Creating a giant like BlaBlaCar: what nobody talks about

If I can't build something useful for society, I don't feel good. In fact, BlaBlaCar saves more than 2.5 million tons of CO2 every year. And there, I saw high-speed trains passing us. That train is full. But the cars are empty. I saw a perfect match between a problem in the physical world and what technology could solve. If you see a problem, well, solve it.

No, it's like that. Well, anyway, Fred, that's what everyone calls me. And that's fine with me. In fact, it dates back more or less to the period when I was in the United States, where Frédéric in English, well, for Americans, was still complicated. They always butchered it. So I ended up telling them my name is Fred, it's simpler than trying to get them to pronounce the French R. Anyway, that's it.

We're approaching 20 years.

Yes, because covoiturage, you see, in English it was 'covoitage', it didn't work. And in Spanish, 'coviture' didn't work either. So anyway, we had to find a name to go international. And so I had found 250 names, I made a shortlist of 30, and then I tested for memorization. What was very important was to find a name that people remembered. And on a list of 30 names, when I gave it to people and it included BlaBlaCar, I would ask them two or three weeks later or a month later if they remembered any of the names on the list. It was always BlaBlaCar that came back.

In-house. I had worked with an agency for a while, but it didn't go well. The process hadn't succeeded. We had arrived at something that wasn't satisfying. And so, well, I took over the process and I did it based on memorization criteria, and also on meaning criteria, you see, because there's the 'blabla', there's the 'car', so it's really the community aspect, we chat, and the practical car aspect. Well, you see, we travel with hindsight.

And what we say is that it's a glocal brand, meaning it's both global and local because 'blabla' is an expression that is very international everywhere. So there you go. But anyway, BlaBlaCar, you can look it up on the internet if you want the story, it's 20 years long. But I was bouncing off that because you were talking about the United States earlier. Because when you started BlaBlaCar, you were doing your studies there, right?

You were already back. OK. I was already back. I came back... I don't know, did you go to Harvard or Stanford, one of the two? You went to Stanford. In France first, I did my studies, very scientific. I did the maths track, I was at the Lycée Henri IV, then I went to Normal Sup. So, I liked maths, I liked physics, I still do actually. And then afterwards, I went to complete my studies in computer science at Stanford. I went to California to really dive into computers in the 2000s.

While I was there, yes.

Yes, rather.

Yes, same era as Criteo. Exactly.

Yeah. No, I don't think so. But it's true that the two big... me, you see, when I started in entrepreneurship in 2010, well, you see, our first role models were you guys, because even the Simon Sinek, the PKAM, that was still a bit before. So they were role models for us, but they were too high up for us, you see. The ones who were really building startups that were in very, very strong growth, it was people like you. And then there was also the generation after, Céline Lazorthes from Leetchi, who was closer to our age. So that was ultra inspiring for us because it was the first role model, you know.

So anyway, BlaBlaCar. There, we said the idea is not to just talk about that. It's mainly to talk about a new project you launched, I don't know, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years ago now, it's been 3 years officially.

Yes, but we changed the name. We did another name change because at first we were called Captain Cause, and then we changed because...

There you go. We were called Captain Cause and now we're called Dift. So we've been called Dift for a little over a year now. However, the brand worked very, very well because now it's even become almost a common word, to 'dift', meaning to offer a gift that is a donation to an association. And well, let's go back to your youth that I was asking about earlier. You obviously have co-founders who are 100% operational on Dift, that I know, like George, with whom I've already worked, and Clara. And my question was, were you the one who carried the project and then you found your co-founders, or did they come looking for you? How did it happen?

