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Question

Brands spend fortunes in paid media advertising but miss to leverage their own digital assets. Can we help them optimize their marketing budget?

• B2B
• Advertising

Initial thoughts

Every pixel counts. As brands are desperate for catching our attention, they are spending a lot of money on paid media to grab some screen space for advertising (Google and Facebook are happy). Putting their name and products in front of million eyes is a necessary evil, but as advertising fatigue on search and social grows, there may be better ways to spend marketing budgets.

Brands own a number of digital assets though: websites, social media accounts, mobile apps, newsletters, blogs, forums, emails, etc. And some of them may gather quality readers and/or decent traffic. Still, cross-promotion is nowhere to be seen and omnichannel campaigns are multichannel at best.

We believe there is a gap. And this gap may be linked to the lack of proper tools to manage and analyze ads on owned media spaces. Can this opportunity give birth to a brand new market? Let's find out!

• I want to be a founder

Question

Writing quality content on digital media is hard and should be fairly compensated. Are click baits and intrusive advertising the only way?

• B2B
• Media

Initial thoughts

For many of us, ads popping up on digital media sites are barring the joy of reading interesting or distracting content. Adblockers are used more often; some site owners detect their use and beg to opt them out to display ads. Digital advertising is still the only way for them to be compensated, and we can understand their need.

There is no denying that advertising is the web's lifeblood, and it has many virtues for different stakeholders. However, ad tech may have gone too far and created privacy issues leading to a thoroughly-discussed change of cookie policy. On the other hand, legacy newspapers have created subscription paywalls that hinder discovery and serendipity, two prime social media benefits.

Readers should be given a choice between ad-supported content and paid content. How can we help media sites offer such a choice? We believe there is a gap. Can we bridge that gap? Let's find out!

• I want to be a founder

Question

Escrow is an ancient mechanism to facilitate transactions between unrelated parties. With a new fintech ecosystem and the rise of marketplaces, does it need a refresh?

• Marketplace
• Fintech

Initial thoughts

If you recently bought a house through a notary, or disputed an administrative fee, you probably used an escrow service to deposit the payment before the transaction was settled. Having a third-party guarantee that the debtor and the creditor respect their obligations is a critical component for trusted transactions!

In the wake of a new and growing fintech ecosystem, the rise of platforms and marketplaces, and more and more people ready to transact online, escrow services should be revisited for more simplicity and connectivity. We believe it could become a building block for new consumer services, bringing trust transparency and loyalty to a whole new level. Sure there may be some security and regulatory issues along the way, but the market is large and waiting for a new leader. What if you were at the helm?

• I want to be a founder

Question

While CFOs are doing their best and many financial tools are on the market, properly managing SaaS financials is still challenging. Can we shift from homemade solutions to an AI-driven executive assistant?

• B2B
• Finance

Initial thoughts

While established companies have a number of job positions to fulfill diverse finance-related tasks, start-ups and scale-ups executives usually lack a holistic view of their financial standing and outlook. The subscription-economy has added a number of specificities that traditional skills and tools (Accounting, CRM, ERP,...) don't encompass. As a consequence, CEOs have to rely on homemade solutions, fragmentary data to drive their business. Even worse, most of the reporting shows lagging indicators, not allowing navigators to change company course in due time.

While each business is different, there are several metrics that AI can assemble to provide better reporting, alerting, and forecasting. As machines can predict chess moves better than humans, we believe they can probably better analyze and predict company results. So, yes, we aim to build a financial bot that can act as a CFO, augment CFO capabilities, or reduce their workload. Are the technology and the market ready? Let's find out!

• I want to be a founder

Question

In spite of CRM and lead management tools deployed internally, customers have a hard time get a timely quality response when they are interested in a company product. How can that happen?

• B2B
• CRM

Initial thoughts

How many times did we try to get product information by filling beautiful request forms to get either a late response or no response at all? Ain't that strange when getting qualified leads is one of marketing's most challenging and important jobs? Yet, the harsh reality is that revenue officers do not control leads' proper handling, from initial response to sales closing.

While there are a plethora of tools to create engaging popups, landing pages and social posts, few enable proper dispatch to response teams without complex integrations. What is happening after the initial lead is also foggy, making reporting, benchmarking, and success attribution a lost battle. It is even more critical for indirect sales where a network of partners sell company products: how do you make sure that the partner provides a reliable and timely response?

We think there is a better way; it will have a serious impact on sales effectiveness and revenue. If you believe it too, join us!

