Joannes Vermorel's blog

In my previous post if been detailing 9 steps to make sure your startup exists. Inspired by an initial idea of Chris Exline, I decided to make a small survey of the startups admitted at the Incubator of Telecom ParisTech in 2007 and 2008 (startups are hosted 18 months by the incubator, and then kicked-out, that's the rule).

To figure out how well the startups of the incubator were doing, I came up with a simple score the startup websites.

Survival test for startup websites:

• +2 if look & fell is GOOD.


• +1 if look & fell is just OK (zero if horrid).


• +2 if benefits of product or service is clear.


• +1 if I must struggle to figure out the benefits.
  (zero if I am still clueless about benefits after struggling)


• +1 if there is no happy talk


• +1 if PageRank is greater than 3 for a B2B company.


• +1 if PageRank is greater than 5 for a B2C company.


• +1 if there is an English version.


• +1 if people can buy or consume right away.


• +1 if there are news.


• +1 if there are forums.

The maximal score for this test is 10. One can argue that this test is very subjective. Frankly, after reviewing 50 companies, I rather think otherwise.

Any website with a decent, professional looking is ranked as GOOD with 2 points - no need for flashy graphics, decent is enough. In the other hand, if the website feels amateurish (colors messed-up, random layout) but still functional, then it's OK, you get 1 point. If the website is utterly broken in design or in navigation, then it's zero point.

Same for the benefits. If I can get a rough idea, in less than a minute, of the added-value of your company, then you get 2 points. I mean no need for detailed ideas, big picture is enough. If I have to struggle for 5 mins to finally guess what could be your added value, then it's 1 point. If after 5 mins, I am still utterly clueless, then it's zero point.

Concerning the PageRank, I am putting a much lower threshold for B2B website, because those folks typically need 100x times less customers than B2C companies to be profitable.

Not having a English version is like shooting yourself a bullet in your feet. The French market is small, so small, compared to USA+UK+Canada+India+Australia. To get 1 point here, you don't need to have translated everything in English, any portion that makes sense is enough.

In my opinion:

• any 6 months old startup should get at least 6/10.


• any 18 months old startup should get 9/10.

I have collected raw data for 52 startups within a Google Spreadsheet, and here are the results at present date 2009-04-21.

Disclaimer: I have a strong bias toward Lokad since it's my own company. Thus, its score is probably the least reliable score of the whole study(*). Concerning the other startups, I am not involved, thus, I feel more objective.

07 class 9 DisMoiOù 9 Lingueo 8 Connecthings 8 Helia 8 La Cartoonerie 8 LivePepper 8 Netineo 8 PREXENS 8 Teacheo 7 FrenchSet 6 Adminext 6 EtherTrust 6 InovaCours 6 Tellus 5 FamilyBy 5 Adipsys 5 Lixys 4 Needer 3 Connect and Go 3 Patent Organizer Software 3 Nexess 2 MobiNear 1 Alphacode 1 Système Polaire 0 Takys Average score: 5.5

'08 Class 9 OOdesk 9 Lokad 8 Accessif 8 Haploid 8 Hellocoton 8 PlayAdz 7 CapAngel 7 Jaxio 7 OhMyMode 6 Ecce Vino 6 Quelle Energie 6 Actimos 6 Kwaga 5 Ineovation 4 Eyes Triple Shut 4 Hedera Technology 4 Plugnsurf 3 Absysseo 3 Aquilant Technologies 3 Faveod 3 The Metrics Factory 2 FI Technologies 2 Media Mobility 2 nYouLinK 2 SeQureNet Average score: 5.3

 
To be honest, those results look rather poor to me.

• Two thirds of those startups don't offer any chance to their customer to buy or consume the product or service online.


• Roughly one third of those startups are not able to express the benefits they could bring to their customers.


• More than half of the startups can't get even a limited English version of their website.

Moreover, startups do not improve much over time. Considering 2007 vs 2008, if feel like if there were two categories of startups:

• the ones that got a good website right from the start.


• the ones that will never get a good one.

Yet, my own experience told me it's so obviously not true. Just have a look at the first version of the Lokad website (score: 4) and compare with the current one. Granted, I am still far from what Branding Geniuses could produce, but still.

I would be interested to see how other incubators are doing on their own.

(*) Feel free to give us a score of zero if you think the Lokad website is damn broken - but please leave a comment so that we can improve :-) .