On a Mission To Be The Global Leader in the Refurbished Market for Tech Products with Reynold Simonnet

Hey everyone. And welcome to season four of innovators can laugh. This season. We are headed to France in Bulgaria chatting with some really interesting founders today. We're chatting with French startup founder Reynold Simon. Co-founder of Diply. Diply is the first fulfillment platform that simplifies supply chain of secondhand products end to end.

And this conversation we learned how Raynald bought the company that employed him, how he turned things around by focusing on B2B instead of B2C and things that you and I can do to help reduce our carbon footprint. Let's dive. Bon Renold nice job. I'm very good. I'm all right. Bien. Okay. I wanna get started because I read an interesting article recently about a vegan restaurant in England that let's diners know the carbon.

Yes. The carbon footprint of each dish. And it also includes comparison with dishes that they don't serve like hamburgers. And so I was fascinated to learn that a real hamburger's carbon emissions is three kilos or 10 times the amount of the vegan alternative. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

So what is your opinion on that? I'm just curious. Did you trade, or did you, did you read something about it? No, I read something about it because the restaurant is in England and I haven't been there. Okay. Well I think it's, it's really good for every, for anybody actually, to, to be aware of the traceability of any, anything that they are happy to buy in any, any market actually.

So we should have. An index of carbon emission for everything now, because if you want to reduce carbon emission, you want to also have the indication of carbon for anything, but in, and in another way, also, when you go out it's to have a good time with friends and. You also don't want to think about everything that you are eating.

So I think it's, it's good to have this new trend but not to be too much intrusive for the beginning, I think. Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I, I know what you mean. It's like the watches that track your steps. Sometimes people, they wanna get their 10,000 steps every day, but then it becomes it becomes kind of a nuisance they're always looking at, oh, I need to do my steps every day.

Yeah. And it's no longer fun. It kind of just takes the fun out of it. exactly. Yeah. It's like the watch you keep and saying Telling you the day after. Okay. You slept well, congratulations. Like it's feeling awkward. Like what, what did, did you just watch? Yeah, it's, it's good to have some insight, but not too many.

And but definitely carbon emissions. We need to go down and. The, the big thing is today. great part of the, the, the people like buying stuff online or eating stuff are not aware of where is the stock from? And we should all be prepared and. Aware of what we buy. So it's, it's, it's a good thing.

Step by step. We will, we will do it. I'm I'm quite optimistic. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Me too. Now we're gonna get into carbon emissions more in Diply in just a bit, but first I wanna talk about some of the jobs that you had while you were in university. So what kind of, what kind of work did you do to get by and pay the bills?

Was there any job specifically that was kind of unique? Something you did differently than, than other friends or other colleagues? Yes, actually. The main thing is I tried a lot I had many, many jobs many little jobs to pay, to pay for my, my my living or to pay for student projects. That was, I was involved in, so.

You know, you, you get involved in in, in, in many situation. And, and, and also in my, in my college years, I, I, I used to do a lot of internships. So as long as I could be in internships, I will do it. I, I will do it. So I took like four internships in, in five years. And long internships.

So it means that I, I was traveling to Australia, to New York, to Maine and also of, of course, to speak English and to learn new things. But in any situation, if we could if I could do a small job, little job, little mission, I would do it. And that's, that's very important for me because it helped me to meet people to, to also create a vision of the world for me to learn that I didn't want to work in finance

And, and, and to come back to basic and yeah, that was, that was such an amazing time for me during like these six years. I tried many jobs. Yeah. Now I also think that we have something in common. One time in my life, I actually became an Uber driver. I didn't really need to, but I was just curious because I had time and I enjoyed talking to people and I thought, let me try doing this for a couple of nights a week.

And I did it for about three or four weeks, and I had a good time just talking to different people. And I read somewhere that you are a personal driver for, for somebody. Is that. Yes. Yeah, there was, there was some of, some of the jobs. I, I, I tried to, to get some extra money for the summer actually.

And yeah, it end up like, it was like totally random thing because I, I applied for VTC. By daytime, we, we call it, I mean, we, we can still still call it BTC, I think. Because by day time we didn't have any upper in town in, in, in, in Paris. So it was I applied to be a driver for, at at the beginning air.

