Sramana: What did you do after you sold your company? Jerome Ternynck: I moved to San Francisco because being an entrepreneur in Europe is harder than it needs to be. If you are going to try and solve a big global problem you need to do it from the US or from an area where
Sramana Mitra: The simple thing is if you give things for free, people just click on it and then move on. If they pay for it, there’s a lot more commitment. Peter Hirst: Low completion rate isn’t necessarily something that should be critical in relation to MOOCs, exactly because of what you said. People can
Dan Hermann: We attended a friend’s birthday party, which was at this painting studio where they were serving beer and wine. Both he and I recognized very quickly that there was a lot of power to the concept, which had a lot of visual implications. We could tell that it was just very social media
Sramana: Why did you move to the Czech Republic? Jerome Ternynck: I went there for the market opportunities. France didn’t, and still doesn’t, offer good opportunities for entrepreneurs. There is not much growth there. I went to a market and positioned myself in a market where I can show growth and opportunity.
Sramana Mitra: Interesting. Online learning is something that you can do at your own time in a very flexible way. That flexibility goes away with that. You’re saying that there’s more benefit in terms of engagement and learning, but there is that other benefit of flexibility that gets taken away from that setup. Peter Hirst:
Social media is great, but human beings also love to socialize in person. Paint Nite is thriving by tapping into the desire human beings have to ‘hang out’ and do creative things. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with telling our audience a little bit about your personal background. Where were you born and raised? What kind
SmartRecruiters is going after Taleo and SuccessFactors and intends to disrupt the cloud-based recruiting platform industry. Gutsy and well-conceived, Jerome is executing very well on his vision! Sramana: Jerome, let’s start by reviewing your background. Where are you from? What are the roots to your entrepreneurial journey? Jerome Ternynck: I was born in France. I
Peter Hirst: From an education standpoint, the input doesn’t look that dissimilar from a cost base. The other approach is the MOOCs. Often, they are free and are low-cost courses. We’re beginning to see some executive education versions of those. As I go around and talk to my peers in other schools and in schools