grateful for your continued support and look forward to seeing you in the next episode.