To continue our interview series on VCs and next generation web,
today we speak to Neil
Rimer – a co-founder and General Partner of Index Ventures.
Neil’s
firm Index Ventures is probably best known in the web 2.0 world for investing in these innovative VoIP or WiFi services: Skype, Rebtel and FON. They also have a stake in
Last.fm and Netvibes (and many more!). Interestingly those 5 companies are all
non-Silicon Valley ones – which backs up a point that Neil makes later in the interview,
that “great entrepreneurs can emerge anywhere”. He also said that European businesses
“tend to extend beyond their comfort zone and globalize sooner than US ones”. There are
more nuggets in the full interview…
R/WW: Looking at upcoming web technologies, which trends do you see becoming
increasingly important over the next 12-18 months?
Neil: Over the last 10 years the web experience has altered immeasurably – from a
point where it wasn’t keeping up with the business innovations because it was too slow or
too expensive or too clumsy, to one in which the web experience is pretty good and
enables a bunch of new businesses to thrive; that would have previously been constrained
by the technology. In this context, we are interested in all kinds of businesses that
take advantage of this new technological headroom – to create dominant positions in
sectors like retailing, advertising, communications, education and entertainment.
R/WW: In the blogosphere a certain type of ‘web 2.0 ‘ company is endlessly hyped –
e.g. Flickr, del.icio.us, YouTube – while other deserving companies struggle to get
attention from bloggers. What types of Web products are currently under-hyped, in your
opinion?
Neil: I think companies like digg and del.icio.us belong to a category that gets a lot
of play because they have managed to hit a nerve – with a small but very vocal,
self-referential community that is disproportionately represented on the web.
YouTube and Flickr fall into a different category that resonates with a much larger
community of users, whose individual voices may be smaller, but collectively add up to a
groundswell.
Both groups of companies are interesting to study because they are clearly doing
something meaningful. However I’d rather invest in companies like Stardoll, Netvibes and
Last.fm – companies that fall into the latter category.
R/WW: What are the main differences in the Web industry in Europe versus Silicon
Valley, other parts of the US, or Asia?
Neil: I don’t see major differences. The web is the closest thing we have to a level
playing field.
The traditional advantage of US businesses has been that they can tap a huge,
monolithic market without dealing with multiple languages, currencies, legal systems and
advertising media. On the web, the difficulties of dealing with this complexity is
somewhat simplified, which makes it easier for any business to be global on the web.
The reality is
that european businesses tend to extend beyond their comfort zone and globalize sooner
than US ones. And since customers don’t know or even care where a web business is
actually based, as long as their needs are met, european businesses have a fair shot at
global markets. Actually, to this day, most people just assume that Skype came from
Silicon Valley!
R/WW: For a Next Generation Web startup, which is more important – building the
technology with defensible IP, or just putting your beta product out there and growing
your customer base?
Neil: I don’t see many internet businesses that have built barriers based on IP. The
best ones just do a very good job of getting the essential functionality out there early
– and then leverage this to attract a loyal base of users who keep coming back and
telling others about the service… because the feature set keeps expanding and the
experience never lets them down. Those are the one we look for and that we try to help
build. In this context, using open source platforms and exploiting the power of those
communities and standards makes a lot of sense – because it allows companies to focus on
what really locks in customers, which is rarely only the technology.
R/WW: How does an entrepreneur get on your radar?
Neil: So far the challenge has been how to get on their radar! Europe is a big place
and great entrepreneurs can emerge anywhere. The best way to get our attention is to show
us some concrete evidence that by working with you, we can build something significant.
It doesn’t have to be pretty or have all of the issues worked out, but it has to be
compelling.
We try to make ourselves very available to entrepreneurs who want to talk to us. If
they are ready to face the challenges of taking on the world with their business, getting
in front of us should be a piece of cake!