Business Booster

A la carte: You choose the sessions you want to participate in.

$60/session for members & $100/session for non-members

$110/2 sessions with networking and snacks for members & $200 for non-members

SCHEDULE

Wednesday 29th, August

4:30 - 6:30 pm Elevator pitch Training, with Marc Verstaen, Richard Zolezzi & Marie Perruchet

What defines a good elevator pitch?  It is the ability to articulate a brief and clear description of your idea or business and the market opportunity surrounding it in a way that generates interest on the part of the listener to favorably consider what you want.  During this session we will explore and practice, collaboratively, the simple keys to making an effective elevator pitch.

6:30 - 7:00 pm Networking dinner

7:00 - 9:00 pm Is there really a startup culture? with Marc Verstaen

We keep on hearing about the cultural differences between start-ups and corporations. It is an accepted fact that there is such a thing as start-up culture, massively different from corporate culture. Really? And why that? What does "culture" covers when it comes to start-ups and corporations? More importantly in our case, what is the culture you need to create a hit. How should it evolve? How can it be created and modified? These are important questions. Successful companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Apple or Facebook have very different but very strong cultures. How do they differ, how did they evolve with time? Let's investigate!

To take part in one or two sessions, register online:

Wednesday 5th, September

4:30 - 6:30 pm Accounting 101, with François Musé

Finance & Budgeting : Forecasting
Every-day Accounting : Differences between French and American accounting, How to avoid all the pitfalls the entrepreneurs usually fall in?

6:30 - 7:00 pm Networking dinner

7:00 - 9:00 pm A convincing Business Plan for your VC! with Jean-Louis Gassée & François Musé

What does a VC expect from your Business Plan? Listen carefully to Jean-Louis Gassée advice in terms of VC's expectations and learn how to adapt your Business Plan to your VC.

To take part in one or two sessions, register online:

Wednesday 12th, September

4:30 - 6:30 pm Startup financing and capital distribution, with Benoît Bergeret options and best practices in the San Francisco Bay Area

With broad availability of capital funding in the region, and specific local tax and legal environments, what are the options offered to a European business incorporating or relocating in the Bay Area? The presentation will cover capital sources, most frequent deal terms, stock spread, and strategies for maximizing the efficiency of capital as a growth tool.

6:30 - 7:00 pm Networking dinner

7:00 - 9:00 pm Intercultural Management, with Carolyn Feuille

A main critical non-technical factor for your success in the USA must be added to your business development: your cultural competence. Why? Without cultural competence to lead people different from you and manage in the American business context your dreams and hard work could be in vain. In the Cultural Management learning session, you will discover what critical success factors have enabled many foreign-born entrepreneurs to "make it" in the U.S. and particularly in Silicon Valley & San Francisco.

To take part in one or two sessions, register online:

Wednesday 19th, September

4:30 - 6:30 pm Entrepreneurship experience, with Vincent Paquet

Entrepreneurship experience: notes from the field. Vincent Paquet will share his experience and insights on startup life, and why it's always the best time to start a new business.

6:30 - 7:00 pm Networking dinner

7:00 - 9:00 pm Play the pitch! bringing authenticity and charisma to the business discussion, with Valérie Zeller, Roy Terry & Marie Perruchet
 
Now you have your pitch. It’s clear and concise. How to deliver it in a variety of situations with passion and charisma? How to use it to start a conversation? With this workshop, take the chance to practice with 1-to-1 and full group feedback to identify and enhance your strongest parts, and minimize weaker parts. Owning your pitch gives you ultimate flexibility to customize and connect powerfully. Our safe and comfortable group-feedback method will enable each participant to test directly the effectiveness of their message and delivery and to make instant changes and improvements. Each participant will be video-recorded.

To take part in one or two sessions, register online:

Wednesday 3rd, October

4:30 - 6:30 pm Legal tool box, with Eve Chaurand-Fraser & François Laugier

Veteran Corporate attorneys will present you with tips, tricks and street fighting techniques that will help you avoid costly legal mistakes and keep your lawyer's fees under control.

