OurielOhayon

Nexus one - thoughts 1 week later. Big fail

note: written from a nexus one mostly.

I have dragged myself to abandon my iPhone and use the Nexus One, freshly acquired (yes, acquired, not provided by Google). I am now absolutely certain of one thing, the iPhone will continue to rule for some time. Although the Nexus one has some brilliant features it does not make a single shadow on the iPhone and those who claim the opposite have not tried enough both phones

Google, if you will go one making phones like those, please just keep doing what you know to do best: Awesome search, Awesome cloud services like Gmail. Stop hardware.

I am listing below some observations i had

• The trackball is a stupid, useless feature, it does not serve to a single thing. The touch screen if it was accurate enough would call the termination of this extra-redondant piece of hardware
• At least they could have used the trackball to activate the home screen, like on the iPhone. No,...you have to each time, press the top button to get access to the unlock screen feature. STUPID
• The screen is gorgeous, but unreadable in daylight. iPhone wins big
• Gmail. Believe it or not, this is the worst part of the Nexus one. Whoever created that app is not using Gmail. One example: the reply button. you have to go down the email (good luck if long) to find it. It should have been made a key short cut.
• Keyboard: not accurate at all. I tried several substitute (swype and anykeyboardsoft) but nothing comes as close as the precision of the Iphone. The most terrible part of the keyboard: they space key is right above the home button of the Nexus One. with a normal finger 9/10 chances that you will espace your message being written in the middle without even noticing. Even by being carefull you won't get used to it. TOTALLY STUPID
• Calendar: pretty nice, but again total navigation nonsense, To move to a day to another you swipe sideways. But to move to one month to another in months view, you have to move up and down. WHY???/??
• Voice search: big fail/ does not work
• Multi touch: big fail. the iPhone is so ahead in terms of precision and responsiveness. With the left hand swiping simply does not work
• Camera: big win. Awesome
• Connection to a computer: What a nightmare, it took me 3 google search and 4 forums to find out how to access files from my computer.
• Apps: big fail. A minority are good. The rest has to be simply killed
• Phone: sound is good, but the speaker is placed in such a way you need to find the right position to hear what the other person says
• Multi Tasking: Elegant, big win. THE ONE thing i miss from the iPhone. I am sure it will come to the iPhone soon in some way. 

Android will eventually get there, But it is not there yet. The Nexus one is a tiring device. the integration soft/hard is not good (enough). The iPhone with all its limitations is easy, fast and elegant. i prefer the 20% iPhone limitations to the 80% Google phone openness 

So i am going back to my iPhone. Gladly.

On Israel vs Europe in VC

Read in the NY Times

Israel, with seven million people, attracts as much venture capital as France and Germany combined

the funny thing is that i live in israel but got funded in France :)

important precision on my situation since i was asked.

Since we announced our round table with AppsFire with French investors, and leaked a few pictures of our new office in Paris, many reached out thinking i was leaving Israel. 

I am NOT leaving israel. There, i said it.

AppsFire is a french company, and Yann, my co-founder lives in Paris. Our office is indeed in France, but i am working from Israel. As a matter of fact we already hired someone to work with us also in Israel. The operation is split between France and Israel. Most of the people we ll hire we ll be based in Paris for now. Actually we already hired a great talent there.

I believe, any business on the internet can be started from anywhere. Most of our traffic is split between the US, Europe and Japan. So it only reinforces the argument that it does not really matter where you are at the beginning. The company could have been registered in Israel equally. But for many reasons we preferred to do it in France (mostly because France is a strategic market for apps, the #2 iPhone market in the world also)

At some point of scale we ll have to evaluate that again. I created TechCrunch France from Israel. I see many Israeli or europeans startups succeeding in the US without having the need to relocate from day 1.

Israel, is my second first country (france is #1). I will travel a lot. 

that s all.

Easyjet fail. how to screw the customer with cheap tickets

note: written in plane. so apologies for typos and lack of editing

Today i understood what it really costs to pay cheap. Easyjet is a perfect example of what happens when you go to cheap and cut any key aspect of the user experience when you mostly need it: in case of problem

Easyjet yesterday cancelled a flight. Lastminute. I discovered that on site. No notification although the knew it 2h before and had my email

>> The worst part is coming.

There was 2 personns to handle 100+ travellers at a rate of 1 per 10 min. No explanations. No dilligence. Silence until you get to the counter

Once you get there you are told that the next available flight is in 4 days. And that they are not arranging any accomodation or new flight with other companies

Meaning you are in deep shit and they know it (and they don' care)

They then explain they may refund your ticket if you want (really? *if* ?). But you have to go through a process online

I checked this site this am. Except the fact it s hard to find it is full of bugs and long to fill in addition to the stupid fact you have to create a new account in addition to your easyjet account

** Very efficient **

Easyjet made me loose money but mostly time and energy in a critical period of my business life.

