Today, Business Cool went to meet Lancelot Salomon, co-founder of Ynstant, the new fast, simple and flexible carpooling platform. Between his studies at HEC Paris and the development of his business, he tells us how entrepreneurship changed his life and his vision of the world of work. Find all his advice for getting started in entrepreneurship in this interview!
From his daily life as a student to the creation of Ynstant
Can you introduce us to Ynstant in a few words?
Ynstant was created by my partner and I in September 2021 and was officially launched at the beginning of March 2022. My partner, a graduate of Polytechnique, is currently CTO (chief technical officer) and I am CEO (chief executive officer) and graduated from HEC Paris . To summarize, Ynstant positions itself as the first application that allows drivers to “carpool” simply, without detour, and this at the last moment before their departure.
Our long-term ambition is to be able to connect on the driver side to GPS like Waze, and on the passenger side, to mobility applications like Citymapper or Google Maps. As of today we have a few thousand users and we are starting the growth phase. For the moment we are mainly present in the suburbs of Île-de-France, on the HEC campus and soon in a CAC 40 company.
How did you come up with the idea to create Ynstant? Did it come from a personal necessity or did you hear about this need from those around you?
It first started from an observation. I actually realized that, despite the many existing carpooling solutions, many people still use their cars alone. And, as a driver, I realized that I rarely had the opportunity to organize my journeys in advance and that the choice to move was often made at the last minute.
This is where we came up with the idea of offering a last-minute carpooling solution at low prices. At first, we had the idea of creating our own GPS but we quickly realized that it was going to be too complicated to set up. We therefore naturally moved towards something simpler which could subsequently be integrated into existing GPS systems.
Managing your studies and your business: a busy daily life
Is it difficult to embark on such a large-scale business project when you are a student and, in fact, still have little professional experience?
Indeed, this is the rather complicated part of the beginning. You have to find the right balance between humility and ambition. And at the project level, we know that to be profitable and to have a real impact, we must reach hundreds of thousands, even millions of people! Our application works through network effects, so we have no choice but to predict in bulk.
On the other hand, we must also keep this humility and tell ourselves that this is our first start-up, that there are companies that have already tried to do things in carpooling and have not succeeded. . This is why the first thing we did was to pick up our phone and call all the people who had already had experience in carpooling like Blablacar or other start-ups, to really understand what was going on. had been tested, what they learned from their experience and how we could have a different approach. Today, we are not sure that it will work but at least we know that what we are doing is different and has never been tested!
Were you supported in setting up this project? How did you create relationships?
Yes absolutely, we were supported during the HEC Launchpad program. Then subsequently, we had the chance to meet a person who did an MBA at HEC and who, previously, had created 6 companies and sold 3. He was a very good source of advice at crucial moments for us and the company. For example, when we had to build our MVP (Minimum Viable Product), or even find co-founders. He actually invested in the project two months ago and has been following us for a year.
And indeed, it is very important to have support but for us, we did not expect it to come to us in this way! Generally, you have to seek out advice, users and investors yourself. And overall, the people we meet love to give advice and share their experiences, don’t hesitate!
Launching your start-up: what to do and what not to do
Do you need to have money set aside to launch your start-up? How do you finance yourself in the beginning?
On this subject, when you want to start a business, either you have money or you have capital. In this case, I didn’t have the money to be able to employ people and I didn’t have all the skills either. So from the start, I had the obligation to find partners and share the capital with them. At that time we also had two other people working with us. So we made an oral agreement and then, one thing led to another, life meant that they finally continued their path elsewhere on a permanent contract rather than continuing in entrepreneurship with us.
On the other hand, on a personal level, it’s true that I was very lucky because I didn’t need to take out a loan to do HEC and my gap year internship in consulting in Hong Kong allowed me to put some money aside. All these elements helped me start my entrepreneurial journey while being in a comfortable situation, I am aware of that. But in any case, as we have a network effect business, we will have to wait a little while before being profitable and being able to remunerate ourselves properly. So, for the moment, I pay myself €1,000 per month because that is enough for me to live on.
How do you organize your days when you’re young, a student AND your own boss? What motivated you to not give up?
My start-up has always been my priority in my head. Beyond what could be offered to me in class, beyond sport, beyond time spent with friends, with family. Today, I no longer have many constraints but it happened to me, during my courses at HEC, to have to work while the professor taught. In fact, there is a form of passion and I think that is the most important thing to sustain your project in the long term, it must make sense for you first.
For some time, many entrepreneurs have been speaking out on LinkedIn. Do you think CEO communication is as important as business communication? Do you have to put yourself out there to succeed these days?
Ynstant’s communication is actually done from my personal LinkedIn account. For example, this morning I made a post on paying yourself as an entrepreneur because these are questions that I find particularly important for anyone who wants to get into entrepreneurship. So indeed, I think yes, it is very important to express yourself, but not only for the company. It is especially enriching from a personal point of view.
For example, I have met a lot of people through my content on LinkedIn, but I have never posted on the platform with the aim of reaching a certain number of subscribers. Linkedin is a real work tool and, proof of this, one of the companies with which we are going to work this fall knew us through the platform. There are therefore plenty of positive externalities although, fundamentally, the objective is above all to share what we experience as entrepreneurs.
Advice from the boss of Ynstant to get started in entrepreneurship
In your opinion, what are the mistakes to absolutely avoid when setting up your startup? And what were you able to learn from your personal experience?
There are 2 particularly important things, the first being to never give up, whatever the project. Either there is already a market so it will be difficult and there will be competition. Either it will never have been done and lots of people will find it weird and question what you’re doing. In both cases, there will be many moments of doubt and, when you are young, it is quite easy to let yourself be destabilized. So you have to put yourself in a situation where you don’t give up and where you move forward. The second variable, as said before, is that you have to be passionate. For the simple reason that in the most difficult times, having a project that you are passionate about will give you the strength to continue.
Could you give us a slightly complicated story about your journey but one that allowed you to bounce back and learn from it?
This happened the week the application was launched at HEC, on March 1st. 48 hours before the launch, we had 600 people registered, so we were quite happy but no carpools had been booked. And unfortunately, it was the same for the next 5 days, no one was using the platform. It was only from the following Monday that the first users started using it and we were a little more reassured. The first 5 days were very hard for us because every minute that passed was a source of questioning. Looking back, I think we overestimated the students’ excitement for the launch of this project and the real impact it had in their daily lives.
What advice could you give to young project leaders who want to launch into entrepreneurship?
I think the first thing would be to not hesitate to talk to people around you, to seek advice and to meet entrepreneurs. Also, on a personal level, Y Combinator videos on YouTube inspire me a lot. They address the right questions of entrepreneurship. Also, if anyone has any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me directly on Linkedin, I will be happy to discuss with them. There are lots of questions that I asked myself and I think it’s always interesting to discuss!
