Bob the dishwasher: short cycle, long rinse

When France’s start-up scene bets everything on Made in France, and ends up on the intensive spin.

This week I wanted to come back to Daan, the company that makes the Bob dishwashers, being placed in receivership (redressement judiciaire, France’s court-supervised rescue procedure), which I briefly mentioned on LinkedIn. As always, I got the same comments:

• You can’t criticise, you’ve never started a company;
• Yeah, well, at least they tried;
• Criticising people is so typically French;
• You don’t get what an industrial company is;
• You don’t know the subject.

Every single time I’ve analysed a company (Masteos (in French), Luko (in French), Blablacar, Blast, Ynsect (in French) etc.) I got those same comments.

I won’t rewrite what I already set out a fortnight ago, but I notice the pattern never changes. It’s actually less me, or what I wrote, that gets attacked than the commenter who feels personally targeted.

I have no problem being corrected when I talk rubbish, especially since I draw a very clear line between facts and my opinions. But rejecting any criticism because you feel too close to the subject, and discrediting the author in the process, is like those who champion free speech by saying you can’t say anything any more, while censoring everything that doesn’t go their way (and I’m not only saying that about Elon Musk 😅).

Anyway, Daan Technologies is this week’s topic!

PS: for upcoming newsletters, I’m looking for:

• A COBOL developer or a CTO who could talk about what this programming language still means for the financial world;
• A founder who left (or was pushed out of) their start-up and came back (or tried to);
• An expert (estate agent, broker, developer, analyst etc.) in luxury property (ideally in Paris).