6:30 - 7:00 pm Networking dinner

7:00 - 9:00 pm Angel and VC environment in Silicon Valley,with Nicolas El Baze

To take part in one or two sessions, register online:

In partnership with

More information about our speakers:

Benoît Bergeret is an active mentor and advisor on the San Francisco startup scene. In 2010, he exited Realeyes3D, the company he had founded, and sold to Bandai (Japan). Realeyes3D S.A. was launched in 2003 with the vision that camera phones could do more than taking pictures and quickly became a leader in mobile imaging, shipping its software in over 150 million camera phones. In 2006, Benoit founded Qipit, Inc. in San Francisco to launch the first mobile document capture service. An experienced international executive, before this, Benoît was in charge of marketing and strategy for Telisma, a spin-off of France Telecom providing speech recognition software; he launched and developed the Telecoms Service Providers Business Unit at Netigy, a U.S. based e-business infrastructure consulting firm backed by Cisco; and headed EMEA Sales for the Software Product Group at Lucent Technologies. 

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/benoit-bergeret

Nicolas El Baze joined Partech International in 2000 and focuses on early stage opportunities in Software and Internet. Prior to Partech, Nicolas spent 15 years as an entrepreneur and was a co-founder of several venture-funded companies: Softway International (acq. by ITway), Softway Systems (acq. by Microsoft), and ISDnet (acq. by Cable & Wireless). Nicolas also lead the Softway Venture Development activity which resulted in the incubation of several successful start-ups in the U.S. and Europe including: RightPoint (acq. by E.piphany), MultiMania (IPO - acq. by Lycos Europe), and LibertySurf (IPO - acq. by Tiscali). Nicolas also served on the boards of Meiosys (IBM), Akimbi Systems (VMware), Pantero (Progress Software), ClearApp (Oracle), and Q-Layer (Sun Microsystems). Nicolas received an MBA from Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) in Paris, and an International Management Program degree from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and Universität zu Köln, Germany.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolaselbaze

Eve Chaurand Fraser is VP, Business Development and General Counsel at Ask.comAfter. Eve studied French and Anglo-American law in Paris (University of Paris X), and worked as a corporate attorney in France, the UK and the Baltic States (for Moquet Borde et Associes, now the Paul Hastings Paris Office) where she handled acquisitions, IPOs and cross border strategic partnerships for her clients. Upon arriving in San Francisco in 2000, Eve advised European corporations doing business in the Bay Area and was outside counsel to many start-ups and small businesses in the IT and e-commerce sector. Eve integrated Ask.com in 2005 upon its acquisition by media conglomerate IAC. She supported many different businesses ranging from IAC Advertising Solutions and Dictionary.com to the Mindspark consumer applications group. She became Ask.com's general counsel in February 2011 and recently took the lead of Ask.com's Business Development team.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/eve-chaurand-fraser

Carolyn Feuille is an international leadership coach and training consultant. Her passion is enabling leaders and professionals to successfully navigate the challenges of working and leading in the global business environment. She coaches managers on international assignment to acculturate and achieve their business objectives with culturally appropriate leadership. She has also served pharmaceutical clients, such as Lifescan, for which she co-developed and delivered an award-winning cultural diversity training program for over 250 manufacturing employees. She served as a training manager at Synopsys, as an internal quality system consultant for VLSI Technology in Silicon Valley ; and as a senior trainer at Kodak Pathé in Paris.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/carolyn-feuille

Venture Partner, Allegis Capital, Venture Partner, AVI Capital, Founder/CEO Be Inc.; President Apple Computers Products Division,Venture Partner, Benchmark Europe.