They handled stupidly and cheap (like their to ticket price ) the situation

I had to find my solution alone. The airport had no wifi in the cheap terminal they were in (they need to save on that too)

So all i had was my iPhone. My brother helped me book a ticket for next day (everything is packed in Barcelona because ofthe mobile congress) and finding a hotel is a nightmare

What saved my life was Twitter. Twitter is easyjet unexpected best customer support. I literrally received 10 proposals of help and finally spent a great evening. Problem solved in 10 min

Wow !!

Easyjet makes you pay every dollar you save with them. Now I  am going to make them pay for this.

This is just the beginning of a long fight. Starting with this post. Twits and more to come.

I will avoid them always from now

They just felt on the wrong customer

ps: big win to Splendia hotels for the stunning customer service and diligence. and big win to Vueling on which i am flying now which is worth every single dollar i overpaid on easyjet

Everyone should have a side project

For the past 6 years, any side project that have started has become my next "big thing". When i was at ICQ, i started TechCrunch France, which lead me to my new VC job and running one of the largest blog in Europe (unfortunately now on stand by since i left). When i was at Gemini/LightSpeed i started AppsFire, which is now my full time job. Since we launched AppsFire, we launched PasteFire as a side project because we needed it for ourselves and PasteFire is taking off in an unexpected way.

Google has this 20% time rule, where any employee can start a side project which can become the next "Google thing dot com". Gmail was born like that, like many of the great non search Google products. I know too many entrepreneurs who are now running a startup that started as a side project

A side project is a must have. Employers should allow them, and you should allow them for yourself even if it means working beyond working hours. A side project is something that you die to have and to build. You dream about it but you are not sure if will succeed or even become something real.

But there is this spark.The beginning of a fire somewhere. This extra positive energy will drive you to get super creative and because limited by time and resources, very efficient. 

You should not start a side project for the sake of it. You should only start one if you believe you can spend more than a month working on it every day seriously (meaning a couple of hours every day including week ends). This is not a matter of the brain but a matter of the heart

Be tough with yourself and kill any idea that does not make you fall in love. Just kill it. Move to the next one.

What happens after is a matter of luck, encounters (rarely you ll succeed alone) and opportunity. Sometimes of right timing. 

What i know is that side projects can lead to something great and should not be under estimated. They are more important than anything you can write in a resume.

Not having a side project is very fine. Actually you can be very happy without one. But if you are looking for a jump in your life, starting a side project is probably the best way to get you there. What i mean is that if you think you have a good idea (does mean it IS good) more than 2 weeks in a row, then do it.

If you are afraid of being blamed by your boss or your peers, ask for a permission. But if you don 't get it, take it. A side project should be a right to any one. It is a ticket to your next dream.

And anyone has a right to dream

Just made it to the Forbes Top 20 most media connected people

There is a big biais but it feels special to make it on a Forbes list

Looking forward

A few weeks ago i wrote a post called "Looking back". When i was writting it is was already thinking about the post you are reading right now. It is about a few things that are going to change in my immediate future. In "Looking back" i was explaining that i learned in the past years that the lack of focus did not help me in getting to the next steps in many things i was starting up.

When i left my job it was still unclear where i would head. Until end last year i was still doing consulting here and there and still worked with Yoni at LightSpeed Ventures. But from today things are going to change. I am going to focus on Appsfire.com

We just announced our first round of table (more here) with four of the very best web entrepreneurs in Europe that happen to be French: Marc Simoncini, Meetic.com CEO, Xavier Niel, Free CEO, Jacques Antoine Granjon, Vente-Privee.com CEO and Jean-David Blanc, founder of Allocine.com (more here)

This means that with my partner, Yann Lechelle, we will dedicate all my energy to this project and will back off from other things i was involved in until now. The only other project, which takes an exciting direction, i will still be involved in, although not at an executive role, is ISAI, the early stage fund we co-created with other french entrepreneurs and on which more news will come soon (Jean David Chamboredon ex-3i, just joined to manage the fund!)

The challenge is big and having such investors in our company is both a blessing and an opportunity to make a difference in a competitive world (the mobile app is one of the fastest moving and most demanding vertical i have met to date).

It means for me a radical change in lifestyle, along with a few positive sacrifices. Back to other side as they say.

The danger for me in that project, is that it is so rich and sophisticated that it will be easy to lose focus and be tempted to do too many things. It is hard to imagine right now that "discovery" can be so rich, but as we roll out our products i hope people will realize close to nothing had been done so far.

Hopefully the learnings from the past will be helpful.

I really look forward to that.