Here’s our exclusive interview with Aurélien Gandois, VP of BlaBlaCar Buses and one of the jury members for the 2024 Smart Move Challenge.
Word has it that he has some invaluable advice on how to create and grow your startup!
Aurélien Gandois
VP of BlaBlaCar Buses
BlaBlaCar is a French start-up that’s gone on to become a unicorn and a world leader in shared mobility. What advice would you give to new start-ups about standing out from the crowd and finding their place in the market?
I have four key tips:
- Build for growth by automating and simplifying everything you can. Avoid having to repeat the same tasks multiple times; invest in future-proof processes.
- Define clear goals for your fundraising: each fundraising round must correspond to a specific aim for you to persuade investors that your vision is both feasible and relevant.
- Make sure you get recruitment right; don’t give in to the temptation to recruit a lot of staff in a rush to deal with your immediate needs. Take the time to find the right people and take a suitably businesslike approach.
- Develop a strong corporate culture: having a clearly defined culture aids decision-making and consistency even during times of hyper-growth. Set out your vision and values formally so you can attract and onboard new recruits quickly.
You’re on the jury for the 2024 Smart Move Challenge. How do you identify a start-up with real potential?
I focus on three key points:
Firstly, a start-up must be clear about its goal and how it intends to transform its sector of business; this vision should serve as a compass guiding everything the company does. It should be able to count on a top-quality team of founders whose members complement each other; a robust and diverse team is vital in order to seize market opportunities and overcome challenges.
Smart use of technology to simplify and improve processes is crucial, too. Innovation must be at the heart of a start-up’s product or service if it’s to remain competitive and provide genuine added value for users.
Last but not least, a start-up must have clear and achievable goals and a detailed roadmap showing how it plans to realise them, thus demonstrating its ability to plan and execute effectively.
To sum up, a promising start-up will have a clear vision and a complementary team, use technology innovatively, embody a culture of continuous learning, and have clearly defined goals.
BlaBlaCar will be one of the exhibitors at EuMo Expo 2024 this October. What are your expectations for the event?
BlaBlaCar was already present at France’s National Public Transport Conference RNTP 2023 to present its Daily business line; we’re delighted to be back again in 2024 with Daily as well as our Bus business line.
BlaBlaCar Daily is BlaBlaCar’s app for everyday ride-sharing and the go-to player for businesses and local authorities in this sector, with close to 130 local authority partners and over 1,000 participating companies. Based on a committed community that completed a total of over six million journeys in 2023, BlaBlaCar Daily is a trusted brand that creates genuinely local BlaBlaCar solutions for each of its partner territories.
Being present at EuMo Expo 2024 is an opportunity for us to be a part of the conversation, present our business model, show how effective it is, and look together at how to support our partners as they address their day-to-day mobility issues.
BlaBlaCar Bus was set up in 2019 following our buyout of Ouibus from SNCF. We operate a national and international network of scheduled routes serving over 250 destinations across Europe (‘liberalised coach services’ aka ‘Macron coaches’), drawing on a network of over 50 coach company partners; we look forward to meeting many of them at the exhibition on an informal basis. More generally, coach stations are an overlooked aspect of coach travel, often forgotten in public mobility policies. In 2015, France’s ‘Macron 1’ Act deregulated scheduled coach transport but made no provision for a network of coach stations to be set up across the country. Coaches have since become a key means of transport (especially in areas without a train service) used by tens of millions of people in France, but the lack of infrastructures to cater for this type of deregulated service is hindering further growth of this shared mobility solution.
We hope that EuMo Expo 2024 will also be an opportunity for us to take part in discussions about coach stations alongside all the other stakeholders in public transport and sustainable mobility.
