My last day at coComment
Today is my last day of work for coComment, the end of almost eleven months of hard and passionate work on one of the most exciting projects of my professional life.
It is both unsurprising and… surprising!
Since May my mission was to take care of coComment during the transition between a 100% Swisscom owned project and a fully independent company. I moved the project to Geneva, rebuilt a team, and focused all our energy on the relaunch. I was still an external consultant, and my official title was “Interim CEO”, so there was a sense changes were looming on the horizon.
On the other hand, Nicolas, Marco and me (aka the “founders”) tried hard to be part of the future of coComment and strike a deal with Swisscom on the establishment of a new company. Unfortunately we could not agree on satisfactory terms for all parties involved. Spin offs are really hard to do as anybody with experience in that kind of situation will tell you. So, as it stands, I will not be back on the project when I return from holidays.
coComment has been such a wild ride. It all started on an email from Nicolas Dengler, who was then working for Swisscom Innovations (the R&D arm of our national telco). He was asking for my opinion on an idea he had, a kind of Third Voice with a twist of Web 2.0.
I was immediately seduced by the project and its potential, and promptly joined as a consultant. My role was to help refine the concept, and make it fit the different constraints we had (budget, development capacity, location, etc…). By the end of 2005 I had logged countless hours of commuting between Geneva and Bern, where the project was then being developed in-house at Swisscom by Peter Balsiger and his team.
I stepped down a little in early 2006 to put the final touch on the organization of the conference I founded and that some of you attended; on February 2 and 3 LIFT was here, and on the ensuing week-end I ended up showing the small web project I was working on to some bloggers, among them Robert Scoble.
A-listers are magicians: they can transform your private alpha in public beta. It is both a good and a bad thing. If it happens, just be sure you have more than your development server when they start talking about you ;-)
So one of the craziest weeks of my life started. From the Swiss chalet of my friend Pierre Devos – where we had taken all the LIFT speakers who had no plans for the week-end – coComment spread all over the web: second most bookmarked site on delicious, fourth most searched term on technorati, articles all over the press, most notably in Wired, tens of thousands of people trying to reach the site. The buzz was completely overwhelming. Solve a problem for passionate internet users out there and they will reward you with a free buzz surpassing your wildest dreams. As Don Dogde said:
We now live in a meritocracy. Money, VCs, and the press no longer decide what will be successful. Great products/services with intuitive designs that solve a real problem win.
So my post-conference vacation turned into helping deal with all the craziness that started in February and just ended this week.
I met thousands of passionate and interesting people, went to the silicon valley, got introduced to the world of venture capitalists, held meetings in more than 10 cities (let’s see: Zurich, Bern, Paris, Bucharest, London, Munich, Boston, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Tokyo, Barcelona, Zaragossa), managed a great team to deliver the best ever version of what I believe is an indispensable service for all those participating in the global conversation… What a ride.
As of today, coComment is a successful web service used by thousands of people, hosting hundreds of thousands of comments, making global conversation useful and helping individuals deal with a growing problem: managing their participation all over the web.
One day I will go into more details about all this, and maybe even write a book about that whole story as Bruno once suggested ;-)
But now is finally my turn for a bit of rest.
Before I publish this post and head to Brittany for three weeks of well deserved disconnection, I want to thank all those involved in this adventure, starting with the great team who worked with me for the last three months (ben, chris, christophe, guillaume, hugh, juan-luis, leif, nicholas, pierre-alexandre, raph, steph, steven, the namahn folks and the netage folks); all our users, friends and coworkers who provided advice, ideas and challenges; and last but not least my two “co-founders” Nicolas Dengler and Marco Chong, two people with whom I think we were forming a very balanced, creative, and effective team. It is really a shame we built that chemistry on a consulting project ;-)
I will be back with a fresh mind in September, working on the preparation of LIFT07 and looking for a few new challenges (maybe even in the commentosphere… who knows…), . Enjoy your month of August folks, see you soon :-)
August 3rd, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Yeap. Go to the holidaysphere. You own it.
August 3rd, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Yeap. Go to the holidaysphere. You own it.
August 3rd, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Where one door closes, another opens!
You’ve embraced the experience, and seem to be in a good state of mind to move on!
Rock on!
August 3rd, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Where one door closes, another opens!
You’ve embraced the experience, and seem to be in a good state of mind to move on!
Rock on!
