Why I decided to launch ZELIQ

The why, below 👇

I became a multi-millionaire at 30 years old when I sold my previous company Hivency, which achieved success thanks to an outbound strategy.

We reached +6m€ ARR in less than 5 years, and 90% of this was earned through cold calling. Our marketing budget was almost non-existent, and we concentrated our growth only through outbound. The method was pretty simple but well organized.

Hivency in a few key numbers:

+100 employees

+500K influencers

Office in Madrid, Cologne, and Paris

+100% growth each year

We were used by L’Oreal, Carrefour, KitKat, etc

We became the reference in the sector in less than 5 years.

Hivency was not my first company as I started at approximately 20 y/o, selling “Swiss knife belts” for survivalism and outdoor. Then I created a Junior enterprise externalized (business plan project), and in 2017 Hivency was born. I was not passionate about influence marketing, but I saw a massive opportunity as people used social networks for over 3 hours daily.

We (Sylvain and I) grew the company from 0 to +100 in less than 5 years, and we raised 6,5M€ between VC/loan… We had significant growth each year, and the sector has opened many opportunities for us (adding features like rating and reviews, managing an e-commerce loyalty program)… I worked on an 8-year vision, and we even bought one company during Covid Crisis — “Lucette.com”

Selling Hivency to Skeeper

Finally, after launching my 4th fundraising 2021 after only one month of the roadshow, I got a proposal to sell the company. Some questions came to me, such as the company’s valuation, employees’ conditions, earnout…

After negotiating with them (9 months of hard work), we agreed on the condition and joined them in the adventure.

I worked as an employee of the group for 12 months to manage the acquisition of the 9 companies that were bought in 2 years. I had two missions. The first was to merge Octoly and Hivency, which has 160 people in the European Market. Then after 3 months, I took the position of GM Europe to build the European team (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria). I learned a lot of things as we were more than 500 people merging in only 12 months (politics, buildup, scale…)

Leaving Hivency

Finally, I made the hard decision to leave my company, which was a part of me. I had to find my new personal objective, and It took me some time after the acquisition to help me discover what I like and didn’t like.

During this time, I decided to invest my time/money in startups and VCs, to help founders, as I was at the same place a few years back. I also took a coaching position to help companies to build a structure and scale their sales strategy.

Building ZELIQ

One of the common problems I saw in startup and scaleup is building the best outbound sales structure and managing the team in hybrid work. The challenges I often see are not having enough SDRs, not using the right software or too much software, not having an outbound culture, not following the right metrics, not putting the right commission plan, high people turnover, and not using the right pitch). Another pain they face is not having a strong Data-base to create a sales strategy, and so I decided to go deeper on how I could help them by building the best product to improve all the problems.

I’m thrilled to announce that with my co-founders Guillaume and Victor, I’m launching ZELIQ, to solve all of these problems and help companies make business easier.

ZELIQ is not a standard team but a team of heroes…

We want to be a game changer in the salestech market, becoming the must-have tool every sales rep needs.

You may be asking why he decided to launch a new company again and not just take a break.

If I decided to launch ZELIQ, it’s for a few reasons that you will find below :

First, be the SaaS Salestech worldwide leader.
Win US Market as the French company.
Revolutionize with AI the business development market.
Become the next Unicorn / Centaur.
And last, I want to see where I can go.

I got frustrated after selling as I was asking myself what my CEO’s potential is. But I always love to talk to people about my business, and as an entrepreneur, selling has been a key part of my journey. Hence I want to create the best sales tool for a sales person like me, who understands the pain could potentially revolutionize the way sales people work — earn more, easier.

We are looking for the best people to join us. We have a remote policy. We aim to hire the best people wherever you are in the world.

ZELIQ's Mission

Our mission is to EMPOWERING SALES TEAMS BY REVEALING ACCURATE PROSPECT DATA AND TURN THEM INTO CLIENTS

This time we are not looking to sell ZELIQ as we want to be the consolidation leader. Our ambition is enormous, and it’s one of our values!

Keep updated and Join us.

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