Show in Paris like for planes. So I was, I was driving people from Boeing Arabs and stuff. And then I end up in the hotel because I, I was doing a good job. So they put me then in the hotel and I was driving like the AP guest to the EFL tower to I don't know the, the, the great step you want to visit in Paris.

And one night. I had this new me. I mean, EV every time you, you, you, you get to, to to involved in, in the job that you are doing, and if you are doing a good job, then you will end up in the, in funny situations. And I, and I end up being the driver of top 10 player of soccer. I mean a world class player at that time.

And it was like a unique situation endless memories that I, I mean, I couldn't imagine at the beginning. So from, from a very of simple idea of, of getting extra money for the summer, I end up meeting a, a guy really interesting and driving a super car in Paris that I, I, I didn't expect okay.

A couple of things here. One, I wanna know what a super car is or what was that? And then two. For the audience because 80% of my audience is European. Soccer is football. I know you just said that cuz I'm American, but thanks for that right on. Yeah. Soccer is soccer is KU. Yeah. Yeah. So what was the super car?

What, what was that? It was so it was a S Mercedes with the AMG. And he was like, kited kited with actually a us us kit company. So a very nice car. I mean, it was a 400,000 Euro car really, really, I mean, Yeah. Not, not the car that you, you, you can drive every day. But funny, funny to have over the weekends.

Yeah. For a minute, I thought you were gonna see a, a us football player. And I, I was thinking we have a top 10 football player. but maybe not, don't even think a top 100 player. But anyway, did you ever feel compelled to steal the car like Ferris Bueller? There's a really popular eighties movie called Ferris Bueller's day off.

And the valet guy, he takes the Ferrari out for his spin for a few hours and he, he, you know, he goes top speed in it. Did you ever do that Reynold? I. Technically, I, I, I did, because I, I drove in Paris. I mean, when, when you drive for someone like for a V I P person, they basically take you for 24 hour hours.

And, but they don't need you for 24 hours. So. You, I will drive him to an appointment and then wait for two hours and then to the restaurant and then wait for two hours. But in between those meetings, I was seeing my friends with the car. So I was starting in Paris and so. Like one night he, I, I drop him off in the restaurant for seven hours, because like, he was, he was eating dinner with friends and then he, he went out and stuff.

So sometime it's, the weight is actually in, in this job very long. So you get to think about some, some other stuff you get to meet people. You get to listen to the radio, watch the street of Paris and stuff. But during that time, when you have seven hours with the super car in Paris and with. You get to have fun with the car, obviously.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I can imagine. So I would probably have my own playlist, you know, my own music and turn it up when it was just me driving. okay. Let yeah, actually it wasn't. Okay. Let's jump into di dimply. Tell me, tell me the story on dimply. Like when did you discover that there was a need for this and how did you go about, you know, becoming involved in Diply?

You know the same way. I, I became a Uber driver for a top, top ten second player. I, I became involved in circular economy quite randomly and that's, that's for me, a proof that life is a tree up decision and, and sometimes you end up Doing something new and something quite amazing randomly it was actually between, I mean, after my, my, my, my graduation, I, I, I did a, a master degree in finance and banking.

So I was basically in New York during the prime crisis in the heart of the Supreme crisis, I was working in wall street for their rating agencies. Really interesting times. Yeah, quite, quite funny, but frightening at the same time. Yeah. So I, I came back in, in France and I knew that I didn't want to work in finance anymore.

had this view of the markets. I had this view of the, I mean, when you work for rating agency and you get to feel that the rating. Itself didn't understand what was coming at the SOPR crisis is quite frightening. Right. So yeah, I, I, I, I, I, I mean, laid back from the finance and then get to get involved in the, in entrepreneur ships project.

And I helped many friends launching companies. And and at the end, I wasn't satisfied because didn't find any sweet spots. And one day someone told me. Okay. Are you interested in eCommerce activities? I said, okay. Yes, of course. I like eCommerce. I, I like eCommerce startups and, and stuff.

