The Online Marketplace Advantage

1Our Marketplace Discovery

There are nights, as an entrepreneur, when you lie awake and worry that you've screwed up, that any chance you had to succeed is at risk, or even lost. That's normal. But it's far worse when morning comes and you still can't shake it. Something's wrong. It needs to be fixed. Is it even possible?

Fortunately for us, we have each other as business partners. We have different perspectives and temperaments, and that has helped us get through inevitable rough patches. Philippe is the serial software entrepreneur, a technologist, and an introvert, while Adrien, the business expert, likes to mingle, strategize, and sell. These differences have proven valuable to us, but they almost snuffed out our partnership before it began.

Our story starts in Paris in 2005. Philippe was selling his second company, a four‐year‐old fashion accessories startup called Maÿrev. He and his co‐founder, Michael Ziegler, needed to come up with a business plan to help the buyer land financing. Michael suggested Adrien Nussenbaum. A product of France's elite business school, HEC, Adrien later worked as a banker in Hong Kong and as a tech entrepreneur. By the time Michael was urging Philippe to call him, Adrien was a consultant at Deloitte.

Philippe had crossed paths a couple of times with him. “We're not a good fit,” he told Michael. But when Michael insisted, Philippe relented, agreeing to discuss the project with Adrien.

That's how we began working together. The business plan we ...