This week we interviewed Baptiste Lacroix, CMO at Wimi, a teamwork collaboration tool for SMBs. Find out what he has to say about the company, his views on industry and more.
GetApp: Can you briefly present your management team?
Wimi is led by Lionel Roux, CEO and founder, former consultant in Paris, and Antoine Duboscq, CFO and co-founder, former P&G and BCG consultant.
Our management team has a strong emphasis on SMBs needs for efficient collaboration within teams and with clients.
When Lionel Roux and Antoine Duboscq formed Wimi back in 2010, they had already tried most of the available collaboration platforms and decided that the solutions were too complicated for their clients, provided too many features. Most importantly, other solutions did not integrate file syncing for team members, a serious pain point they were experiencing themselves with their clients.
GetApp: How does your solution differentiate from the products and services offered by competitors?
We, at Wimi, have a strongly different vision from our competitors. We believe in the all-in-one productivity solution. Our experience shows us that SMBs and busy entrepreneurs can’t deal with multiple specialized apps that evolve in a different environment and require learning curves for each of them. Specialized apps are great, but problems appear quickly when you use multiple apps: users management is fastidious, too many different interfaces, no global permissions view, often user-center, spread out data and cumulated costs that rise fast.
We want to bring our users a single platform which provide them all they need to collaborate efficiently and get things done. Wimi combines project management and collaboration features with shared, synchronized document storage in one tool. Wimi keeps users up to date and in touch with other team members through shared documents, tasks and project calendars.
GetApp: Why do you think your customer buy from you?
I think there are lots of different reasons why our customers choose us. The first thing they appreciate from Wimi is the centralization of their data (files, tasks, calendars, time tracking) in one single app and the ability to access it from anywhere. Moreover, Wimi answers a key need for small businesses: their need to look professional when they work with clients. With Wimi, they can create customized workspaces with the logo of their client and share files on a platform that is their property.
Another reason why they buy from us is the simplicity of our service, making it usable by anyone regardless their experience with online tools. We care about the success of our customers and that Wimi helps them achieve more, this led us to offer a free coaching session for every new company subscribing any Wimi plan (even free).
GetApp: Can you mention some of your key clients?
Our clients are mainly B2B across industry sectors that manage projects and work with clients. Wimi is used by 10,000+ businesses, from big names like Intel and Shazam to the gardening shop down the street.
GetApp: Which technology company do you most admire?
As a marketing guy, its hard to answer something else than Apple. Apple has been able to create products that people love and use everyday. They build and design products that activate emotionnal triggers, which only few other companies are able to do.
GetApp: Which technology leader do you most subscribe to in terms of vision for the future?
Undoubtedly: Elon Musk. Elon Musk’s companies build for the future and he is one of the only entrepreneurs that won’t think for the next 10 years, but for the next 50 or 100 years.
GetApp: What are the top three software tools you use for your business?
I won’t surprise you by saying that our top software tool we use every day for our business is Wimi! The two other tools we use are Mailchimp for emailing purposes and Pivotal Tracker to manage development priorities.
GetApp: What do you see as the key trend emerging in the industry?
In my opinion, the key trend emerging in the industry will be consolidation. This will happen just the way it happened with computer and cell phone hardware, and later for software. We see thousands of great SaaS apps emerging, answering single needs. I think the winner will be that one company able to sum them all in one single open environment which anyone can use. The emergence of the API market confirms this trend.
GetApp: What is THE most important message you feel you should get across to someone considering buying your solutions?
Think about the time you waste using several different apps, managing user profiles without any global permissions view. Think about your image when you share files with clients in an email or through Dropbox. Think about how your team could benefit from a tool that provides project management features, file sharing and file sync in a single customizable platform with your logo appearing on every page.