Big picture and trends
For this the third season, Le Camping has received 194 applications, more than the second and the first season.
Thanks to Le Camping’s integration into the European network of accelerators, 80 came from outside France : UK 25%, US 8%, Brazil 5%, Eastern Europe 27%).
The global nature of our applications gives us the bigger picture of current tech trends we want to share with you.
First of all, we have seen these different fields emerged: Leisure and entertainment (15%), Software (11,5%), Retail (10%), Local services (8%), Recruitment HR (7%), Internet publishing content (7%), E-education/learning (6%), Fashion (4%) and finally Travel (3,5%).
Secondly, this selection confirms two trends we’re facing today, already observed for the two previous seasons : the younger generation – though predominately male with only one girl for the last round of selections – is willing to get into entrepreneurship.
A young generation of entrepreneurs
From less than 20 to 30 represent more than 70 percent of the applications while only 10% for the 31-45 and 12% for the +45, mainly with Business and Tech skills (38% for business dev, 42% for Tech and 11% for UX design competency).
A lot of them are just beginning with their project, confirming the initial pitch line of Le Camping, “from the idea to the business”.
To give you an idea, 40% don’t even have a Minimum Viable Product yet.
Above all, they all seemed really into the idea of launching their product and, it’s worthy of notice, very attracted by the idea of being an entrepreneur.
There is something of a trend going on, the realm of new technologies does indeed offer new opportunities for a flexible and digital generation born with these new technologies and willing to change the world.
Startup experience and community
50% of the applicants have previous startup experience and expressed their interest in being involved in the tech community.
No one can doubt the importance of being linked with an ecoystem and to have the possibility to evolve in a stimulating environment such as Le Camping, the proof is in the pudding… But don’t fool yourself with grand notions of community!
Launching a startup requires a lot of work and, despite the impression of it being a young and cool world, scratch the surface and you’ll find that it’s actually a very hard and ambitious one.
Who was in the selection panel?
Tension and concentration were watchwords over the two days of selection.
The selection panel was made up of group of entrepreneurs, doers, tech guys from Gandi with Stephan Ramoin ;
Venture capital firm such as Paul Degueuse from 360° Capital Partners, coming from other accelerators, such as David Bizer from HackFwd, Campers from the two previous seasons with the hacker Philippe Langlois from P1Security and the young and talented Valentin Lautier from Skimm;
Also successful entrepreneurs such as Mathieu Lhoumeau from Contract Live, Anton Bernstein from Lookingo, Andrew Lacy, Laurent Penou from Lyra Network, Le Camping’s partners with William Beuve-Méry from the greater Parisian Region of Île-de-France, Yoann Jaffré from L’Atelier Numérique, Xavier Chopard for BNP Paribas, Catherine Delisle for the SNCF;
And last but not least members of Le Camping (former EIR, Patrick Perlmutter, current EIR Peter Savvas, Alice Zagury, Manager of Le Camping).
They were all brought together for their expertise and their ability to challenge the teams, deciphering the quality judging the motivations of each of them.
The Camping Spirit
Before beginning the selection, we reminded the members of the jury what the spirit of Le Camping actually is. Its goal is to create the framework (time, space and culture) for high potential startups to kick off here and now. Le Camping tries to push, locally, a real pool of innovative and healthy companies.
To create this efficient ecosystem of international leaders, some big issues have to be tackled: Ability to learn from the users ; Product driven and UX design driven businesses ; High ambition: market size, scalability, vision ; Looking for seed and smart money ; “Give back” attitude…
Product driven and UX design driven businesses
Many teams were obviously heavy on in the tech compartmented of tech profiles, and we can feel it in the product, with sometime the contrary of a UX vision. A product, to be successful, doesn’t just need powerful technology but also an ambitious vision, and in a nutshell, to be business driven.
We also reminded them of the essential criterion: the team, the team and the team.
What is the typical genetic make-up of a killer team?
The one with a good mix of technical, business, design or marketing guys (there should be at least one hacker on each team), with outstanding skills, made up of individuals who are mature enough (and this is not always a question of age!) and open-minded enough to be able to pivot where necessary, according to the user reactions.
Within their team, they have to know each other well, to have worked together before, to be able to listen because they are willing to learn from the mentors and collaborate with other team.
That’s what the jury was supposed to find out… Did they managed to do so? Let’s meet on June 4th to discover the season 3 startups together!