So Dift already means 'don' (gift) and 'gift' at the same time, or 'donation as a gift' in English. It's a donation that is a gift. It's a gift that I offer you and which is a donation to an association that you will choose to support. It can be an association in the social or environmental field. Well, you choose what you want, but it's a new form of gift. So it starts from there, and today we equip companies that want to create a better relationship with their entire customer base on a more emotional and experiential level than on a purely transactional one. So these are brands that will be able to reward, meaning congratulate or thank their clients by saying, 'Well, you are loyal, or we love you, and thank you for working together. To thank you, we offer you the possibility to support an association that is close to your heart.' So that's one way to do it. We also do it for the associations themselves, who will be able to encourage their inner circle to create solidarity collection pots. And so at that moment, each person associated with an association can create a pot to collect for their favorite association. This happens during challenges that can last 48 hours, 72 hours, sometimes up to 10 days. These are collection challenges for the association. But it also happens simply when it's your birthday and you say, 'Well, I don't need gifts. However, if you want to offer me something that will make me happy, it's that we support this association together.' Well, there, you create a free collection pot on Dift.

Yes, exactly. It's a simplification. Well, we understood, but not to a neologism near. So no, it's a simplified way to do exactly what we described, namely to support an association on the occasion of a birthday or even at Christmas if you're tired of getting useless gifts that you have to resell on second-hand sites right after or that end up at the bottom of a drawer. Well, you say, rather send your money to an association, it will be more useful. And so, in terms of brand change, we talked about it with BlaBlaCar, we talked about it with Dift. I can say one thing here, what happened with Dift is that we were missing a word to do exactly what we described, namely a donation that is a gift. After, you could say we could have called it 'le cadon' or I don't know what, but we didn't find that very beautiful. Even if in English 'cadon' could work, but in French 'cadon' doesn't sound great. Yeah, 'cadon' also sounds a bit like a washing machine brand. Or a sewing machine. Anyway, so we searched for a word for quite a long time to represent what we did. And so, well, I tried lots of names, and I was testing them on George and Clara and the team. Every morning when I arrived, I had a new word. Many times they told me, 'Well, it's rubbish.' You shouldn't get discouraged. And then one day I arrived with Dift. And there, during the day, the word 'dift' took hold. Meaning that we ourselves started calling our product a 'dift'. And then what happened? We had clients, I remember Carrefour, the Carrefour Foundation, which was distributing €100,000 to their employees who had done a communication about this operation, allowing their employees to allocate money to projects close to their hearts. And in a one-minute video to present the project, they said 'Captain Cause' once and 'dift' six times. We had just created it. And there, I told myself, well, it's not possible. Creating a brand is already complicated, creating two is more complicated. And I have the impression that Dift works much better than Captain Cause. So we transitioned to DIFT. We had also made a very beautiful, a very nice video with Pascal Legitimus discovering the 'dift'. By the way, I invite you to go see this video because it's really quite funny, and he did us the honor of doing it. Pascal Legitimus, maybe for the younger generations who don't know who he is, he's one of the three members of Les Inconnus. You can watch 'Les Trois Frères' on Netflix or Prime. It's a classic, you have to see it. Yeah. Or Les Inconnus, all the sketches are incredible. So Pascal did us the pleasure of making a communication to explain what a 'dift' is. So it's a... well, I won't describe the little video we made which was quite funny, but to present what a 'dift' was, and it worked right away. So we transitioned to, well, now we're called DIFT, we do the same thing but simpler, in four characters. So it's dift.com, four characters dot com, which is quite rare. You must have had to buy it, right? Because I think today, four-letter dot coms, I don't think there are many available. There are none left. And four-letter dot coms that are pronounceable. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's even more complicated. Yeah. No, no, absolutely. All domain names are taken now. You didn't buy it too expensive? No, it's fine. We managed to get it for under 20,000. No, not under 20,000. Yeah. Because generally, 'dift' as well. Yeah. It's too difficult generally. But at the same time, a brand is so important that it's a necessary investment. Ah yes, that's an investment. So there you go. So what interests me too is to know all the use cases. You started talking about it a bit, it's both a B2C and a B2B product. Meaning B2C, tomorrow I can create a collection pot and say, 'Well, you're very kind to want to offer me something for my birthday, but rather than spending 30, 50, or even 10 euros each, I prefer you give to this association.' So the use case is that I go to dift.com, I sign up, I can search for causes. If, for example, a cause close to my heart is not on Dift, can I suggest it as an individual? Well, yes, you can always suggest it to us. What happens is that there is still a certain amount of selection and onboarding work for each association. There's work behind it for us to go... because you know, there are quite a few criteria for associations to be listed in the catalog, which include governance criteria, we also do financial audits on the structures. We check that the associations are able to track their impact indicators. It's very important for us because we need to be able to tell each person who gives, if you give €10, it will do this much action on the ground. If you give €25, it will do that much action. So these are associations, teams that know very well how to track their impact on the ground. So there's all that selection. So as an individual, people can suggest associations to us, but it's when we work with companies that want to deploy more money, you see, it's not going to be 10, 20, or 50 euros, it's going to be more like 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, or 100,000 euros that they want to deploy on associations. And at that point, yes, we can put on the platform associations that weren't in the catalog for these special operations. That's why you see today in the public catalog, there are about a hundred associations, but we have already distributed money to 300 associations because we also do specific operations with companies. So to date, we have distributed more than 20 million euros to 300 associations.

