The application process has officially come to a close for FTT’10. We had 28 candidates last year, and have received 40 applications for this 4th edition of the French Tech Tour, organized by the UBIFRANCE San Francisco Office.

The applications have been sent to our American Partners for their review.

A quick reminder of how it will work: the 15 companies having secured the most meetings will be given the opportunity to come to San Francisco for an intensive week of training, networking, meetings, and pure immersion in the Silicon Valley ecosystem.

The selected companies will be announced on April 15th. Until then, keep in touch. We’ll continue publishing articles and videos on this blog, to help you prepare for this year’s edition.

Good luck and see you in June!

     Here at the UBIFRANCE offices in San Francisco, we’ve been having a lot of fun reading your applications for the French Tech Tour. The enthusiasm has been so overwhelming, that as a result, we’re allowing you to submit applications through this Friday, March 5th.

     As the application process winds down, and in preparation for your trip in June, we thought we’d begin to explore Silicon Valley for you, by conducting video interviews with some of its key actors. Last weekend, we sat down at Epicenter Café in San Francisco with British entrepreneur, technologist and consultant Ben Metcalfe. Described by Robert Scoble as “one of the best devs in the world,” Ben has extensive experience advising companies on product development, open platform strategy, and developer relations. Most recently, he’s been working on building his own start-up: Plato’s Forms.

     We invite you to listen and learn from the excerpts below (you’ll also find a rough transcript of the most important points), as Ben talks a little about his own experience, and advises European companies on the Do’s and Don’ts of doing business in the Valley. To learn more about Ben, you may visit benmetcalfe.com/blog.

How did you get started?

I moved to America with the view of doing startups and founding a startup, but […] for the last 3 years I’ve been a consultant, I’ve worked with a number of companies, I’ve worked with MySpace on their developer platforms, I also spent time working with Loic Le Meur on Seesmic, and I’ve also worked with Orange Telecom…

American vs. Foreign companies?

To me, Americans are foreigners! I’ve enjoyed the ability to work with American institutions like MySpace and some other start-ups I’m an advisor to, but also to work with companies where I understand their European perspective, such as with Seesmic.

Top 3 mistakes made by foreign entrepreneurs?

You need to be very clear whether you’re looking to move your company here and be based here, or whether you’re looking to have an office and a presence, or whether you want a biz dev person here, or to move your organization here…

As somebody who’s been through this, you also need to be clear on what your visa situation is. Get a lawyer, get one that’s based here… and pay a reasonable amount. Don’t pay top dollar, but don’t go stingy either.

Don’t underestimate the importance of building up a network before you move here.

How do you establish a network?

Assuming you’re a founder/cofounder, and assuming you’re coming into the internet/start-up environment and you’re looking to go international, than coming to Silicon Valley at least once or twice a year is very, very important. Base a trip around events, but also look for companies you might want to work with, or if you’re using APIs, meet the companies you’re working on top of. Get to know people, the spirit here is once you get to know people, you very quickly get sucked into knowing more people as they introduce you to your contacts. To get here without doing that first is just setting you back in terms of time. Even if you’re early stage, just get to know people.

Say I secure a meeting with a company, what should I keep in mind?

First, one thing is that people are a lot more open here and talk a lot more about their ideas, whereas in Europe we’re more secretive.

By being open, people will say “hey, I know what you should look into!” In Europe, we’re often very secretive and suspicious that people are going to rip off our ideas [...] so many people are doing stuff out here, that nobody is going to rip off your idea.

Another thing important is the level of optimism. Unless your idea is totally crazy, and in fact, even if it is, people won’t rip it apart, they’re very positive and optimistic.

How do I pitch my company?

I think it’s important to have a number of different pitches very carefully honed and refined… A very one is the “hey”, you’re in a coffee shop and you want to quickly show someone what you’re doing. Getting out your smart phone and having a 2 min. video that within 30 seconds shows what you’re doing is a really clever thing, and a lot of start-ups out here do that. […] It takes time to build, but it’s really powerful for casual situations.

Of course, if you get the opportunity to talk in public, at SF New Tech for example, clearly explain your value proposition and the problems that you’re solving. Don’t talk about the technology, even if the tech is cool, frankly, out here, when we’re looking at technology, we’re thinking about solving a problem. Unless you’re in a developer environment people don’t really care.