Théodore Chastel (Master 2014) invites you to share the things you love on Swingli!

Whether about music, films or books, how many times have you asked for your friends’ opinions before making up your mind? Our young entrepreneur Théodore Chastel (Master 2014) introduces Swingli!

EDHEC Alumni : Please introduce yourself and briefly describe your background?
Théodore Chastel : My name is Théodore, I’m 24 years old and I have just graduated from EDHEC (class of 2014). I completed the MSc in Corporate Finance on the Nice campus, and following my last internship in finance in London I decided to make the leap and try my hand at entrepreneurship. For several years I had been thinking about setting up my own company someday, but I never thought it would happen so fast. I’m very glad I made this choice, as it has proven to be a highly valuable experience both on a personal and professional level.

How did Swingli come about?
TC : For several years I had been regularly asking my friends to recommend various cultural works (films, series, books, music, etc.). Last year, in a single week I asked a young ESSEC graduate, François, who would later become my associate, to remind me of the names of a film, a series and an artist that he had talked to me about the previous month. It was too much for him! And so we came up with the idea to create a mobile app to share recommendations between friends and to store them on your smartphone. A few weeks later, we met with our new technical director, Charlu, who had graduated from the Mines de St-Etienne, and we set about developing Swingli.

Tell us about the Swinlgli app...
TC : Swingli allows you to receive cultural recommendations from those whose opinions really matter – your friends – and soon from your favourite influencers (media, blogs, experts, etc.). We feel they are in a better position than algorithms or strangers to recommend the kind of content you are likely to enjoy. You can use Swingli to recommend the things you have enjoyed to whichever friends you choose in a private setting, ask your friends for recommendations if you are lacking inspiration, store the recommendations you are interested in, see a list of the items most recommended on the app, and compare your statistics with those of your friends. Our economic model is based on two main pillars: first, we want to sign up to affiliation programs (whether already launched or not) offered by certain e-commerce websites and retail platforms (Fnac, Amazon, iTunes, Deezer, etc.); second, we want to offer targeted native advertising (sponsored recommendations) to rights holders in the cinema, television, publishing and music industries.

What are your prospects for growth?
TC : One month after Swingli was launched on the App Store, we already have a community of more than 1000 members. Our priority is now to get as much feedback from them as possible in order to improve the app’s ergonomics and its various functions. Combined with the Android version, due to be released in late April, we hope these improvements will allow us to reach a target of 10,000 users by the end of the summer of 2015. We also hope to raise funds from business angels by next summer in order to expand our team and put in place our business model.

Have you ever benefited from the network of EDHEC graduates?
TC : I have been in touch with many of them in recent months. They were all very generous with their time and gave me several pieces of advice that we have used to move our project forward. I would like to thank them once again on behalf of the Swingli team. Our school’s graduate network really is one of its strengths, something I have recently been able to fully understand.

What are your expectations from the network?
TC : We would like to develop partnerships with representatives from the cinema, television, publishing and music industries. In particular we are looking for “influencers” (media, experts and other high-profile individuals) to offer our users subscriptions via Swingli, as well as potential advertisers (film distribution, audiovisual groups, publishing houses, record labels, etc.) who may be interested in trying our native advertising (the initial test campaign will be free, also allowing us to test our back office). I would also be delighted to talk to any EDHEC graduates with experience in the web or mobile-related business. To conclude, I encourage you to download Swingli (it’s free) and share any comments you might have. It would be a huge help to us and would allow us to save precious time. I am of course available to talk to anyone who might be interested in the project, so don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Download Swingli by clicking here!

Contact
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