And are you interested in eCommerce plus second hand? Yeah. Why not? Why, why not to give it a try? So I, I entered this startup selling secondhand stuff online mm-hmm and that, that was my first startup experience in the secondhand. What was the market? Was it specifically France or was it also other regions, other markets?

Yes, France At the beginning, it was only trans. And that was fun because it was the really the, the very beginning of secondhand online, because you could, you could easily find secondhand in the rental shops. Secondhand in the rental shops is was, was launched in the nineties in, in France.

So you can easily find second. In, in the research shops mm-hmm but online, it was the, the very beginning. So, and the tricky part of setting second hand online is that the people doesn't have, I mean, doesn't have the look and feel of the product that they are gonna buy with scratches with. I mean, every single product is unique after one life.

So you tend to think that you are better. Having a new hand, the, the, the product that you are buying secondhand. So we were trying to educate the market with this new trend of buying secondhand online. And it was about smart phones, PC and tablets at the time. Mm-hmm . But the thing is, it was the very beginning of the, of the, of the, yeah.

Of the online setting of secondhand and the, the startup as were, I was working for didn't end up, well, like basically the, the, the shut down when, when and a half year after I entered the company. So that was. Tough thing to leave because from one day to another, I mean, you get to pack your stuff and to be simply like out of job.

Yeah. And, and I, and I, and I really liked what I did. So I was sad for the company, for the people. I, we were more than 20 people. And shut down from one day came. Yeah, like, no, I've seen that two times. I used to work for continental airlines and when nine 11 happened actually before nine 11, right next to continental airlines in Houston was Enron.

And so when the Enron crisis occurred, I remember seeing hundreds of Enron employees outside with boxes and other personal stuff. And then you mentioned the financial crisis in New York city. I happened to be in New York city. Working two blocks away from Lehman brothers. And that day that everybody was let go from Lehman.

I, I remember looking out the window and seeing hundreds of Lehman brothers, employees with their belongings and just being, let go that day. Yeah, so I I've seen that first hand now. What did you do afterwards? I mean, it sounded like you, you actually enjoyed working for this e-commerce company around the sustaina sustainability, you know, effort.

Yeah. So what happened after that? Yeah, actually, I, I, I, I, I. I enjoyed it and I, and I really get to feel the situation of, okay. Smartphones are really bad for the planet. And that's the point where I realized that it was around yeah, 2012. So I didn't want to leave the space after, after that, because when, when, when you get to feel something and as an entrepreneur, you always look at big challenges and, and change.

I mean, for my part, it's not meeting, I mean, it's, my, my entrepreneur journey is not making things better, but creating new things from my point of view, I mean, so I was, I had the feeling that I need to create a new. And a, a new thing about secondhand in the market. And, and I realized that yeah, the, the, the it industry is really, really bad in terms of CO2 emission and, and other stuff.

Yeah. So amplifying the second hand movement is the only way you could. Solve the, the problem. So because smartphone is increasing at screen is increasing everywhere. I mean, every, everyone wanted a screen at that time and still now and still increasing. So the, the only way to reduce the footprint is to improve the life cycle of the product.

That's the only way. So yeah, that's, that's. Drives me from 2012, 11 until no, until now, actually. So from, from this first ex experience seeing the company shut down, I knew that something was also going to happen. Again. And so I, I, I, I actually, from an old colleague, we, we took we, we went to, to court and to buy back the company that we employed us so we basically buy back the company with investors.

So we didn't put any money because I, I didn't have enough. So we were very lucky to have these investors at that time. And so we, we gave it a try again and changing the company in our perspective. And so we were managing this new company. And turning it upside down, changing everything and made it sustainable.

What was, what was the big difference that you saw that needed to happen? The big change in terms of how the company was being ran versus how you and your, your colleague wanted to run the company cash burn yeah, I mean, and, and, and, and, and we, again, this is a very. Current situation. I mean, it's, it's, it's in the news today.

You have big crush crush, sorry for the startup industry. Because of, of the cash burn because too many companies are burning too many amount of cash. And and that's what we saw at that time. The company was hiring 20 people and spending a lot of money into the advertising TV, TV, advertising, TV, radio print.