Jean-Louis Gassée has been associated with the firm since 1994, first as a Special Limited Partner of AVI III. He joined the firm full-time in October 2002 and was a General Partner from 2003 until 2010. In late 1990, Mr. Gassée founded Be, Inc., a multi-media system software company, took it to the NASDAQ in 1999 and sold it to Palm in 2001. Mr. Gassée started Apple France in 1981, moved to Cupertino, California in 1985 and became president of the Apple Products Division, covering worldwide product development, manufacturing and product marketing. From 1974 to 1981, Mr. Gassée served as CEO of the French affiliates of Data General and Exxon Office Systems and, from 1968 to 1974 worked for Hewlett-Packard in sales management positions in France and at the European HQ in Geneva, Switzerland. Mr. Gassée has served as a director of publicly traded companies such as Cray Computer Corporation, 3Com, Logitech and Electronics for Imaging, and was until late 2005 Chairman of PalmSource.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/jean-louis-gassée

François Laugier is a corporate transactions and international attorney who specializes in technology-related transactions while still advising clients in commercial litigation and dispute resolution. Based in Silicon Valley for the past 20 years, François helps entrepreneurs, investors and companies build finance and sell their US or foreign operations, and get past every legal challenge they encounter along the way. François advises compagnies in all aspects of corporate law, including entity formation, equity financing, technology licensing, corporate law, including entity formation, equity financing, technology licensing, corporate structure inversions ("flips"), mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, stock options, employment, commercial leasing, intellectual property protection, negociation and drafting of virtually any business contract.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/francois-laugier

François Muse is a consulting Partner at French-American Accountancy. As a manager at Deloitte & Touche LLP, Francois worked in their San Francisco, Paris (France) and Sacramento, CA, offices.  He left Deloitte to become CFO of the Chalone Wine Group (Nasdaq: CHLN).  In 2000, he launched French-American Accountancy.  François offers twenty-three years of accounting experience performing financial analyses of a broad range of companies, from small start-up enterprises to large publicly-traded and multi-national concerns, with heavy emphasis on the following: auditing of financial records, company valuations, financial projections, design & implementation of new accounting systems and investigative accounting applicable to all cases involving the evaluation of damages, business valuations for purposes of litigation or transactional matters such as mergers acquisitions or dissolutions.

Vincent Paquet is Group Product Manager for Google Voice. He joined Google with the acquisition of GrandCentral, which he co-founded whit Craig Walker. Prior to co-founding GrandCentral, Vincent was Director of Business Development at Yahoo! in the voice communications group. He joined Yahoo! when it acquired Dialpad Communications, one of the world's largest VoIP providers. At Dialpad, Vincent was VP of Business Development and Marketing, where he oversaw all revenue-generating activities. He helped lead the reorganization and turn-around of the company until its successful acquisition by Yahoo! in 2005.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/vincent-paquet

Marie Perruchet graduated from the top journalism school in France in 2004, then left Normandy to head to New Delhi, India, where she worked as the correspondent for the largest European Media Networks : Radio France Internationale, Radio France, Radio Canada, TV5 (major international French-language TV station), France 2 (a French public TV station), Ouest France (the French leading daily newspaper) and the Cadena Ser (Spain’s leading radio station). She covered major political issues, the Kashmir earthquake and Nepal riots. Later, she moved to Shanghai, China, where she covered the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the rise of the Chinese middle-class and the Sichuan earthquake. Marie also collaborated with the BBC World service. She arrived in the US, in November 2008, just on time to cover the US presidential elections from the San Francisco Bay Area.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/marie-perruchet

Marc Verstaen is the founder of Lorienne S.A., a leader in map authoring tools. Lorienne provides high-end cartographic software for editing, production, and publication to professional map designers. Since 1996, Marc has been established in the Silicon Valley where he founded and managed Beatware, a software company specialized in data representation for the Web and mobile devices, until its acquisition by Hyperion Solutions (later acquired by Oracle) in 2006. Atfer leaving Oracle, Marc helped several start-ups to perfect their products and business models, before joining Apple Inc. . Marc is a former President of the French American Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco and a graduate of Paris Tech/ ENSTA.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/marc-verstaen

