Luxembourg to San Diego, via Monte-Carlo

I get regularly the question why and how I ended up in San Diego, California or what I did before. So, here's the story.

I am originally from Luxembourg, a tiny country in Europe, niched between Germany, France and Belgium, where most of the 500,000 inhabitants are bi- and trilingual at least. It gives people there an incredibly open vision onto the world, despite a very strong sense for national pride, and for sure a great practicality when it comes to business or politics.

I started my crazy business journey by launching a totally new registration status for superyachts ... in a landlocked country ... and not knowing anything about yachting. After 10 years, hard work and lots of obstacles eventually led me to getting an expert in the field. It also created the need to go and discover the natural habitat of these multi-million beasts of 100 feet and more, namely the Mediterranean. Being used to small places, you could say that is how I landed in even tinier - and prestigious - "Monaco, Monte-Carlo". I spent over 10 years in this independent state of half square mile, probably the size of the San Diego historic Gaslamp Quarter. I was given to meet quite some interesting people in a place where one third of the population are millionaires or billionaires. Not to mention all those gorgeous and unique ... supercars (sorry but had to mention this)!

Managing nearly 200 superyachts and their crew, handling suppliers and guests, serving high-end and very demanding owners, was an unforgettable and tough experience. It fostered my need for a different coordinated way to manage. After some years of brainstorming and research, I finally got involved in the development of our management software. This eventually got me in founding my own IT company with a much broader ambition: building an integrated, multi-purpose "smartware". My business partner kept on saying we should get to California for the cutting edge technologies and mentioned San Diego as a great spot. So we decided to organize a roundtrip to various US locations and investigate where he would settle our development nexus while I would stay in Europe. I knew nothing about the so-called "finest place in the US" and so that place was pretty at the bottom of my list.

Our trip lead us New York, Boston, San Francisco and the Bay Area, and finally San Diego. All these places are truly great and I fell in love with California. However, the way we got welcomed in San Diego just stood out. We met first at the San Diego Regional EDC (Economic Development Corporation). They explained about the importance of the community and few hours later we had our agenda packed with meetings for the next 3 days. What struck us was how people would take time for us and seemed to sincerely care. We were told that the largest US technology company had started there with a couple of men who had chosen San Diego.

It showed us a thoughtful contrast with the all-mighty and over-crowded Silicon Valley. It gave us the impression that - despite several disadvantages and apparently living in the shade of the Bay Area - this place could possibly give us a better chance, considering who we were, our core values and what we wanted to do. Rather then fighting to not get crushed by the wheels of a huge startup nursery, we could focus more on building better and making it right with less iterations. We also heard about the "sunshine dollars" and the unique way of life, to attract the right people with the right mindset and loyalty and so arguably reduce the staff turnover.

I have been here for 18 months and I made a number of good friends, but I still have a lot to discover and to learn. I have experienced how one gets somehow put at a test by San Diegans before getting fully accepted in the heart of the community. Almost as if they were making sure that you sincerely wish to be part of "the community", not only seeking to benefit but also willing to get involved and later give back. This reminds me a lot how things work in my home country Luxembourg, probably a pattern of those population who are in some way isolated and wish to preserve a quality of life.

Now, don't get me wrong, San Diego is not perfect and there is still a lot than can be done to bring it further "onto the map". Also, and to quote a fellow entrepreneur who equally adopted San Diego, "the place seems full of people who believe they are experts". Funny how this somewhat reminds me again of Luxembourg...and of Monaco too. Truth be said: I have started to see things that can be improved or over-thought, and also people who could perhaps beneficially learn from "the outside".

Still, this unique combination of kindness and proudness, openness and scrutiny, somehow generates in you this longing to get involved and contribute. San Diego has lots of arguments to outgrow as a great place to build startups and make them big. We have a lot on our plate and I see a number of awesome people and game-changing minds enthusiastically working at it. This is kind of déjà-vu for me, having spent my time in "David cities" fighting through their ways within "Goliath environments". I know what I want to do in the next 2, 5, 10 years and I am determined to contribute the best I can. In all modesty I hope my European, strongly multi-cultural background may serve, so let's be bold and start giving back to the place we adopted.

And talking of boldness, I come to dream of how San Diego would dare to go new ways and become the 2.0 Silicon Valley: stir to efficiently and effectively allocate how people create and share, and improve how Venture Capital can work. More human-oriented and more efficient through a new way of attracting, meshing, accompanying and launching young and seasoned entrepreneurs. Building those things that will help and improve humanity and its home called Earth. The 21st century is still very young and already so fascinating. I cannot imagine it will not become the synergetic reinterpretation of our past Renaissance and future Information Revolution. After Clayton Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma" comes his "Investor's Dilemma". We'll probably talk again about this, but that's another story.

Photo credits: Luxembourg City skyline (Paul Ames/Associated Press), Photo of Monaco (Tony Pasma/Shutterstock), San Diego Skyline (Visit San Diego - www.sandiego.org)