There you go. And then, well, everyone receives thank yous because it helps to do many concrete and positive things on the ground.

Yes. So the economic model is variable. On the public collection pots, it's a voluntary contribution. Meaning when people give 25 or 50 euros, they can decide or not to leave money for the platform, meaning for us who work. The same business model as an association, for example.

Super inspiring too. We send her a kiss. Incredible. Yes, and so it's this economic model which is a bit of a leap of faith for someone who might imagine having a predictable economic model. There, it's a bit less so because you have to trust people that they will say, well, when they leave 50 euros, they say, well, first there are bank fees, but that's not all. There's also all the work of the structure that makes this possible, and so people leave a little money. It depends, some leave nothing, some leave something. There you go, that's the economic model for the public solidarity collection pots.

To have not only new donors because it obviously extends their reach, their communication, their capacity. And you see, for example, a few days ago, we closed a solidarity collection like that for an association called HP. They raised more than 200,000 euros in 72 hours with their community and the second circle of their community. So it allows bringing new resources and new donors to associations. And then, at the individual level, obviously, everyone can create their own pot for a birthday or end-of-year celebration if they want. And that is extremely simple. So on the economic model, that's it.

There you go. After, on the company side, well, there we have a way of working that is quite close to a B2B SaaS. You see, for example, we have quite a few major partners, so we have 400 brands, 400 companies that are partners of DIFT today.

There's Accor, there's FDJ, there's ENGIE, AXA, Orange, Renault, well, Cultura as well now, well, lots of companies that see a new way, a modern way to interact in the world we live in, which involves generosity shown and displayed with their entire community. And so on that side, it's almost a B2B SaaS because you see, for example, for Accor that I mentioned earlier, we integrate into loyalty programs where we allow all members of the All - Accor Live Limitless loyalty program, there are 100 million people in the world, to transform their loyalty points into donations to associations.

Yeah, yeah. So, we try to standardize obviously because otherwise it doesn't scale. Because I don't know if you... I try not to say 'scaler' anymore, I try to say... I listened to your episode with Mathieu Stéphanie that came out recently, and indeed you proposed a word, you wanted to say 'écheller'. No, what did you say? 'Échelé'. To... because 'scale' today, there's no French translation. It's the same origin. You see, 'scale' and 'échelle' (ladder/scale) is the same origin. But it's 'passer à l'échelle' in French normally, it's a bit long. So we can say 'échelé', and 'passer à l'échelle' isn't sexy, but well. There you go.

Exactly. So to scale, well... Yes, well, to scale, we try to standardize a little bit obviously because if you only do custom work, it's much more effort in terms of deployment and adaptation for each client. But it's true that yes, we have somewhat specific platforms for big clients like that. And there, typically on this model, it's going to be a classic B2B SaaS with subscriptions and fees or... Yes, with both depending on the volume of usage, but you have SLA conditions behind it, well, you have everything that's classic in B2B.

Yeah, I had set myself a goal of 1 billion in 5 years. Well, it's been 3 years, we've done 20 million. We're going to have to accelerate.