August 3rd, 2006 at 2:23 pm
You know, doors never actually closes: they just move one way or the over and can be crashed if necessary ;-)
Anyway, things are just moving all the time and this is just another small step in your life, and a big step in the commentosphere….
August 3rd, 2006 at 2:23 pm
You know, doors never actually closes: they just move one way or the over and can be crashed if necessary ;-)
Anyway, things are just moving all the time and this is just another small step in your life, and a big step in the commentosphere….
August 3rd, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Have fun man… you deserve it!
August 3rd, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Have fun man… you deserve it!
August 3rd, 2006 at 6:30 pm
…and did you see the mention of cocomment in the magazine Business 2.0, August edition, p. 108? It was listed as one of the “planet’s most innovative new sites”. The article is not yet on their website: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/
August 3rd, 2006 at 6:30 pm
…and did you see the mention of cocomment in the magazine Business 2.0, August edition, p. 108? It was listed as one of the “planet’s most innovative new sites”. The article is not yet on their website: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/
August 4th, 2006 at 1:01 am
Bravo! It’s been a joy to watch you ride the waves, Lau. Enjoy your well deserved vacation.
August 4th, 2006 at 1:01 am
Bravo! It’s been a joy to watch you ride the waves, Lau. Enjoy your well deserved vacation.
August 4th, 2006 at 6:02 am
thanks for all your work on this great service. If ever you are in Boston, I’d like to have lunch.
August 4th, 2006 at 6:02 am
thanks for all your work on this great service. If ever you are in Boston, I’d like to have lunch.
August 4th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Time will tell them how much they lost today!
As Matt put it, and believe me it’s always true, if one door gets shut, you’ll see that another one just pop’s up open! ;)
Have some great days off! You sure deserve it, plus, I want you “fresh” by the time SHiFT takes place! ;)
August 4th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Time will tell them how much they lost today!
As Matt put it, and believe me it’s always true, if one door gets shut, you’ll see that another one just pop’s up open! ;)
Have some great days off! You sure deserve it, plus, I want you “fresh” by the time SHiFT takes place! ;)
August 4th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
Laurent,
was a pleasure to work together.Hope we meet again in a near future.Good Luck and enjoy you holidays!
A paella is waiting for you in Valencia :)
August 4th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
Laurent,
was a pleasure to work together.Hope we meet again in a near future.Good Luck and enjoy you holidays!
A paella is waiting for you in Valencia :)
August 7th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Laurent, an enormous thanks to you for having made this story become reality. As you said, it all begon with a simple Email. It was and will be a pleasure to work with you! Check your Inbox regularly :-)
August 7th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Laurent, an enormous thanks to you for having made this story become reality. As you said, it all begon with a simple Email. It was and will be a pleasure to work with you! Check your Inbox regularly :-)
August 7th, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Great work on coCo Laurent, and have yourself some good rest.
August 7th, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Great work on coCo Laurent, and have yourself some good rest.
August 10th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
congrats Laurent – enjoy the break and don’t forget to invite me to LIFT ;-)
August 10th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
congrats Laurent – enjoy the break and don’t forget to invite me to LIFT ;-)
August 14th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
sure mate, enjoy britany, take time for yourself, you deserve it, I’m sure a great idea has yet come to your brain. C u soon
August 14th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
sure mate, enjoy britany, take time for yourself, you deserve it, I’m sure a great idea has yet come to your brain. C u soon
August 19th, 2006 at 1:54 am
Laurent, it’s a shame to see you go. As the most regular user of coComment, you have built something that is utterly fantastic. Congratulations and please keep us posted of your next venture.
August 19th, 2006 at 1:54 am
Laurent, it’s a shame to see you go. As the most regular user of coComment, you have built something that is utterly fantastic. Congratulations and please keep us posted of your next venture.
August 19th, 2006 at 11:49 am
congratulations! enjoy the break.
(i should read this blog more often… i had missed the news)
August 19th, 2006 at 11:49 am
congratulations! enjoy the break.
(i should read this blog more often… i had missed the news)
August 26th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
all: thx for the nice comments! What a great ride that was, and the people made it that way…
See you in the next adventure, whatever it will be ;-)
August 26th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
all: thx for the nice comments! What a great ride that was, and the people made it that way…
See you in the next adventure, whatever it will be ;-)
January 30th, 2008 at 12:22 am
[…] I left coComment in August 2006 (18 months ago…) without having ever possessed any form of equity. Cocomment formally became a company months after I left. Since then I have not been involved in coComment in any way, nor I have received any form of salary or payment from coComment. […]