Gandi Bar - General

Yet another "Nu" extension!

Sam — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:59:00 +0100

Yes, Gandi has a little "nu" born in its growing family of TLD's: .NU!
The new ".nu" extension is commonly used in Scandinavian countries (as 'nu' means 'now') for websites that cover new/trendy products. It is is also sometimes used for "Nordic Union".

The .NU extension is open to all, and can be registered for a minimum of 2 years. Its particularities and details may be seen here:
http://www.gandi.net/domaine/nu/info

And .nu the price can be found here:
http://www.gandi.net/domaine/prix/detail/nu/

The next available TLD should be .IT (Italia!) currently in testing phase.

Happy Holidays!

Ryan — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 11:32:00 +0100

In anticipation of all the highly-awaited new services (GandiBlog, transparent URL forwarding, API/XML, etc...) that will be released in the upcoming weeks, the entire team at Gandi joins me in wishing you happy ~~indigestion~~ Holidays!

Thank you for your trust, this is quite simply the thing that we are the most proud of.

Here is a little stocking stuffer (view from our balcony and a great environment in which to daydream during this time of year):

The "HATW", Part III

Stephan — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 14:25:00 +0100

Sorry for the title, I admit to a certain laziness doubled by a worry concerning the clarity of this blog… Meaning, it’s all about the story of the purchasing of Gandi. This week, I’m going to look at the choices to find capital...

Where were we? Ah, yes. Eirik and Joe were ready, we were working on the presentations to look for the money we were missing. And even if we have all created companies, none of us had experience in raising funds. Even the typology of this "market" escaped us. What’s the difference between all these abstruse (OOPS) and Anglo-Saxons terms (no cause and effect relationship between the two)?

Like everyone, I’ve heard talk about these "VCs" and other "business angels", that were covered so much by the media in the years 99-2000. But through lack of luck or will, I hadn’t met them on certain Tuesdays over the course of a few months in those years (the famous "First Tuesdays"). Maybe, also, because for them I was no one. Mind you, I hope it’s still the case for some of them when I reread some articles. Anyway, we weren’t interested in people who were only motivated by their short-term return on investment. We wanted people or companies giving us the most guarantees possible on the durability of the project as a whole...

Well, I’m telling the story this way, but at the time, we went to make a certain number of presentations. Just to learn. The selection of first meetings was easy, the number of these companies / people not put off by an Internet project was "very limited". Moreover, the nervousness in France was more tangible than elsewhere...

So, when we saw how some people met with us and analyzed our proposition, we even thought how we could go to a bank for a loan… I can just imagine the look on the face of the loan officer: hi, it’s concerning a 13 million euro loan!!! Should I leave now?

However, one thing always made us believe in it. Everyone who said "no" (too small, too big, too I don’t know what), and those who said "yes", but who we didn’t want (seeing their conditions), had a point in common: they all thought the project was coherent and had a great chance for success.

Especially, we had chosen this brand, this emblematic image of the French Web, supported by simple but great principles… We couldn’t give up. So, we continued.

We saw individuals, institutions commercial banks, companies, funds, etc… in France and in England. With the hope of getting more information, to grasp the different existing models, in short, to know how to reconcile our search for funds with our quest for independence over the long term.

And, like in every happy story, we had a little bit of luck.

Destiny smiled upon us, a friend of Joe’s wife, the founder of… "First Tuesdays", put us in touch via her company with the person who, after 12 months of negotiations, became our latest associate. One thing that we quickly understood: get advice, even if you have to pay for it, rather than run around in circles.

In the end, we started a project that we named "Management Buy In", which is in fact when executives from outside the company buy it. With their own means (no project without cost) and credit backed by a family foundation, with a history of stable and transparent investments.And over generations, in sectors clearly marked as "acceptable".

This "MBI" is the combination of an "LBO" (Leverage Buy Out) and an "MBO" (Management Buy Out). Clearly recognized as one of the new governance models, as opposed to quoted companies, for example, where one is naturally pushed to manage in function to the stock price, something we didn’t know existed before this.

There were no guarantees, only time would tell if our choice was the right one. I can only assure you of one thing: the negotiation with the shareholders of Gandi was "simple" compared to that with my associates. Simply because, at the most, I wanted to protect our chances to achieve our project, in the way that we had thought.

Sure, other solutions were possible, including models that mixed some of them: I’m certain that we could have arranged to set up the purchase in a thousand different ways. That’s not really important, in fact. The essential point is that we did it, that this project exists under the right conditions.

Oh yeah, one clarification: At the moment that I set up the dossier to purchase it, before knowing if it was going to work, I was unemployed. The few liquid assets (laid-off from Lycos) that I had, were spent on the project, at the moment of the arrival of our second child. Risks are necessary in every entrepreneurial project, just try to limit them as much as possible^^.

The "How" after the "Why", Part II.

Stephan — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 14:24:00 +0100

The follow-up to the return of the revenge concerning the purchase of Gandi, or "how to know if we’re ready for this type of adventure, then how to choose our associates"…

My god (small ‘g’, because I’m not sure if you’re actually reading this), everything seems so far away at the moment. 15 months have passed since the very beginning of this adventure and nevertheless it feels more like 15 years… this must be the magical effect of the “Internet“ dimension.

Normally, we are at the end of the year 2004. Thanks in advance for not being upset by any errors concerning dates or any imprecision in my story. I have two extenuating circumstances: I’m from Nice (IE, High speed connection), and what’s more, it's friday :).

