Memo 2024: a message from the founder

For Partoo, this year has been one of the richest in terms of achievements and also one of the most intense in terms of challenges.

2023 has put the global economy under severe strain. Due to an unfavourable economic climate over the last 18 months, many companies, particularly in the tech sector, had to close down, freeze salaries, or cut jobs. This also had an impact on us, as many of us had to put recruitment on hold, let go of talented people, and discontinue products to focus on the essentials. Despite all these challenges, we are more determined than ever to make Partoo an entrepreneurial and social success, and we hope you are too!

This memo is therefore an opportunity to give a new collective momentum, without forgetting the ordeals we have been through, and to launch 2024 with a spirit of conquest, building upon the successes of the past 12 months. After all, there were undeniable successes in 2023. Together, we have: 

Provided even more value to our customers

Partoo now helps more than 300,000 points of sale in their day-to-day business – compared to 200,000 just 12 months ago. Beyond this number, it’s the level of customer satisfaction that bears witness to our positive impact as well as the renewal rate of 90% on the Enterprise side. And when we talk about impact, it is important for me to stress that we hope to reduce our carbon footprint to below 2 tons of CO2 per employee over the year through different initiatives. This estimate (our annual carbon footprint will be calculated in January) would place us among the top 25% of companies in the sector with the lowest emissions.

Evolved our strategy for the SMBs market (Small and Medium Businesses)

A few months ago, we changed our offer by adapting our value proposition (focusing on lead generation rather than natural referencing), and by targeting a more financially stable customer base. Although this transition is still ongoing, the initial feedback has been extremely positive. Indeed, thanks to the commitment and resilience of all our teams, we can now congratulate ourselves on the first results of Q4 2023, with 117% of targets achieved.

Maintained a strong customer acquisition dynamic

Over 2023, we signed more than €7M of additional contracts, enabling us to exceed the symbolic threshold of €30M in ARR. This success is due to our international presence in particular, which now accounts for almost 50% of our revenues.

But above all, this year has been marked by a profound paradigm shift for Partoo: while historically, the vast majority of our revenues have come from acquiring new customers, we have also demonstrated growth through the sale of additional products to our existing customers. This accounts for 20% of new business this year, compared to 15% in 2022. Several teams have contributed to this success: Tech, who enabled us to bring new products to market; Customer, in charge of customer satisfaction; and of course the Key Account Managers, whose outstanding performance results in an NRR (Net Retention Rate) ranging from 110% to 120% for the year.

Gradually turned Partoo from a Presence Management player into an “all-in-one” solution 

This transition, which has a considerable impact on our growth potential and on the scale of our joint project, is explained in particular by a diversification of our revenues by product. As a result, Partoo can increasingly be described as a ‘platform’, with 15% of our Enterprise customers using at least 3 of our products (compared to 10% just 12 months ago). This can be attributed especially to recent changes to our solution, which still retains the same level of simplicity that we all value: 

• the integration of AI into our products – starting with our review management solution, then our messaging solution
• an expanding mobile application that garners unanimous approval (30,000 downloads)
• the strengthening of Presence Management with SnapChat, the addition of Instagram posts and the redesign of the point-of-sale management display
• the improvement of our review management tool with tagging and automatic replies to reviews
• an acceleration in our development efforts on our store-locator product, a solution that is gaining more and more interest from our clients

Long as it is, this list of successes is just a fraction of what we’ve achieved together. All this reinforces the unshakeable confidence that Thibault and I have in Partoo’s future. Beyond the recent challenges and tribulations of everyday life, we are extremely fortunate to be able to rely on solid foundations. These are prerequisites for becoming the world leader in our market: a talented team united around shared values, a high level of customer satisfaction, and the best product in the ecosystem. In addition, the lessons learnt in 2023 will be key for the future…

In this context, we have drawn up a new strategic plan for the next few years. We have called it the ‘Hyperion’ Plan, our new destination after the Apolloo project that we initiated in 2021. Hyperion refers to one of Saturn’s moons, named in honour of a Titan associated with the Sun in Greek mythology. But beyond the destination to which we aspire, Hyperion is also a reminder of nature: it is the tallest tree in the world (116 metres), an 800-year-old giant, taller than Big Ben and many other human constructions. Like Partoo, it is built on solid foundations and aspires to healthy, sustainable growth.

The Hyperion plan 

This plan is based on an ambitious objective: support 1 million points of sale with our solution. 

To reach this new destination, we have defined 3 areas of work that respond to Partoo’s three major challenges (detailed above).