• I want to be a founder

Question

After we buy a consumer durable product, we are left alone with the product, it seems that both the brand and the retailer forgot about us. In a switching economy, is the product good enough to foster loyalty and repeat sales?

• Infrastructure
• CX

Initial thoughts

There is no ownership experience of the first-time buyer of a product per se. There is just the product by itself, and it may be good, bad, or somewhere in the middle. FMCD brands have no control over the owner's perception and only rely on the quality of their engineering teams (seldom versed in user experience best practices). Let alone DTC brands, they have poor data about who we are and how we use their product, going through a distributor network. As products get more complex and include more features, how can FMCD brands make sure that we have a consistent and complete experience?

We are moving to a subscription economy and FMCD brands will need to have a direct connection to the end user, to optimize loyalty and recurring sales. We believe there is a way to help them do that shift while keeping their distribution network happy, and we have some bold ideas on how to do that. Shall we brainstorm together and execute on the brightest?

• I want to be a founder

Question

For a lot of people, having a good time during holidays is critical to release pressure and ensuring a satisfactory work-life balance. But a few strokes of bad luck can ruin those long-waited moments, can we do something about it?

• B2C
• Travel

Initial thoughts

When was the last time you went for a glorious travel plan, you spent weeks to prepare and months to afford, only to have it ruined by calamitous weather? How was this weekend in Rome with your loved one after you waited 6 hours for the next flight? Seriously annoying, right? If you could be compensated somehow, the bad taste in your mouth would be a bit sweetened, and that would make a lot of difference for your next travel.

After the COVID recovery, some think that consumer travel will boom and others that it will be less frequent. In either case, minimizing risks will stay high on the list, cancellation policies will be read carefully. It seems to us it is in the best interest of the industry and the consumers to travel in a light-minded way. Are we too naive? If it was a profitable business, probably insurance companies would strive on it already, some might say. Well, maybe; maybe not. Let's find out!

• I want to be a founder

Question

With the advent of digital maps and GPS, it's pretty easy to locate and go to specific places. But when it comes to communicating with a local community, we are either using the old residential mailbox or asking locals to go to local hubs. What would we invent if we had to design a solution today?

• Infrastructure
• Advertising

Initial thoughts

There are many situations where you want to communicate to your local community, either as an individual or as a business. You may want to ask for advice about the best dentist around; you may want to advertise a special offer to your commercial zone. Individuals create Facebook pages or web forums to share local information; businesses tend to drop a leaflet in local home mailboxes.

Both ways seem remotely efficient to us; it looks like there is no real dedicated solution. There is surely a new way to address this need with all the available technology in communication, geolocation, and maps. What if we built the relevant global infrastructure that will streamline those communications, particularly local advertising campaigns?

• I want to be a founder

Question

Consumer durables are mostly sold through retail channels, still, manufacturers need to keep the upper hand on product offers and promotions. Can we improve the way they manage them and supercharge discoverability?

• Marketplace
• FMCD

Initial thoughts

Even if they are less fashionable than they were some time ago, we believe consumer durable products are still an important part of the shopper's list. While DTC brands are growing, traditional FMCD manufacturers are still struggling to manage their legacy retail channels while going digital. One particular point of friction is the way they roll out regional product promotions to the end consumer, involving both direct communication to the customer and retail delivery.

We see two pain points to fix: 1/ How is the end consumer aware of new promotions?; 2/ How can he redeem the offer through his favorite retailer? We believe we can design a faster and more direct way for manufacturers to promote their products and for consumers to benefit from those offers. Can you guess how we could do it?

• I want to be a founder

Question

All customers are created equal but there may be some situations where dealing with important customers first has a strong impact on revenue or margins. How can we help developers to include priority in their apps?

• B2Dev
• API

Initial thoughts

When we take a long-haul flight at the airport, there are several lines for First Class, Business Class, Premium Economy, and Economy Class. We understand that First Class customers may get to the plane faster and get a better meal with champagne. It seems a reasonable ask to have similar processes within customer apps, as there may be good reasons to do so.

Data on the customer resides in multiple CRM and accounting apps. What criteria we could use to segment and prioritize them is our call. Still, no customer apps, whether e-commerce, marketplace or customer service-oriented, seem to include differentiated handling. Is it a deliberate choice to treat every customer on an equal basis, or do we lack the proper tools to enable it? Would app developers include this possibility if given easy access to priority ranking? Let's find out!

• I want to be a founder