French Startups to Look Out For • Hacker News Board

Re: French Startups to Look Out For

#21

Post by abracar » Sun, Nov 03, 2013, 6:37 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #15

abolibibelot wrote: post #2

Capitaine Train is super useful. The official SNCF (French State owned railways company) site is unusable and tries to upsell you everything but the actual tickets. Capitaine Train has a minimalistic design, fast search and has niceties like .ics to remind you of what you bought. (I'm in no way affiliated to Capitaine Train)

I used capitaine train recently, I love how fast the site is (and how it saves my credentials). No mobile site though (voyages-sncf has a great mobile site, in that it's the bare minimum). Someone was telling me that capitaine train was having a hard time getting real traction though, hope that things turn out better for them.

Not sure about mobile site but it's probably on the roadmap, they've launched an iPhone app this week: https://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/id599502670

Re: French Startups to Look Out For

#22

Post by GuiA » Sun, Nov 03, 2013, 6:39 PM UTC

drstewart wrote: post #11

This is awesome! I'd love to work in France, it just seems there are a dearth of tech companies there.

It's easy to find work as a software engineer in France, but it's typically in contracting agencies or large companies. There is a dearth of tech startups for sure.

Re: French Startups to Look Out For

#23

Post by Signez » Sun, Nov 03, 2013, 6:41 PM UTC

ldng wrote: post #14

seszett wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I always wondered how this could be. Capitaine Train is making money just selling train tickets, without any kind of ad at any point of the process, and that's their only revenue. On the other hand, we have the official SNCF website, which doesn't even have to be financially successful itself (since SNCF already makes money on the ticket itself), but is littered with ads, slow, ugly and unhelpful. And even PDF…

You're assuming voyages-sncf == SNCF which is not the case. It's a travel agency whose shareholders are SNCF and Expedia. So they are a private company that have a preferential treatment for which they been condemned once IIRC (not that it changed anything ...).

You're wrong. Expedia has no longer Voyages-SNCF.com parts since this "alliance" was condamned by French Autorité de la Concurrence (anti-trust autority).

Nowadays, the only Voyages-SNCF.com shareholder is Groupe SNCF.

Re: French Startups to Look Out For

#24

Post by walshemj » Sun, Nov 03, 2013, 6:51 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #17

I feel like youmood.me (lets you comment on any webpage) has been tried and failed 100 times already. Am I just not remembering things?

like Google sidecar which got sent to googley heaven a while back i seem to recall

Re: French Startups to Look Out For

#25

Post by rtpg » Sun, Nov 03, 2013, 6:52 PM UTC

abracar wrote: post #21

rtpg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used capitaine train recently, I love how fast the site is (and how it saves my credentials). No mobile site though (voyages-sncf has a great mobile site, in that it's the bare minimum). Someone was telling me that capitaine train was having a hard time getting real traction though, hope that things turn out better for them.

Not sure about mobile site but it's probably on the roadmap, they've launched an iPhone app this week: https://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/id599502670

it bothers me that they wouldn't just make the website usable , which reduces pressure for needing an app (I've had to cancel many tickets at the last minute through voyages-sncf on my really old android with a small screen)

Re: French Startups to Look Out For

#26

Post by p4bl0 » Sun, Nov 03, 2013, 6:56 PM UTC

virtualwhys wrote: post #20

Should probably include zengularity.com, the creators of the Play! framework. Not sure if they qualify as a startup; at a minimum they're a highly successful French development team, perhaps the most successful in France (LinkedIn just contracted with them on a major project, for example). Lot of bright cats on their team based on what I saw at scala.io conference in Paris.

> perhaps the most successful in France

Mh, I really don't want to undermine their work, but what about Dailymotion, or Deezer for instance? That's just two web-companies. If I broaden to development teams, France have several companies with teams who develop the lead product in their field worldwide.

Re: French Startups to Look Out For

#27

Post by sebm » Sun, Nov 03, 2013, 7:03 PM UTC

I think that despite the clichés in France (as anywhere else too) there always will be peoples that will try to do new things, different things, by themselves without relying on the old structures, even if they may be a minority. When I'm the most proud it's when I complete a project I set to do by myself even if it's small or if it fails. I literally live for these moments.

Re: French Startups to Look Out For

#28

Post by virtualwhys » Sun, Nov 03, 2013, 7:07 PM UTC

p4bl0 wrote: post #26

virtualwhys wrote: post #20

Should probably include zengularity.com, the creators of the Play! framework. Not sure if they qualify as a startup; at a minimum they're a highly successful French development team, perhaps the most successful in France (LinkedIn just contracted with them on a major project, for example). Lot of bright cats on their team based on what I saw at scala.io conference in Paris.

> perhaps the most successful in France Mh, I really don't want to undermine their work, but what about Dailymotion, or Deezer for instance? That's just two web -companies. If I broaden to development teams, France have several companies with teams who develop the lead product in their field worldwide.