That's a huge question. I'm 47, so I started my career as an entrepreneur a long time ago. I was 23. I don't think I was meant to become an entrepreneur, by the way, I studied literature, so I didn't study business or technology, and I studied in France and I studied Spanish literature, and I've been a teacher for two years, got very bored teaching, and so that was back in 97, at this time in France, the Internet was arriving and I decided with my brother, he was 18. I was 23 years old to create what we call today a start-up but at this time, we were not talking about startups, basically, what we decided to do is, we had the chance to know how to build a website back in 97. So we started to make a business to create websites for people around us, went very well, and the company grew pretty fast in France, and we introduced the company public in 2006, and that's when I left the company because I strongly believe I'm not a manager, I'm really an entrepreneur, so when things are becoming too big and when there are too many people, I feel like I'm not doing my job anymore. What I really like to do is turn ideas into a business, and when the businesses is here and when it's about growing the business, I don't feel satisfied anymore. So what I did after the introduction, I decided to leave my operating role to create another start up again in France. This startup was the first SAAS player in France. I quickly realized that France was not the right place, I was doing SAAS and nobody was doing SAAS at this time in France. So I decided to move to San Francisco In 2010 to develop the company in the US, got lucky, we sold the company in 2012 and I arrived in San Francisco in 2010 sold the company in 2012 and I didn't want to come back to go back to Europe. So I decided to stay in the US, and create another startup because that's the only thing I knew and I created this time a start-up in San Francisco with American founders, American investors, everything American. I was like, finally, I'm at the right place after creating several startups in Europe and that the startup was about mobile, we were doing second screen experience to interact with the broadcast when you're watching something on TV and long story short, the company didn't go well, I mean, I failed and that's interesting because I think I've got a good sense of what it is to be an entrepreneur. I started very early, I was 23. I was not supposed to become an entrepreneur. I did an IPO, I did an MNA and I failed. I think I got into the three bases of what it is to be an entrepreneur, so I know pretty well the diamond, and I didn't want to go back to Europe and so I decided to, I thought I couldn't create another startup anymore that I was, I didn't have the energy and the stamina to create one more startup, so I decided to become an investor. So in 2015, I created a fund because I did not have the background, so I couldn't be recruited in other firms. So again, I said, Okay, I'm not going to wait for someone to recruit me, so if I want to become an investor and I think that's because I'm an entrepreneur, I decided to create my own firm. So I did that with two other partners, and that's why I'm you know, right now. And today I'm managing Diaspora Venture, it's an early-stage firm that has, with very specific tests is we only invest in immigrant founders. So we basically invest mainly in French founders that are based in the U.S. or founders, European founders that are based elsewhere than in the US but are targeting the U.S. market first. So this is what I'm doing right now, and guess what, actually, in parallel of that, I'm thinking about creating a new start up again. So I think I'm back in the game. So I thought I would never create a new startup anymore, but I've got an idea right now. I'm working on a project with a team of engineers in Ukraine, and I'm about to release something very soon. So sorry, it's a little bit long, but this is what I've been doing for the last 23 years.