So what we did is we reduced those, those those spend and we focused on repeating business, repeat business, like it's better to have one customer that is buying every week. Then a hundred customer that are buying only once a year. Okay. So that's why we, we focused and we turned the company focused to B2B focused to repeat business, and we get rid of spot buying customers now, how, what are some, some strategies that you're using to get these repeat customers to continue buying from you?

It's, it's hard work because you, you have to change your, your business perspective. When, when you, when you work with only, we've only did you see people. It's not, I mean, it's another company when you switch to B2B, it's another way of seeing the business. So you have to build new services, you have to build new sales team because the way you talk to businesses is not the, the same way you talk to, to D two C and, and consumers.

So we, we just simply. Stop the project related to end consumers and look after big project related to B2B customers. But the tricky part is, is sometimes when you are launching B2B project, the life cycle is much longer. So, so you are, you will be launching the project maybe in four, four months and having the first customers in four months instead.

The end consumer D two C part is sometimes much shorter. Like in two days or two weeks, you can have the first customers. Right? So, and, and, and that's why it's sometime tempting to go back into the D two C space because it's, you can have the first customers very easily Google ads and other stuff.

Repeat is not here and you'll have to spend 10 euros again, 10 euros again, and 10 euros again, to acquire one guy or sometimes like 200 euros. Yeah. Instead of the B2B is really long to build, but once you have just, I mean, that can be a SaaS business or that can be a, a, just a project that you can plug to a big corporate company.

Once it's, it's plugged. Once the contract is signed, it can take, I mean, three months to a. Then, but then it's running and you don't have to do anything. Yeah. Just doing the service. Okay. So yeah, that's, that's the big, the big shift you have to do. I mean, we had to do at the time. And how are these B2B customers finding you?

Are you, do you have account based managers that is con con contacting these companies like on LinkedIn? Are you doing a lot of content marketing? Like, what's your approach here? So we, yeah. That, that's a good question. The, the. The thing is with the company that we, we, we bow back, we bow back at the time, we were really focused on some space of the markets.

But we had to give it away at because we had a larger and a broader vision of the market. So when we launched deeply it was actually another company another, another way of seeing the business. And that's, that's. Our vision in in involved changed in during, during that, that time.

So the company we BA we back back was the first initial company that was employing us. And we had so much fun of doing it. And I mean, it was a great times, but once the company was profitable we did the job. The company was sustainable and we left, so we sold the shares. And we, we took like few few.

Few extra money. Like it was not, not much but enough to launch a new company. And the new company deeply is having a broader scale because it's not in France. Only it's all over Europe and it's not narrow B2B a business. It's more, it's, it's a broader solution that is enabling. People, any businesses, any, any, any kind of businesses to sell directly to all the secondary market that is existing.

So let's, let's take an example. If you're looking at, for example a company like deliverable they are having. A bunch of restaurants are right. There are thousands of restaurants in, in hundreds of, of countries in, in all the restaurants. They have tablets. With printer attachment mm-hmm printer or a side or whatever, but they have something to get all the all orders from, from the, from the delivery platform, but delivery and the restaurants.

They don't have any, any clue of what's the, the, what are they going to do with the, the device at the end? So when they upgrade the restaurant of the, or if they churn. Or if they want to change the material they will not know how to we deal with the old device. Okay. So they basically put it in the, in the storage somewhere close it basically.

And they forget about it because they don't know how to deal with it. Okay. What we do at deeply is we will help. To build a bridge and a solution complete solution from the, the restaurants to the secondary markets in order to create a second live for any single device that is used in the restaurant.

That's an. That's amazing. That's amazing. Okay. So from a consumer's point of view, you know, obviously the benefits are gonna be a, a price reduction. If they were to pay you know, for something that's new, what is the average price difference? And then what are the other benefits? As well if somebody wanted to buy a you know, a used or second second hand, Electronic versus a new one.

So first price difference. And then second, what are the other a advance advantages? Yeah, the, the price. I mean when you, when you are buying a secondhand device, instead of buying a brand new device, the first thing you have to know is you are reducing your carbon footprints because buying a new new device is is increasing your carbon footprints.

