LeWeb Ends with Napster’s Sean Parker Admitting How He Killed His Project

Work hard, party harder is a popular catchphrase and one that everyone at LeWeb held on to. After two days filled with inspirational people and talks, LeWeb held a party at the Louvre where we all had a chance to hang out in a non formal environment.

The third day of the conference started and there were some great retro moments, take a look!

Yossi Vardi

The third and last day of LeWebwas started off with a talk from Yossi Vardi, cofounder of one of the first instant messengers, ICQ (now you go “awww“). He talked about problems that a lot of entrepreneurs face in the market. One of the biggest mistakes people do is focusing too much on the same, over hyped thing which is popular today, but might not be tomorrow. You should focus on something completely different, something totally new.

Ryan Sarver

Ryan Sarver is the head of Twitter’s platform. He revealed how Twitter plans on focusing on their recent Discovery ability which should allow companies and persons to get more reach with their profiles. Today, Twitter is employs more than 700 people and serves over 130 million users every day. Ryan also said how Twitter doesn’t want to complicate things – they will stay intuitive and maintain a simple user interface, regardless of the platform they’re on.

Still, Twitter doesn’t have (or doesn’t want to talk about) its monetization options. Ryan said it nicely – cash flow is like the air; you need to have it, but it’s not all about it.

Daniel Ek

Daniel Ek is the cofounder of Spotify and he talked to Loic about the start of the service. The inspiration came from the fact that Sweden (where he grew up in) is the sweet spot for online piracy with sites like The Pirate Bay. Daniel knew that there must be some middle ground between users and the music industry. Currently, Spotify has 2,5 million premium users out of 7 million users in total.

One of the investors in Spotify is Sean Parker, a person who founded Napster (you do remember the Napster, right?)

RunKeeper and AppsFire

LeWeb also allowed some great projects to present themselves to the audience. The two we choose are RunKeeper and AppsFire.

• RunKeeper is an application which will track your physical activity so you can easily see how much have you run or drove a bike. Based on that information, you’ll also get a graph of your workout and you can even team up with your friends to compare the results.
• AppsFire is an application which enables you to search for mobile application of your favorite brands. It’s an AppStore alternative; there is too much clutter and sometimes you can’t find the right application for your needs.

Sean Parker

Sean Parker, founder of Napster and an investor in Spotify, started his talk by saying how he thinks of himself primarily as an entrepreneur and then as an investor. Because he thinks that there are a lot of bad startups and bad investment funds today, his Founders Fund will invest only in startups like Facebook and Spotify; the startups with a great idea that could turn profitable. Unlike many other VC funds who look to invest “in the team”, Parker says how he will invest in an idea, even if it means one person.

Winners of the Startup Contest

LeWeb also held a startup contest and the winners were announced at the end of the last day. Echo Labs Limited was awarded by the public votes, while Beintoo was chosen as a winner by the jury.

LeWeb is definitely one of best organized conferences in the whole Europe. It’s really hard to find mistakes since the attention to detail was enormous. If you have some free time, take a look at their web site where you’ll find some trivia and backstage video materials.

If you’re an entrepreneur or a startup looking for some serious investors and mentors, do whatever you need to get to the next LeWeb. As a participant, you will also get the access to an internal network where you can contact other attendees and use it for arranging meetings and interviews. See you on LeWeb 2012!