Laurent Kretz's Tumbelog
Notes, thoughts, ideas

There is a proverbial quote for entrepreneurs:
If you don’t have at least 9 bad ideas first, you’ll never have 1 good one, either.

Well first I haven’t had 10 real ideas yet, and second I guess the few serious ideas I had were not so bad ones …
Update: I actually have had 9 ideas yet ! Bad or not, well not so bad for some ;))

Since I was 16 (I am from 1979), I have wanted to:

• 1995: Create the first ever “small payment” credit card. The aim was to eliminate paper and coins money, for small payments like your daily newspaper, your baguette, your pack of cigarettes (started early), … Instead of processing individual payments each time a payment is done (expensive), users and shops would accrue payments and settle their account monthly (cheaper). My Economics teacher told me that it would never happen and that at 15, I was an arrogant punk. 4 years later, in 1999, the equivalent card was launched by a few french banks (Moneo) - but it think it never worked ;).
• 1996: Create a local shopping city guide allowing local businesses to advertise to visitors. Business model was based on shops paying a monthly fee to get their own page on the site, with prices increasing depending on options. At the time, it was $15/monthly basis (information on the shop, some pictures) going up to $45/monthly to allow orders online. We already had 150 shops onboard for Strasbourg, France for our first meeting at the Chamber of Commerce. But my father told me: get the hell back to your books and study! Too bad, could have beem the french citysearch equivalent, WebCity, founded in 1998 and acquired by a competitor, Cityvox, in 2003.
• 1997: With the rise of EasyJet, UK low cost airline, and the explosion of Internet, we wanted to create low-cost giants Cyber Cafes. We investigated places, created a business plan, talked to some people but never went further. Investment-wise, it was too big for our 18 years old. And, guess what: EasyJet founder had the same idea 2 years later (1999).
• 1998: Deli and grocery shop deliveries and online ordering, importing a concept already existing in the US. The operational side would have been a headache, after discussing with some wholesale retailers, we abandonned the project. Luckily, the US equivalent didn’t survive long … (can’t remember the name …).
• 1998: Based on Boo.com, which was at the time owning warehouses of stocks, we wanted to launch the same concept but based on a just-in-time model, actually acting as an intermediary between buyers and manufacturers. But we were very small and it’s an industry where you need to have a voice and weight, so we turned the model to actually allow small and young designers to sell, still on just-in-time model. We stopped there - at that time, eCommerce was still slow and people weren’t keen on buying clothes online.
• 2001: People based online shopping guide. Kinda like Google Answers, but based on local shopping. The idea was to be able to ask a question like “I need to buy a shirt with french cuffs, where could I find that in east village ? And also any tip on where to park my car in this area to make it simple?”. We stopped at discussing the idea. Too costly and not easily scalable.
• 2003: eSourcing platform, allowing companies to launch RFPs/RFQs and suppliers to bid on purchase actions. I had the clients to license the platform to - 90% chance to lock 3 or 4 major french industrial companies - and I had the team to develop, lead by an indian friend I met during my MBA semester in Singapore. Then I got a job in New York, and had a killing decision to make - leaving for New York would really delay the project and I would lose my sales contacts. However, I dreamt of New York since I was a kid, so I chose New York.
• 2005: My personal trip planner. Still on the Google Answer model, but specialised on travelling. Browsing traveling blogs or traveling social networks can be a headache for a backpacker as I am, so I wanted a place where you can ask a specific question and get an answer. Bought the domain name (mytripadvice.com and personaltripadvice.com) and …. that’s where it ended. Didn’t have the time to work on it. However, I still like the idea and it’s a self-starter, so if anyone wants to help …
• 2006: Time2Lunch, the easiest way to invite friends to have lunch, dinner, a drink or a party. 4 fields to fill to create the event and invite your friends. Your friends can know where you’re at if the event is public. But I guess this is one of the busiest segment right now, with video and media sharing. So …. didn’t push further.

So that makes 9 of them. Let’s hope the 10th one ….