The Power of Mirakl: People & Passion

Today, Mirakl is a “Unicorn”… With a $1.5B valuation, more than 300 employees and hundreds of customers all over the world, this latest title is a testament to the days, weeks, months and years of hard work that have gotten us to this point. It’s the commitment to our customers; a recognition of the partnerships; and last but not least, the teams that work hand-in-hand, every day, to revolutionize commerce. But more personally, it’s a humbling moment. As an entrepreneur, it is a moment to take a deep breath and look at what we’ve worked tirelessly to build — and also look ahead at the inspiring potential ahead.

The Power of Mirakl

I never set out to build a Unicorn. I set out to revolutionize commerce. The passion runs in my veins. I come from a family of retailers: Sellers, buyers, entrepreneurs who live and breathe the trade. From an early age, I observed the art of transactions and the power of sale. As a technology enthusiast, I knew I wanted to have a hand in transforming it. The traditional way of doing business — the buying of goods and reselling for profit — no longer fit the digital world.

I clearly remember the day Adrien Nussenbaum and I decided to partner up for our next venture. I remember the excitement we both felt to capitalize on the quiet rumblings of digital natives swiftly changing the business. Amazon had entirely disrupted the publishing industry. Alibaba was reaching across geographical boundaries to alter the expectations of buyers and sellers. Airbnb was revolutionizing the hotel industry without owning a single property. Uber was revolutionizing the taxi service industry without owning a single car. Change was in the air, driven by the power of platforms. Retail, we knew, would be next.

The Power of Visionaries

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.” Henry Ford.

Though the need for a marketplace solution was clear to Adrien and me, the world wasn’t convinced in the early days. Now, we have results to back us up. During the Covid-19 lockdown, Mirakl’s business increased by 111%, and in some industries like grocery, marketplace transactions spiked by 200% or more. At the same time, businesses who have not platformed are filing for bankruptcy all over the world.

This latest funding round is proof of the pertinence of the marketplace model and the size of the market. But eight years ago, though some were aware of the need to adapt to the digital world, many weren’t ready to commit to the radical change that was required of them. That was our biggest challenge early on: to convince companies that were doing well to self-disrupt, and that the future was digital. We were sounding an alarm that had yet to touch the heart of the businesses that most needed to change. This made evangelizing in the early days very challenging. But what Mirakl needed, and was able to establish from the beginning, was the backing of visionaries: people who had the foresight to fight by our side and trusted us and our vision.

Aligned with early believers — 83North, Felix Capital and Elaia Partners, our first investors — we built a solution and business around our future customers’ needs, and we set out to convince retailers that their traditional business models would soon be outdated. Visionaries stepped forward: Galeries Lafayette. Kroger. Carrefour Brazil. Catch Group. Large and small businesses began internal transformations that would help them thrive against the disruptors. As Amazon extended its reach, battles erupted in all industries: procurement, automotive, manufacturing, retail. And early on, these visionaries — first movers armed with a Mirakl solution — won those battles and increased their market share. In doing so, they created entirely new revenue streams that, in many cases, surpassed their traditional ones.

Each and every one of those early customers, investors and Mirakl workers were visionaries, because they saw the car that succeeded the horse. They trusted Adrien and me. They bought into our vision, and for that, I will always be grateful. And with that trust, they brought their know-how, their energy and their expertise. They understood, before the others, that there were new business rules in the new digital world, even as their focus on the customer remained.

The Power of Values

“There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending [their] money somewhere else.” Sam Watson

At Mirakl, our values are written on the walls. Innovate & Inspire. Go Above & Beyond. Work Hard, Together. Get Things Done. Satisfy & Empower Clients. They are our manifesto. Since the very beginning, they were the rules we wrote down for ourselves as guidelines around the kind of people we wanted to gather, and the kind of company we wanted to become. This passion for teamwork. The passion for customer centricity. The passion to do. That’s what we believe in at Mirakl. It’s why our workplace is diverse and gender equality is strong. We hire based on values — nothing else. And in doing so, we’ve created a tribe of like-minded individuals who work hard together with one common goal: Support our customers through the change, self-disruption and innovation that they need to do more business with their platforms.

Sometimes, when you’re building a company, it isn’t always clear where you will eventually end up. You can’t always anticipate how the market will affect you. But when your goal is to be the best partner to your customer and help them build on a business model that will allow them to sell more and grow their ecosystem, and when you help them through a digital transformation, their success is your success — and an indicator that your solution is the right one.

With a marketplace strategy, you put customers at the center of the ecosystem and create a virtuous loop that helps everyone: buyers, sellers, communities, businesses. When they win, you win. We built Mirakl in the way we did because we knew what our customers needed. We walked in their shoes every day to ensure that our solution was perfect for them. From the very beginning, when we sat down with them, we didn’t force a solution; we allowed them to influence the product and the process. We were humble, because we wanted them to win. We listened, because we needed to understand. And that’s how we continue to run our business:

• Our customer success teams work individually with customers through their platform journey to ensure they succeed.
• Our developers work with a single goal in mind: to produce the most agile, most reliable technology that can easily scale, pivot and grow with assortment, categories and sellers.
• Our Mirakl Connect ecosystem makes it easy to assemble pre-vetted sellers so that, overnight, no matter what is going on in the world or with supply chains, customers can get what they need when they need it.

Our customers know that with Mirakl, they won’t run out of stock. They won’t lose money with downtime. They’ll have the data they need to make better decisions about how to increase their assortment and better serve their customers. We work for one thing: our customer’s success. And I truly believe in the simplicity of our business model. Because at Mirakl our values are simple: Hard work. Great Tech. Privacy. Once those are baked into the DNA of the company, the rest flows easily.

The Power of Funding

This latest funding round of $300M in Series D funding led by Permira Advisers is proof that all bets are on the marketplace model. For me, this round is an acknowledgement of the vision we set out to fulfill 8 years ago; it’s also a green light to push forward — go above & beyond.

The early years in a company’s life are both the most enthralling and exhausting. In the beginning, when the teams are small, the offices are bare and the funding isn’t as plentiful, entrepreneurs have to build, with their own two hands, the foundation that will be able to hold the company they intend to create. I will always remember those early years, in a small office on Avenue Victor Hugo, with Adrien and our team of 10. Everything was harder then, but we learned to rely on our values; we learned perseverance. We learned that without passion and luck, we couldn’t be the kind of company we wanted to be. And thankfully, we had a whole lot of all of those things.

Passion for the trade.

Passion for tech.

Perseverance to evangelize the need to develop a platform strategy.

And, of course, luck.

We were lucky to meet the right investors. Lucky to have gathered the right people at the right time. Lucky to have met clients when we did.

As we step into this next phase, we will continue to be what we have always been: A group of passionate people fighting to revolutionize commerce. Yes, we are bigger now. And our convictions are just as strong. This only helps us focus harder on our customers. With the funding, we intend to continue to hire the best and most passionate talent, no matter who they are or where they come from. We intend to help our customers do more business on our platforms. We intend to go into new territories and help new clients platform their businesses, so that they too can be competitive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And though the messages are still coming in, congratulating us on this milestone, we’ve already gone back to the place where we are most comfortable: working hard, together.

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This article was originally published on Linkedin