Hi, it's William, co-founder and CTO of Cardynale.
In the photo I am with Antoine, my associate (in the center) and Julien, our mentor (on the left).
Today, I wanted to tell you a little more about this crazy year than summer 2024 for the company. Maybe it can inspire some, help others.
So let's go, let's rewind!
A year ago, Antoine and I launched Cardynale, a digital business card solution. Today, we are celebrating this important first step and want to share our journey with you.
For those who don't know us yet, Cardynale is the easiest solution for exchanging contact details during physical meetings.
Our platform is used by freelancers, teams and businesses to expand their network and develop their business.
It all started in June 2023, while Antoine and I were still students at the École des Mines in Nancy. In February 2024, we started working on Cardynale full time.
Today, we are a small independent team based in France.
A year later, we are proud to announce that 11,800 people are using Cardynale to exchange business contact information.
To improve this we released:
- The templates,
- improved the sidebar,
- the teams,
- The v2 mobile application,
- The email signature,
- The animation,
- contents,
- Field blocking,
- Make integration,
- Google sign-in.
After a first entrepreneurial experience (JustOneCard), we knew what we did not want to replicate: a large team composed only of apprentices and interns. Without a mentor to guide them, it seemed counterproductive.
We therefore decided to recruit only experienced profiles (more than 5 years of experience). Our goals were clear:
We called on a hunting firm to recruit 3 profiles:
Balance sheet? Over 4 trial periods:
Anna, our Business Developer. After spending 3 years at Hello Work and trying an entrepreneurial experience, she accompanies our customers with a smile.
Elsa, our Growth Manager. A B2B SaaS enthusiast who has worked for Ankorstore and MerciApp, she enthusiastically joins the Cardynale team.
Making and building are two strictly distinct skills. Someone can be very good at improving an existing system and at the same time not knowing how to set up a system.
Thus, two profiles seem to have their place in startups: those who have already built before and those who perform extremely well and who now want to build with their skills.
The best decision we made? Simplifying our offer.
The result: huge time savings on calls, sales cycles, documentation, and implementation.
We thought we needed to diversify across many channels: Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, LinkedIn Ads, YouTube, event sponsorship, cold email, cold call... But we quickly realized that it was better to focus our efforts.
Our main channel today: the SEO.
We continue to optimize it with:
As we raise our glass to this first year, we're incredibly proud of how far we've come and excited to see what the future holds.
A huge thank you to everyone who has supported us from the start!
PS : Always happy to chat on LinkedIn, don't hesitate to send me a DM :)
PPS: I leave you with the video of our last co-working week in Toulouse!
