Almost any leader with a good idea needs belief and support in order to succeed – in addition to dogged determination. Henry Ford kept at it despite derisory comments from his father-in-law. Walter Chrysler credits his wife’s belief in him. Tatiana Jama will some day look back to the American Chamber of Commerce in France as the propulsion that launched her onto the world stage.
Tatiana Jama, founder and CEO of Selectionnist.com, pitches to the jury at the NextGen... [+]
Jama is the winner of AmCham France’s NextGen Global Growth Launchpad Pitch Competition supporting startups going global. Her company, Selectionnist.com, was chosen as “most likely to benefit” from an award package that includes free round-trip air travel to the U.S., a "soft landing” tour in the U.S. by SelectUSA, office space in one of the three tech-centric locations, networking support, free legal services for six months, membership in key business organizations such as AmCham France and the chance to exhibit at La French Touch Conference in Manhattan.
More than 50 entrepreneurs submitted applications to this first Global Growth Launchpad during the past year; eight semi-finalists and then four finalists were chosen before the winner was announced on January 21 in Paris.
“The winner is the entrepreneur judged ‘ready to go to the U.S.’ to open a sales office there, to get a foothold and start scaling up,” said Jason McDonald, NextGen founding co-chair and director at StringCan Interactive, a digital marketing and business consulting agency working with European companies focused on the U.S. market, in opening the ceremony. “Once the startups get to the stage of many of our finalist they are ready to go to the U.S. to open a sales and marketing office, with the development and management in France. This move happens with the hope of U.S. investment, but normally French startups will have already had French investment; as in the case of the Selectionnist, they will have already raised money in France. “
About The Winner
Founded in Paris in 2013, Selectionnist.com should go down in history as creating the prototype for monetizing media ads – all media ads. Working with luxury brand groups as paying customers and global fashion/style magazines as partners, Jama’s company has created a platform that advises customers where and how to buy an item they choose by simply taking a photo of it and submitting it to the Selectionnist data base; from there, the photo is matched up to the data base information submitted regularly by the brands. From there, the customer can buy the item in a shop or online. The photo must be of something that is already in media –be it billboard, print ad, catalogue or online, not from real life.
“We can connect any image or photo to an online experience, worldwide,” the 30-something Jama told me during an interview at the NextGen event in Paris. “Before this, if you saw something in a magazine you liked, you had to tear out the page and run around until you found a place to purchase it. Now you just take a picture of the ad and submit it to our database. And we track the activity of each ad, so our clients know where the customer is coming from: print, online, etc.”
Brands can also use the platform to send follow-up messages to customers (for example, offering a discount coupon for a future purchase), or offer tutorials in how to use products, such as cosmetics. Selectionnist.com says it has 150 dedicated users to-date who “flash” regularly and 30 global magazine partners.
While French law and taxes are becoming more accommodating to entrepreneurial efforts, a lack of “angel” financing and venture capital has created a bit of a brain-drain in France: entrepreneurs with ideas often leave the country to find financing, either at the start or at the scale-up stage. The French government has on the books various pieces of legislation to change all this, but movement through the legislature is slow. “We have to remember that entrepreneur’ is a French word!” AmCham President Alain Benichou says.
Competitors in the NextGen event on January 21 in Paris were:
- ECHY (Final Round) - Stephanie Le Beuze
- Braineet - Livescault
- OpenDataSoft (Final Round) Peter Campo Basso
- Comet App- Mathieu Spiry
- Photonomie (Final round) - Arnaud Jardin
- Smart Me Up - Matthieu Marquenet
- Dolead -
- Selectionnist (winner) - Tatiana Jama
Judges were:
- Chris Kramme - Head of EMEA Corporate Network at BNP Paribas and Vice President of the American Chamber of Commerce
- Emmanuel El Medioni - An Attoney at DLA Piper (IP Law, Transatlantic business, Fundraising, Structuring)
- Reggie Miller - Minster Counselor for Commercial Affairs for the US Embassy
- Olivier Attia - General Manager of Spark Labs
Corinne Colloc'h - Head of Corporate Development at Airbus
Key sponsors were:
- United Airlines (Dimond Sponsor)
- DLA Piper (Gold Sponsor)
- SparkLabs (Silver Sponsor)
- FrenchTechHub (Silver Sponsor)
- Vin Du Centre Loire (Silver Sponsor)
- French Touch Conferance (Silver Sponsor)
- Les Pepites Tech (Silver Sponsor)
Announced last year, the NextGen project was created by the business organization to spearhead French tech initiatives. The next event is anticipated in the spring.
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