If you ask this question to any investor, everybody will always answer the same, when you invest in a start-up, you're investing first in people, second in the market, so if this market is big enough, and it had a very interesting market or not and the third thing is the on products, so what is the product about, etc., so in our case, in terms of people again, we invest only in European founders based in the U.S. or targeting the U. S market, only in tech, and we are looking, it's a good question because everybody will tell you, an investor will tell you, I invest first in people. Okay, fine, but what is a good entrepreneur? That's the real question is what defines an entrepreneur as good, it's a critical question, my answer, okay, I've got five criteria. When I listen to an entrepreneur, the first thing I want to see is I want to make sure that this person is a real salesperson, so because, when you create your startup, it's about selling your idea. So if you're not good at selling, it's going to be very hard. The first people you have to sell your idea to are your friends, your family so that's the first people you're going to sell your idea to. And then after your co-founders, then your first employees, your partners, your clients, so you need to be very good at selling. So when I talked with an entrepreneur and I don't need a lot of time to know if this person is good at selling or not so that's the first criterion, the second criterion, I think is the job of an entrepreneur is to build a team. So my question is, did you surround yourself with people that are better than you, not people that are just here to execute, but really people that can really bring something else to the table that you don't have, so I tend to ask a lot of question about who are you talking to. Who are you considering recruiting? What is your network? I think you always are smart as the people that surround you. So I need to understand, who are the people surrounding you, and who are you about to recruit or who would you already have recruited you in your team. Recruitment is going to take 80% of your time as an entrepreneur, so you have to be good at selling, but you have also to be good at recruiting. That's very important. The third thing is about management. I think that a very important element of an entrepreneur is someone who understands that, he is not here to do everything himself or herself. I love entrepreneurs that practice push management. Basically, your job is really to explain to people, why what they are doing is so important and not try to do this stuff on their behalf. But really, to put them to do the best and to get the best from them. So I tend to ask some questions about what's your management style, what are you, how do you manage your team? The fourth thing is, you need to be a very good communicator. So, basically, you're going to be the voice of the company. You're going to be the person who represents a company outside, so are you good at communicating? So do you have the talent to explain ideas? Do you like to do that? Do you like to get on stage, because that's something you're going to do a lot? So that's also something I try to identify when I talked with entrepreneurs, and then the last thing, your job is to find the money. So it's really about what has you in mind, to fuel the company to succeed. So that's basically the five things an entrepreneur needs to have, so, as you can see, it's a full-time job, having the vision, being able to sell this vision, recruiting, pushing your team, communicating outside, and finding money is a full-time job, you don't have, you don't have time to develop your product or stuff like that, so you need to surround yourself also with other people. So I think that's what we are looking for. We're looking for tech entrepreneurs, immigrant founders with this kind of mentality, with this kind of skill. And then after we look at the market, of course, we were looking for big markets, we are ventures, so basically we need a venture scale business. If you're building just a lifestyle business, we're not going to be interested in that. We only invest in a startup that has the potential to become a unicorn and need money to get there. So that's about the market. We don't care if it's B2C or B2B. We don't really care. We tend to like all market that hasn't been disrupted yet. Where there is room for transformation or market with the adjacent markets or expendable markets where you start with that, but basically you can expand your business to other adjacent businesses. That's very interesting. And then the product, the product is important. I'm not here talking about the demo of the product, but more about what is your secret sauce? What do you have? What kind of unfair advantage? What did you understand that other people haven't understood yet? So what's your advantage in terms of product, that you have understood and that you're going to execute upon.

I don't, to be very honest, I don't need a deck. The only thing I need is, everything that is coming to me directly without introduction, usually I'm kind of suspicious. So I would say that 90% of what is coming to us without introduction, we're not, and we look at it of course, always, because you never know, but we usually don't invest. I think that investment at a very early stage is really a question of trust, so it's always better if you get introduced to us by someone else. The best deals we're doing is always when someone in our network introduce a company to us like I know this person, I know this girl, she's great. She has a very interesting idea. I vet her, and I think that would be interesting for you to talk with her. So what I need at this stage is just a blurb, just a short description, not too long, please. I mean, you don't imagine the number of pitches we receive every day, so make it very, very short. I mean, I and that goes back to what I was saying before, you have to be a very good communicator and sales guy. So I want to know in seven lines, 10 lines max, what are you doing? How is it different from the competition? Why is it so important? What did you get that others didn't get and who you are, and what's the opportunity. So I just need these 10 lines and I want to read these 10 lines and like and think, "Wow, that's interesting. I want to talk with this person." So it's really, that's one thing, also I have an advice for entrepreneurs on that, I'm not going to make an investment decision on your first email. The objective of your first email is to excite me enough, so I take some time in my very busy agenda to talk with you. That's really your objective. Your objective is not to sell your company to me. It's really to get a meeting with me, and then when you get a meeting with me, the first meeting is going to be maybe 30 minutes, no more. And then here you have 30 minutes to explain more about what you're doing. So think about that, when you send an email to an investor, your objective is not to explain everything, it's just to get him or her, enough interested to scale and call with you, that's really your number one objective. Forget about the rest.