Roy Terry has been studying and promoting  personal and organizational change since 1995. He is trained as a master practitioner of NLP and has delivered communication skill workshops at various high tech companies such as Oracle and Hewlett Packard. His tech career in Silicon Valley began in 1982 when he joined Intel Corporation as a software developer in Santa Clara. He worked extensively with new products and projects and his responsibilities took him on assignments to Italy, London, and all around the US.  Roy is a graduate of the ProTrack professional training program for public speakers. This program is sponsored by the Northern California Chapter of the NSA (National Speakers Association). He is frequently requested to provide speech delivery and speech composition feedback by both professional and aspiring speakers in the area. In addition, Roy, in the “South Bay Public Speaking Skills Group”,  provides live in-the-moment coaching as participants practice their front of the room speaking skills. He also provides individual paid coaching. Roy is utterly passionate in helping his clients creating powerful written and spoken English and believes you can gain a confident command of English, no matter what your starting point is.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/roy-terry

Valérie Zeller has been helping European companies launch their products on the U.S market since 1996 by designing and implementing strategic marketing plans and communications programs. She is currently the founder of appTrotter, a map-based search engine that helps travelers discover the best mobile apps around them. She is also a consultant for the travel industry advising French professionals on the convergence of interactive technology and travel. Before, Valerie held various positions in marketing strategy and communications at several high-tech companies in the Silicon Valley and in France. Valerie is an officer at the Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs Toastmasters club, where entrepreneurs can learn how to formulate, express and sell their ideas and themselves with poise and confidence. Born and raised in France, Valerie moved to the United States in 1996. She is a graduate from HEC.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/valerie-zeller

Richard Zolezzi is a San Francisco native and partner at Catapult Advisors, an investment bank providing M&A and financing advice to technology companies. Throughout his career he has worked on international transactions, first as a corporate lawyer at Rogers & Wells (now Clifford Chance) in New-York and later with Lillick & Charles (now Nixon Peabody) in San Francisco. He later was an executive at SPL WorldGroup, an international software company, until its sale to Oracle. Richard opened SPL's Paris office and held various roles at SPL, including Chief legal Officer, Chief of Strategy and interim CEO.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/richard-zolezzi

Comments from former participants:

·          Edouard Haag, co-founder of Kubosphere

       "The FACCSF Business Booster is a unique opportunity to work with outstanding experts on every aspect of a compagny's development in the US. As an entrepreneur I receive extremely useful feedback on various business issues such as the company's presentation or the financial and legal aspects, which leads to a better understanding of the US market, and therefore to a better management. Thanks a lot for organizing the 2009 edition of the business booster!"

·         John Gabaix, VP Business development at Equinoa

   "It is only when I started the Business Booster first meeting that I realized how valuable this program is. I have found highly skilled people that helped me to cover all the dimensions of my business. I am feeling much more prepared than ever before. For anyone who wants to start business in the Californian market, this program is the definite way to success".

Testimonial from a participant, 6 months later:

·       Karine J. Wittmer, CEO, Kael Cosmetics

"Back in September 2006, when I started the business booster program, I was a young entrepreneur dealing with my startup, an organic cosmetics company. My business plan was almost finalized but at the same time I wasn’t ready to be in front of a panel of experts.
After 8 weeks of one-on-one support in communication, marketing, legal, finance and business development I learned to be challenged by professionals. The day of the final presentation was an unforgettable day, a successful personal and professional outcome.
Six months later Kael Cosmetics is ready to launch Edelbio, the first Swiss skin care line certified organic, in the US and in Switzerland. During the last six months we developed our marketing strategy, implemented our operations between Europe and the United States and finalized our business plan. Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to present my business story in front of a panel of international entrepreneur women, politicians and businessmen.
The program offered me the chance to enlarge my network of entrepreneurs and potential investors and sharpened my approach to building value in my business.
Thank you to the remarkable team of the FACCSF".