That's that's the first thing to have in. Before the price. Okay. You have to, you have to know that in a smartphone or any tablets you have many raw materials and they are all coming from mines. All around the blood, like in Myanmar, Africa, all around Africa, like that they are called tan Mar mines that are just also for the planets also for the people extracting the, the, the, the raw materials.

Okay. So that's the first thing you, when you buy secondhand, you do a, you have Strong social engagement and a strong environmental engagement. That's that's the first thing. And then you look at the price and you say, okay it's obvious because you get to have at least between 30%. Less of the price re reduction price and up to I'll say 70%.

Okay. That's huge. So it's huge. It's, it's a huge price price reduction. So it's, it's a win-win combination. And that's why it's. It's taking off because you don't pay a higher price to do to do less carbon emission. You pay a, a, a reduced price to reduce your carbon emission. So that that's an amazing equation, actually.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. Now you mentioned that. You had to pivot from, or think from, you know, a B2C approach to a much bigger to B2B. But was there another obstacle that you had to overcome while at Diply? What was the biggest obstacle that you've had to the biggest challenge that you've had to overcome?

Since you've taken over, I'd say, I'd say the, the, the market competition and the market itself. We are, we are in the market. That is pretty new. I mean, second hand is still new because it's it's, it's from 2010 online. So it's still, I mean, brand new markets. Yeah. And with brand new markets.

Taking off, it tends to , it tends to like gather good people and also bad people good intention people and bad intention people. And, and also you have to look at companies that are rushing into the space. But not playing with the rules of everyone. Like a lot of companies came into the space to do cash, to do big, big figures S and stuff, but they, they did it with I mean, Nasty way of not playing the same rules of the market with the same rules.

So that's the big thing with our market is when it's very shiny, very new. It tends, tends to, to get lot of, kind of, I mean, a lot of kind of people. So you get to, to fight sometime. Good and very bad people. so that's that, that's the thing actually for, for us. Okay. Now what are some things that consumers can do to join the sustainability effort and reduce their carbon footprint?

The average Joe, what can we do for, I mean, are, are you, I mean, there, there are two, two ways for, for companies or for users I'll say. I mean some, I mean, very simple things. When something that you have is broken, try to repair it. That's, that's the, I mean, that, that's the easiest way to do when you cannot repair it, just sell it and buy, I mean, sell as it is like broken, but you can, you can still sell it to someone that is buying it for parts or whatever.

Don't don't forget in the, in the closet. That's the worst, worst thing to do is to, to store things that you don't use. Okay. So repair resale buy second hand. So that's with the high, the iTech space, but also in the day to day, just drink with good. And do I mean, stop, stop buying plastic bottles.

there are, there are, there are many things to do, but very simple things to do. Yeah. Well, I was talking mostly about electronics. So yeah, I need to take note of that. I don't think we have anything stored away. I think we use everything that we have, but when when it does come time to replace it I'll remember that to try to resell it.

Okay. Now riddle a few like questions just so the audience can get to know you a little bit better. First question for you is if you got to relive your early twenties again, what's one thing that you would have done differently if, if you would have done something differently early twenties. I was, I was in Australia in New York, so I got to live two amazing countries and people and situations.

So I will do it again. The same. I won't change anything. All right, right. That's good. Next question for you. What's the what's a habit that has served you well, a habit that has served you well, huh? I don't know if it's a, if it's a habit or if it's inner inner value. But resilience having resilience is mandatory for me and I couldn't build this company.

Without it. And also in my day to day, life resilience is a day to day thing that I use. Okay. Yeah. Is there something that you do like a hobby or something you're passionate about that has helped build some of your resilience? Sure. The I, I get to. Start running couple years ago. I was always in, into sports.

I, I like tons of sports, but mainly sailing, sailing, boat and kit surfing thing and, and, and cycling. So that did all my free top. Sports that I do. But few years ago I got to try running actually with a friend at the beginning and then it tend to increase and increase and increase. And now it's it's it's a weekly habit that I will not give.

