Our guest on the second episode of the Struggle is Emeric Ernoult, CEO and Co-founder of social media platform AgoraPulse. In this segment of the show, we aim to tell the part of the SaaS journey often omitted: the struggle to get traction. A struggle which sometimes ends in success and other times in failure.

His story of struggle dates back to the year 2000 when, as a successful business lawyer, Emeric discovered first hand a fundamental truth about the human existence – money alone will never make you happy. Earning close to €17,000 a month at the age of 27, Emeric was already destined for a comfortable and wealthy life. But his heart said no to that comfortable existence. He wanted something different.

He started a business on the side with a friend of his. The idea they were working on was a social network, not too different from Facebook, which launched 4 years later. But as can sometimes be the case, for one company and idea to take off, timing is key. With the dot-com crash about to happen, Emeric and his co-founder had picked the wrong year to start a web business. What followed was 15 years of playing around with different ideas, going back and forth between his law career and the business, with the struggle never really subsiding, until AgoraPulse began to take shape, but it would still take a lot of time to make it work.

At times it felt excruciating and it would take its toll on Emeric’s personal life. But he couldn’t let it go. This is the story of AgoraPulse: 18 years in the making.

As mentioned in the episode, we highly recommend you listen back to the episode we recorded with Emeric back in 2016, which goes into more detail about the first years after figuring out the current offering, as well as watch his very candid presentation from SaaStock17.

If you have a story of struggle you would like to share with us, get in touch by emailing podcast@saastock.com.