1) Escape from the Presence Management image

Our wish is for Partoo to reflect the same image we have internally, namely that of an “all-in-one” company.

To do this, we will (1) invest a lot of energy in developing the world’s best messaging product to enable our clients to easily receive their WhatsApp. Facebook, Google Maps, Instagram, and SMS messages directly on the Partoo app for each of their points of sale. We want to position ourselves in response to a new need, aligned with a long-term trend. As the number of conversations received by our clients is expected to grow by at least 100% per year for the next 5 years, conversational commerce is poised to disrupt how consumers interact with businesses. We now have the opportunity to stand out and become a global leader in an innovative product by helping companies with physical locations improve their lead conversion through messaging.

We also plan to (2) increase our investments in Review Management, which will be enhanced with additional features. This will be done without ever forgetting Presence Management, which remains essential for our other products and our customers. 

Finally (3), as AI is one of the greatest technological innovations of recent years, we want to make it available to our clients by integrating it at the heart of our solution. Thibault and I are convinced that this is an opportunity for Partoo to change dimensions. After 9 years of building a functional product, focused on local businesses and connected to all platforms, AI will allow us to access nearly limitless intelligence to analyse and optimise numerous customer interactions. Thus, the coming years promise to be exciting as we will continue to build an exceptional product, leveraging the latest technological advancements while upholding our core values.

2) Increase our addressable market

The objective is to demonstrate that Partoo will be able to sustain its strong growth in the long term, over the next 5 or 10 years. To achieve this, we will continue to invest in:

• International market share expansion, in the regions where we are already present (Europe, Latam, MENA).
• Development of new products.
• Sales to small businesses, which, as part of the new SMBs strategy, will be more scalable and profitable. In this regard, the deployment of the Messages product, especially through Partoo Chat (integrated into our clients’ website), is essential for generating purchase intentions and demonstrating to retailers that Partoo brings them leads. This will allow us to improve our renewal rate and differentiate ourselves from the competition with a unique and innovative value proposition.

3) Sustainable growth

Finally, we want to help a growing number of businesses with our solution, while maintaining a sound economic and human model, aiming at achieving profitability in 12 months (by then we will have 450,000 points of sale using our solution, with an ARR of €40M). To accomplish this, we are going to increase the number of products in our range, streamline our tools to maximise our investments and take advantage of AI to optimise certain internal processes… From a human point of view, we are going to focus on our teams and our management to succeed in doing better while having the same number of employees in 2024. This will involve prioritising projects, strengthening skills, and developing the expertise of each individual.

The most important thing, however, is our ability to move forward together. For several years now, we have known that Partoo’s greatest strength lies in its people. That’s why we’re committed to creating a powerful group dynamic based on 2 pillars: collective spirit and a close-knit team. 

As leaders, our role is to bring people together around a common goal that inspires them to give their all to achieve it. We want to make this desire tangible and feel it on every floor of our offices. We hope that external visitors will feel that this is what struck them about our premises, just as some might mention the efficiency at Amazon or the creativity at Disney. It is precisely to foster this that we have, since the beginning of Partoo, put tremendous energy into establishing a strong culture (values, rituals), demonstrating transparency (Monday and Friday meetings, quarterly meetings, Q&A, annual memo), initiating moments of sharing (seminars, team buildings, sports activities, favouring in-person interactions), and setting an example by investing ourselves, Thibault and I, heavily in this adventure. 

Given the upcoming challenges, the collective dynamics within Partoo are extremely important. They can become a real strategic advantage over competitors whose teams are falling apart. In team sports – and particularly Thursday lunchtime football – I regularly observe this: a close-knit team driven by the desire to win has a very good chance of beating an opponent whose players are individually stronger, but less determined and connected.

This year, on the 10th anniversary of Partoo, I see an opportunity to further strengthen our culture and rely on our values, which are at the heart of our DNA.

We want to focus on our workspaces in Paris and Barcelona in order to spend good times together and promote collaboration. We will also need to give each other more feedback, train to improve, and maintain a spirit of conquest. Finally, we must remain vigilant about everyone’s balance and mental health. We will need to be united and help each other to grow together and understand each other as a group of over 400. This will involve, among other things, more transparency, the help of a  CSE (Social and Economic Committee) expanded ahead of time, and even better trained and supported managers.

All this will be possible if we keep moving in the same direction and put all our energy into reaching Hyperion, Saturn’s moon, which is currently 700,000 points of sale away 🙂

Strength and honour, 
Thibault

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