I mean, giving up. For the moment because it's, it's giving me so many, so many good vibes, resilience, and also I mean peace of mind. Okay. Yeah. I love running too. I don't run that long distance though. but I, I, I enjoy getting, what do you, I do, you know, five, five kilometers five to. That's good.

Yeah. No, it's, it's enough to listen to a podcast and just get some fresh air and, and get some exercise. Okay. Two other quick questions. Does corn belong on pizza? Corn? Yeah, corn.

Okay. No, no, no. I mean, France, France is, is very close to Italy. So I, I could not say that I have, I have friends in Italy, so I cannot say that no, the same way. No, I, I, I mean, I wouldn't. I wouldn't, I would not eat it, but I real have some respect for you for if, if you do . I don't, no, I don't like indu.

I don't like it either. when I was in Australia as you've been to Australia, you know, a lot of my colleagues are Australian and they, they tell me that something called VE Vite, our veg ate is really good. Yeah. Vite. Yes. Vite have you that, that that's right, but this was not the, the strangest thing I was about to tell you.

Would you puts bee roots in your cheeseburger? I like beets. I don't know what bet root is though. That just doesn't sound. It's the same thing. Okay. You know, maybe if they were boiled with the right condensity and maybe there was some sugar at it, maybe, maybe. Yeah. I like beets. Yeah. Wait, is this yeah, I think, yeah.

Okay. okay. I'm gonna ask my Australian colleagues if they put beats on their, on their hamburger now, sure they do. Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. Last question for you, Reynold, what is a favorite TV show that you can watch again and again? Well quantum a kind of addict to TV shows I mean series the last one, I, I.

Watching and enjoying it was, let's say my, my, my top three was breaking bad. Okay. Game of Thrones and strange of things. So the might be the top three I have. Right. But most recently I watched, I watched re crashed. I dunno if, if, if you watched it, but really interesting TV show about the WeWork situation and.

Really interesting. I mean, in this time that we are living with my market crisis and start startup big big changes we should all watch. We crashed. Yeah. I saw one of the shows. I think it was on HBO and it was just mind boggling at how much investment was going toward this company when they were just talk about cash burn.

Right.

Yeah, I I can't remember the figures, but I, I think it was 200, 200,000 a day of cash burn or more than that. But and, and the funny thing is it's in the news. So Adam Newman, so the, the funder. Of WeWork is now launching a new company. He's actually launching two companies. And within the first days the new company just launched was funded and is evaluated $1 billion and they don't launch any product yet.

So, I mean, it's, it's a endless situation of. I mean, once you watch, we crashed. And once you read about the, the phones implicated and the situations and the, and the Joe Mo and, and everything you think, okay, this guy will be broken in parts and stop doing entrepreneurship and stuff. No, this guy is on top again, and is will be a soon of a top, top top 10 funder in the.

So it's, it's really amazing how things can turn again and again and again. Yeah. People forget. What I won't forget about watching the show is the first employees who basically gave their, their entire lives. They were working 24 7 relocating to like Los Angeles, Chicago, different companies were promised some equity in the company.

And when at the end of the you know, when everything blew. There was no equity for them at all. And that to me is something I won't forget. So anybody who goes and works for this person they should keep that in mind that I do not trust anything that he says, yeah, history is repeating itself. And it's just amazing.

Like, but I mean, WeWork is still, is still. He's still living. And, and for sure the co-working space is huge and it change. I mean, we all use co-working space now, so obviously it was a, it was a great idea, but the execution is uh, still. Question. Yeah. Yeah. Very true. All right, Reynold. Hey, thanks so much for being on this show.

Everybody listening in this is Reynold Simon from Diply. I will put links to Diply into Reynold in the the show notes. And thanks you. Thank you for turning in. If you like the show, feel free to, to rate it, tell others about it and Reynold a pleasure having you on the show. Thank you, Eric.

Great, great time sharing with right. Thank you. Cheers. Bye. My cheer.

Thanks for listening to the show. If you enjoyed it, I'd really appreciate it. If you could give us a review and star rating, also, don't forget to sign up for the ICO newsletter at innovators, laugh.com, where you can get the bio and details of each guest. Thanks.