Collaborator Interview – Stéphane Seigneurin, CEO !

Discover the interview with Stéphane Seigneurin, our CEO, who shares his vision and ambitions for the future of Sharvy. He introduces himself to you through a few questions!

Hello Stéphane, can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background before creating Sharvy? What inspired you to start this company?

Hello,

I am trained as an Electronics and Computer Engineer. I have always loved these two fields since I was young. I worked for 20 years in telecommunications as a Systems Engineer, Director of R&D, Director of Innovation, and Director of Product Management.

In my previous company, headquartered in Paris, I experienced extraordinary growth. When I joined the group, we were 80. When I left 15 years later, we had grown to 1300 employees worldwide, with subsidiaries in 35 countries. Personally based in Montpellier, I witnessed significant changes, including the relocation of our site at the end of 2013/beginning of 2014 due to our increasing staff numbers.

We moved to new offices near the city center. They were newly renovated and very attractive, but with a limited number of parking spaces. This change led to a parking space allocation problem for employees. As a member of the Montpellier site’s steering committee, we decided to allocate parking spaces based on traditional criteria: distance from home, children, seniority, or hierarchy. I was eligible for a designated space in the basement, but found it wasteful. I traveled about 100 days a year, so my space would be unoccupied a third of the year.

I then proposed to develop, on my own time, a web solution for sharing parking spaces. Those with a designated spot could share it. Those in search of a spot could automatically obtain one based on availability. The application was immediately successful internally.

Subsequently, I also developed mobile apps. In 2017, I tested the market by starting to commercialize the solution. The first customers arrived. By the end of 2018, I left my previous company to dedicate myself 100% to this project. I joined the Montpellier innovative business incubator, the BIC, before raising funds from IRDI Capital Investment at the end of 2020.

What motivated me to embark on this venture was a passion for technology, a desire to always move forward, to make decisions, and to act by providing solutions to clients. In my previous company, we had lost the agility of smaller structures. I wanted to regain that agility, to find the dynamism that is present in startups.

As CEO, what is your overall vision for Sharvy? What are the long-term goals of the company?

Our goal at Sharvy is to enhance the lives of our clients’ employees by providing them with an optimized digital experience for organizing their workday. This includes considerations such as: how will I get to the office, how will I access it, do I have a parking space suitable for my type of vehicle, will my colleagues be present, will I be able to charge my vehicle, etc.

The organization of work has been permanently disrupted in recent years with the widespread adoption of telecommuting in companies, typically one to two days a week on average. Often, telecommuting days are not fixed, and this has a significant impact on the lives of teams in terms of knowing who will be present, who will need a parking space, or a spot in an open space.

At Sharvy, we are pioneers in developing solutions for reserving parking spaces and workstations, integrating connectivity with the building, such as opening parking barriers or controlling electric vehicle charging stations. Our solutions are easy to use, efficient, and incorporate innovative algorithms that ensure fairness among employees.

Our goal is to make companies more responsible, fairer, and more equitable in resource access for their employees. We aspire to become a European leader in offering innovative solutions for businesses, focusing on the continuous improvement of the user experience and the integration of advanced technologies to meet the evolving needs of our clients.

Can you describe your main daily responsibilities at Sharvy? What motivates you most in your role as a leader?

The tasks of a startup leader are highly varied and represent a constant battle. It’s necessary to structure the company by recruiting new collaborators, developing talents, managing financing, and ensuring long-term sustainability. It’s also important to envision the solutions of the future, create them, and deliver them to our clients. Communication and the company’s reputation are also crucial. It’s often said that there is know-how but demonstrating this know-how is equally essential.

What motivates me the most is working daily with the teams to advance our solutions. Incorporating feedback from our prospects and clients, and seeing usage develop day by day on a European scale is particularly rewarding. Managing this rapid growth, constantly progressing, and growing the business is what motivates me every day.

How would you describe the corporate culture at Sharvy?

I would say that the corporate culture at Sharvy is tied to the values we cultivate: innovation, respect, and fun.

Innovation is about constantly moving forward. It’s important not to be afraid of making mistakes or failing. When you’re a large company, you might fear losing clients and forget about others. As a startup, we have everything to gain because initially, we don’t have any clients. We must therefore charge ahead, carve out our space in new markets, and define our path by inventing the future without waiting for our competitors.

Respect means that even though we move fast, we do it right. We advance with an awareness of our impact on collaborators, partners, and the environment. At Sharvy, we are committed to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). We have obtained the LUCIE 26000 label, which validates our commitments in this area. Respect is the foundation of fairness and well-being. That’s what we cultivate at Sharvy.

Lastly, fun means ensuring that our business brings a smile every day. We enjoy what we do with the entire team. This is connected to everything else: if we innovate, we convince more and more clients to use our solutions. This fuels our development capabilities and enables optimal working conditions. We place great importance on organizing a variety of team events (after-work gatherings, team-building exercises, etc.) and celebrating successes.

That’s the corporate culture at Sharvy!

What advice would you give to someone looking to start their own business?

Go for it 😊

What’s crucial is to listen to others, surround yourself with a good team to avoid wasting time, steer clear of pitfalls, and benefit from diverse viewpoints and experiences. Of course, it’s important to hold on to your convictions and make your own decisions, but as often said, it’s essential to be part of a team, and it’s true.

I was fortunate to have the support of an incubator for innovative startups at the beginning of my journey, the BIC of Montpellier (Business and Innovation Center). They were exemplary in their support and advice, helping me to fund growth from the start and to find investors for our fundraising round at the end of 2020, for example.

Starting your own business requires a lot of work and presents many challenges, but it is also immensely gratifying to see your teams take the baton and help push the company even further.

To wrap up, what moments have stood out to you the most at Sharvy since its inception? Is there a particular experience or event you would like to share?

I think there have been several very structuring moments in the life of the company.

The first was certainly our fundraising round at the end of 2020. It enabled us to start recruiting and build a team focused on marketing, R&D, sales, and customer service. Fundraising is a leap of faith for an entrepreneur. You work hard to achieve it, but it’s a complex field, and you don’t know in advance if it will work out. Looking back, I’m convinced that I made the right choice because it truly gave us a boost.

Then, I think about the collective intelligence events with the team, especially in 2021 when we changed the company’s name. Initially, we were called MyCarSpot because the concept was centered only on sharing parking spots. With the COVID crisis and at the request of our clients, we diversified our solutions to manage other resources like workstations. We organized brainstorming workshops with a design agency to help us find a new name. It was essential to involve the team in this change, to think about our values and our future. The name Sharvy was chosen because it contains the root of “sharing” and evokes the idea of a digital assistant like Jarvis, Iron Man’s digital assistant. This moment was exceptional and foundational.

More recently, I remember participating in the Montpellier marathon as a team. The mobilization was incredible to form two teams, prepare, surpass ourselves, and each take our relay. It was a real achievement for the novices, with coaching by the more experienced! Thanks to our coaches Manon R and Benoit. It’s a superb illustration of the commitment and will of everyone. It’s this same energy that is put every day into serving Sharvy’s clients, and it makes me very proud of what we accomplish.