Stéphanie Delestre
CEO at QAPA
Stephanie is what you call a serial-entrepreneur, workaholic and geek. With more than 20 years of professional experience in the media and web environment, she is part of the new entrepreneurial generation of the digital economy. With a master in history and having graduated from the Europe Business School ESCP-EAP, she started her career at the biggest french TV channel TF1 as web manager of Eurosport. Responsable for the marketing and strategy development she fundamentally contributed to make Eurosport the leading website in sports news. In 2007, Stephanie joined the german startup Qype as executive officer. After having managed the two fundraisings of the company, she was in charge of the international development of the service. With her dynamic and innovative manner, Qype became the european leader in the local review industry hosting more than 18 million unique visitors per month and 1 million members. Qype got bought out by the american leader Yelp. In 2011, Stephanie co-founds Qapa and becomes CEO with one main ambition: breaking the traditional way of job searching! By offering an innovative service based on matching only the truly relevant criteria for hiring, Qapa is a time-saving tool for both, candidats and recruiters. Today Qapa is the number 1 job board in France with 4 million members and 200 000 new candidats every month.
Who is your hero?
My mother. And all the people who do little things without expecting to get something in return.
What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today, and why?
“It's better to quickly execute a simple idea than to think about the killer app and never release it”
What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your business, and what did you learn from it that others can learn from too?
My biggest mistake was to recruit a CCO too early. During the first years of existence you should test yourself, test the products of your company, anticipate the feedback of your customers and find the right way the monetise! Once the motor is set you can accelerate sales.
What do you do during the first hour of your business day and why?
Everyday, I start as a user of our product - I test our website and all our services. That’s the best way to avoid bugs and get inspiration for new ideas. Then I check the metrics of the day before. Step three is to see every team mate to start the business day determined and motivated.
What’s your best financial or cash-flow related tip for entrepreneurs just getting started?
I already raised several funds and found a pattern how to fundraise successfully: - Go for a big market - Go for a market which hasn’t developed over the past years - Find a disruption and the solution for it - Find a good team
We used the following information for the first fundraising of qapa.fr: - The job market is a huge sector (25 billion € only in France, 416 billion € worldwide) - The market has seen no development over the past 5 years which is a long time for the digital economy: Monster digitalised the first job offers in 1998 and LinkedIn lanced the first professional network in 2007. - In 2011, Qapa was the first company developing matching algorithmes to connect candidats and recruiters in realtime. We found an innovative way to bring together offer and demand on this market. - qapa.fr was co-founded by 4 enthusiastic people experienced in the digital market. Everyone is an expert in a different sector so that skills were very complementary.
Quick: What’s ONE thing you recommend ALL aspiring or current entrepreneurs do right now to take their business to the next level?
The courage
What’s your definition of success? How will you know when you’ve finally “succeeded” in your business?
Success is offering the service people need that live is easier and more pleasant.
Favourite quote.
For life: "Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye." The little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupéry
For business “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Michael Jordan