The single most difficult decision we make here at MinuteFix is who to involve. Technology, although the basis of our company’s service, is one of the easiest parts of it all. Like funding, technology can be achieved by anyone with the right contacts and expertise. Attitudes, however, can make or break a venture. Attitude determines the personality of a company, how it interacts within its space (customers, vendors, partners), its inner workings and the direction and implementation of its ideas. I’ve never been concerned by technology. I’m not in the business of finding the cure for cancer, so any technology challenge that I have been involved in has always found a solution. However, it takes the right state of mind to build the right technology. It takes the right attitude, and a positive outlook on solving problems.

I’ve always been a believer in positive thinking. As classic self-help literature like The Secret, or Social Intelligence will promise, and while life has given some of us the good fortune of constantly seeing things on the brighter side of the fence, I know that it’s simply by thinking that it is possible that things just fall into place. I often believe that, at large, people can be put into two categories. Just like there are those who do not turn the door handle when closing a door where others are sleeping, there are those who always respond with a positive when looking for a technology solution. This has always been one of the top traits I always look for in developers. And in the past, it has proved be a strong litmus test for a successful technology workforce. It’s more about the attitude than the resume. If anything, it makes development damn fun.

We’re hiring at MinuteFix. Very specifically, we’re looking for our third full-time recruit; the person who will shape our technology moving forward, while managing our existing, killer team of part-time developers.

We’re looking for those whose first instinct isn’t to rewrite other developer’s code. We’re looking for those who believe in tight deadlines and near-to-impossible resources. We’re looking for a positive outlook on all our technology discussions. We’re looking for yeses, not noes. We’re looking for someone who shares our passion to build a product that we know will touch people’s lives. And yes, top-notch Java, Spring and Hibernate skills help too.

MinuteFix is a California-France-based company. Yes, the wine might seem strangely coincidental, but there’s more to it. With offices in San Jose and Paris, we cover both continents and dig our roots into the technology centers of the western world. MinuteFix this week inaugurated its Parisian office located at 18 Rue Montmartre in the 1st arrondissement in Paris. Overlooking the Eglise Saint-Eustache, Paris’ oldest cathedral, we are now in closer access to European partners, capital and technicians.

We are also in Paris because we believe in revolution. MinuteFix knows no borders when spreading the world’s wealth, all while changing the way people interact with technology. Our economic model is unique; it reflects our desire to touch people’s lives and empower those who could otherwise never participate in a fair, level marketplace. Not unlike those great thinkers and leaders who did their part for equality and justice, many of whom still lie in this great city. We too intend to make an impact on the modern world with what we do best–technology–and we believe Paris is the right place to do it.

It’s been a month now since I arrived in Paris to setup our offices in this great city. At first, I was concerned that spending much time away from Silicon Valley would detach me from the fast-paced, startup incubator that San Jose is. Everyone speaks the language, everyone gets technology—wifi is as available as Coca-Cola, technology events can keep your calendar booked solid if you so choose. It’s a great place to run a startup like MinuteFix. Any Starbucks barista can advise you on how to build a social network and everyone is buzzing to the same tune. People are not sending SMS messages, but rather Twittering, and blogging has become a house-hold term.

How refreshing it has been to come to Europe. And how healthy it has been for our business. When you are in the Silicon Valley, you tend to forget how the real world works. Things are simple, money flows easily, ideas get funded just from blog buzz. Powerful bloggers can make or break a company. People are young and energetic and tides shift with the wind. Revenue is a foreign word, and fads are fundable. We all want to become valley stars such as Robert Scoble, Michael Arrington and Loic Le Meur, who all have a ga-ga fan club maxing out their Facebook friends’ list.

This is not good for business. Entrepreneurs owe it to their investors and customers to not make decisions based on fashion, but must stand on their own two feet and do what’s best for the company’s financial health. Our companies are LLCs, S- and C-corps. They aren’t 501(c)s. In the end, a business must make money, and money is made in two ways: from revenue or through a liquidity event. And unfortunately when liquidity happens in the Valley, it shakes San Francisco harder than the San Andreas Fault. But we forget that to be acquired, it either takes tons of traffic, or the less common—a sound business model.

Getting away from the Valley for a while helps you understand this. Talking with traditional business people—I mean restaurant owners, small retail vendors, and most any entrepreneur who does not know what a blog is—you realize that we don’t run this world, they do. Evan Williams is not God, but the guy down the street sending his kids to school from the profit generated from a restaurant, is. We’re just spoiled and dazzled by the wine that flows at the TechCrunch parties. It’s all in the basics; a business should have more money coming in the door than going out. Venture Capital should not be the ultimate goal, staying away from it, should. Albeit, technology has changed the traditional business model, but at the end, any business runs the same.

Lenn Pryor and I discussed this topic a few months ago over lunch, and his description hit the target: The Valley is like a Vegas casino. Lots of noise, you can hear people winning, but most everyone loses. I do believe that without this type of environment we wouldn’t see the innovation that we do coming out of California. However, if we all thought more about running our startups like real businesses, we’d all be seeing more success.

Conversely, do you know why the French cannot replicate the Silicon Valley environment? Because they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.

It’s just a matter of finding the right balance.

Shortly after arriving in Paris to set up shop, my trusty Latitude D830 fell ill to USB food poisoning. Turns out that an external USB hub I had brought along with me, overpowered from the change in voltage and burnt out all USB ports on the computer. Luckily, Parham, at Booknolia, and an advisor to us on everything from shaving cream to hardware purchases, insisted on the Dell Total Care package when the laptop was purchased. It proved a life-saver in two ways. Meet Abdel. His nimble, long hands withdrew over 30 screws from my laptop, and changed the motherboard in an incredible, heart-pounding 5 minutes. Tempted by his talent, I inquired about his software skills. “I am Microsoft Certified”, he smiled and said along with his thick Parisian accent, “I can fix anysing.”

And there you have it, our first foreign technician recruit.

Meet Leeanne. Kindergarten teacher, mother of four and the ideal MinuteFix consumer. Over breakfast this week, while telling me about her doings the previous day, unprompted, she described what had happened to her on their home computer. “I was trying to save my Word document, but it was telling me that I couldn’t save both files”, she said. Baffled by her interpretation of the problem, I probed for more. Leeanne proceeded to describe how she decided to hand-write what she had typed up, in case it got lost. Then, she said, managed to save one of the files (how she had two was still unclear), while the other got lost.

“I really don’t like computers”, she concluded.

“Mom”, I said, “I’m here to change that.”

Well, it’s official. MinuteFix now has an office, founders’ commitments, and a head’s start to building a product that will touch the lives of many, worldwide. It all starts just like this: some power, water, a chair and a desk. We’ve been fortunate enough to be allowed to piggy-back on the offices of Hogares Realty, who have kindly provided this office space free of charge for the first few months of our hatching. Thanks to the early believers in our dream — we won’t disappoint you.