Yeah, yeah, but well, we have a vision and ambitions that are large, and so it's extremely motivating. Indeed, it's complicated because we have to lay all the bricks one by one so that it becomes normal to bring generosity into all our activities. Because that's the great mission of DIFT, to make it so that being generous around you when you can, and in different ways, well, we gave use cases, it becomes perfectly normal. That offering a 'dift' becomes something normal and a gift that brings joy because it's emotional, it's all emotion, and which translates into action on the ground. Because well, compared to all the problems that our society can face, and there are many, because when you start to get into all the social and environmental actions that can exist, you see, there are many, many things. Well, what reassures us and gives us courage and hope is action, is to act. It's not to sit down and cry, it's really to do something, to roll up your sleeves. And so when we see all this action and we help it, we encourage it, we finance it, well, it helps us have more confidence in the future. Beyond the fact that it also gives us simply a feeling of, a form of happiness from having helped one's neighbor. Because you know, when you give or when you help, it makes you happy because you feel useful. We are beings who are, how to say, wired in our DNA if we go back to our origins. It's important for us to help those around us because if you don't help those around you, you can end up isolated later, because help is something that circulates, you know. So we have that in us. We have this desire to contribute to our surroundings, to help when we can, because if we do that, we know, it can be conscious or unconscious, but we know that it guarantees us not to end up totally isolated because the day we need help, well... what we call karma a bit. I always try to teach my daughter that karma isn't 'I do something good to have something good happen to me the next day'. It's not transactional, it's more on the scale of a life. And I tell her it's more of a mathematical and statistical equation. That statistically speaking, if you do things right, statistically speaking, life should give it back to you. And when the day comes that you need it, well, opportunities should come. It's a bit like what Naval described, you know, the four categories of luck. There's beginner's luck, luck favors the bold, and in the end, there are people who create an environment of luck because they do things right, they create opportunities, they do things, they meet as many people as possible, they help people, and inevitably, at some point, luck should come back like a boomerang. It's not guaranteed, but statistically speaking, you increase your chances. It doesn't come back exactly in the same form. Meaning you help in one form and you will be helped in another. So it's not transactional in the sense of 'I send one thing and I receive the same thing'. No, I send something, I will receive something else. And there, even if we go into philosophy, it was even with the definition of morality by Kant who said that an action is 100% moral when it is totally disinterested. Which is difficult to achieve, but the more we go towards that disinterested act, the more, in general, I think life must give it back to you at some point. We've gone into philosophy, citing Bergson's 'The Two Sources of Morality and Religion' if you want, we can go there. Well, we can go there. And I don't even know them, but it's just that when you see that, I think we'll also come back to the example of Lucy from Tugo Tugo. I had asked her the question, when you've put so much energy, so much time, and when you embody a project like you did with BlaBlaCar, because BlaBlaCar, you were a bit of a... I can't find my words, you were a bit of a figurehead of the startup nation.

That's it, because with BlaBlaCar, you were also tackling an enormous problem at the time that the state couldn't solve through its SNCF networks, buses, etc. If you wanted to go to Limoges, you were just stuck.

Exactly. So it's a problem for getting around. However, I wouldn't say it's a problem for the state, because that implies we expect the state to solve all our problems.

Yes. Well, a bit. And besides, we do have quite a few trains and they work rather well.

Great. You see, you came back from Bordeaux last night.

Paris, it's really magical, huh.

Exactly.

Probably. Jospin, I think around '97 or something like that. And so there you go, it's up to us to build the society we want to see tomorrow, you know, because we can't just say 'Oh, it's up to the state to do it.' No, if we have an idea and we want to solve a societal problem, then let's do it together and go build it, and there are plenty of ways to do it, and it doesn't necessarily go through the state. And so, what does that lead to? Speaking of generosity, you see, for example, annual generosity in France — annual per year, yes, that's pretty much the definition — so annual generosity in France is about 9 billion euros, half from companies, half from individuals, roughly.

So donations made to associations, right?