I’m alone. In any case, after the impossibility of setting up the project with the two people in "the family", financially nice and morally healthy (or the opposite, I can’t tell anymore), it all seems terribly difficult: make the presentation (which must include the sacrosanct business plan, the description of the team!, the project, and especially clarify my financial needs), find the people to set it up with, etc…

I leave my office, I speak (a little) about it to the people of my closest trusty team, and right from the beginning they all found it was…. ambitious. But I spot that small smile on their faces, that I interpret to be a "you sly Devil, you" encouragement. After 5 years of both physical and mental stress, it was the right moment to take a good look at my professional situation, to see if I was ready for it or not (i.e., to work from 8 AM-11 PM every day, assuming the workload of the strategy, the product, the financing, the marketing, management, reporting, etc…) and especially to identify the things that I knew how to do, but where others associates would be valuable.

The decision was quickly made to find associates who naturally had to share my values, but also had to be complementary, so as to distribute the load among several people. My wife was expecting our second child, and in view of the shock of the first one, it was impossible to start again on the same basis if I wanted to have a family life. And you’re going to laugh, but that’s the most important thing for me in this tough world...

The choice was quick, as Eirik and Joe, together, were just what I was looking for: honest (we had worked together on a project with Lycos and Moonfruit for two years), hard working, intelligent, with each one having his special talent but with a capacity to understand the others’ "world".

In addition, they were also both English (Gandi had a lot of clients outside of France), founders and directors of a company developing an excellent product within the framework of a long-term project… and not to wreck it, we got on very well.

Plus, I had told them that we would set up a project for a company together and as the last time when I had had this sort of “Revelation," I ended up getting married, it looked like it was going to be good....

The discussion was short and they didn’t take long to say yes: the project – constructing an alternative independent group around the values of Gandi – thrilled them. We were now three to attack the next step, knowing that time was going by, that the news about Gandi being up for sale would quickly spread among the "milieu of those in-the-know."

Each of them participated in the presentation of the project, a group effort where we had to, right from the beginning, explain the uniqueness of Gandi (for those who didn’t know it), the real backbone of our project. From there ensues our next big issue: identify the way to find the money, what we lacked to complete our budget, while at the same time respecting all these issues…

[To Be Continued] …

The "How" after the "Why", Part I

Stephan — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 14:20:00 +0100

To continue the story about the purchase of Gandi… told in a simple and direct way. Hoping this will help other people who have a similar project, I’m doing this without pretension or do I have something up my sleeve (and if this is the case, you will correct me, pronto). All the people I see, personally or professionally, will ask me the question, one day or another, I might as well write it on this blog.

One year of discussions / negotiations, dozens of presentations made for a whole bunch of people who had the financial means we didn’t (believe me that I regret it), new developments that would cause three heart attacks a day, in short, a nice adventure which is still going on!

A brief step into the past…

It’s the end of 2004 and I receive a telephone call from Laurent Chemla. He tells me that the shareholders, aware of their differences and therefore their incapacity to make Gandi evolve, have taken the decision to sell. Of course, his request concerns Lycos, which for 4 years hadn’t stopped on this market (hosting and domain names) in Europe, multiplying purchases and product releases (we finish 2004 with the second strongest world-wide growth in our sector…)

At the time, we put out X number of social plans and strategy changes (the bubble and all that…) and the whole team is tired. Worse, I learn just before that the latest social plan is going to concern the French site (therefore, us too), and I already know that my desperate efforts to reverse the decision is all for nothing. I’ve already lived that.

In a sort of temporary madness, I hear myself answering, "Hmm, Lycos will without a doubt not be interested, but I will." OK. Cool. Everything is fine. Just a small concern: Even though I’ve already created a company, it didn’t require raising funds and only employed two people. Another small detail: There’s no reason to feel sorry for me and I can look carefully into my pockets andI don’t have 15 million euros on me. No reason to panic, it’ll all turn out okay^^.

Of course, I had my bosses (CEO and CTO) confirm that Lycos wasn’t on the case (despite my recommendation to buy), something I did several times.

Then, the moment comes when I have to pay for my anger (I’m used to it, even if with age wisdom prevails). It wasn’t that I was worried about the project itself (I had been thinking about Gandi for years, and I know this still young market well enough), but it was more about with whom and how?

At this stage, it’s necessary to point out that I wasn’t part of that caste of magical and glamorous entrepreneurs born in the “Roaring 90s”. There was, in effect, a barrier between the executives, even the managers, like any other entrepreneur creating jobs, defining objectives and strategies in order to reach them, but just seeing a salary and those who have reached, by luck and/or by will and talent (often a little bit of all three), that quasi-mythical status in our young companies.

This clarification is important, on the eve of starting to look for financing for an Internet company, in the post explosion of the bubble period …;-).

The first person I thought of, was nevertheless one of the founders of Multimania, and my former boss, Olivier Heckmann. We had become friends, something already rare, but he was part of the group of people who had impressed me in my professional life. To have so much maturity and insight at his age (like mine, 34 years old), and in addition to that remaining a GOOD guy, well, that is really really rare. But, as bad luck would have it, he and his long-time partner (Michel Meyer), were heading into a project they were really enthusiastic about and they also were in the middle of looking for funding…

In this case, we just look at the people around us who combine the double tour-de-force of being financially loaded, and being someone we really have total confidence in. I insist on this point, and I’ll come back to it later, it’s essential.

I was lucky enough to know someone, but I really was out of luck, he too was in the middle of looking for funding for his own businesses (an entrepreneur is always moving) and could only help me (just like Olivier) with advice and moral support. That was already enormous and I would be able to verify that every day over the following twelve months.