Meero: how a 25-year-old created a 750 employee company in less than 3 years

He has just graduated from a business school and founded a startup. Then the second one. The third became a unicorn. Let’s figure out how.

About Meero:
Founded: 2016
Website: https://www.meero.com/fr/
Employees: 750
Founder’s age at the start: 25
What was the founder doing before: founded a few other less successful startups

Opportunity:
Content is the king
Over the last decade, the importance of visual content has significantly increased, pushed by the growth of platforms, requiring substantial visual support. Individuals use pictures to communicate with each other on social media. For user-centric brands, the use of visual materials became a powerful tool to communicate easily with their customers. Importantly, with users getting spoiled with high-quality content, brands must work hard to keep up with high standards of an Instagram generation. This is where Meero’s services come in handy.

Addressing underserved part of the market
Thomas Rebaud noticed that there was no centralised platform serving the needs of businesses that were in need of good quality visuals and in possession of some cash to spare on them. It was a spot-on target market and an easy-to-satisfy one. User pictures are a matter of a personal taste, whereas B2B photography services can be standardized and created benefiting from economies of a chain approach. This is exactly what they did in Meero.

How did they start:
Thomas Rebaud has just finished a business school and was working in a bank, where he realised it wasn’t what he wanted to do — it happens a lot. He started the first company that dealt with consumer credit, but it didn’t work out. He then went on to build another startup — and in fact, this one is still operational. The idea of Meero came up when he ran into a friend, who had expertise in photography.

At the very start, Thomas was working in a company part-time and joined it full-time only after 9 months. It is usual to read about founders, who give up everything, be it the university or a job, and dive into a startup adventure overnight. On the contrary to this wide-spread perception, founders are not superheroes and they are usually quite careful and cautious people. In the book “Originals: How non-conformists move the world”, Adam Grant, he explores what makes a successful innovator and finds out that successful entrepreneurs aren’t inevitable risk-takers. Turns out, most creative people are risk-averse and operate within the strategies mitigating risks.

The idea behind Meero is relatively simple, they provide on-demand photography services. It is not a marketplace in a normal sense of this word, you cannot choose the photographer you are booking. With the network of 60000 photographers around the world, you better pray to be matched with a good one. However, what you can be certain about using Meero is the fact that you get hooked up with a decent person with a camera in less than 24 hours at a relatively low price. On a global scale, both supply and demand sides of the matter are solved: photographers have a stable flow of clients and companies get the much-needed content. For this perfect matchmaking, Meero obviously gets their commission.

Meero also claims to solve various pain-points of photographers, such as ensuring a stable flow of clients, helping with invoicing and market research. Another Meero’s selling point is post-production, which is possible with an AI algorithm diligently retouching the photos and bring them to perfection.

The company today:
Meero has raised $230 million and is doing and feeling great. Who wouldn’t after raising the largest C Series in the history of France. Investors give them their trust, the French government includes them in the infamous Next40 — a carefully selected group of the most promising French startups with high prospects of becoming global leaders.

Why did it work:

• Clear need for photography services from the business side. Meero satisfies this demand, but also does it with relative efficiency, making the process of finding a photographer less painful. The benefits are felt throughout the whole cycle, starting from the moment of booking a photographer and finishing with getting fully-retouched photos.
• Bargain price enabled by economies of scale and AI technology, retouching photos
• An industry was craving for efficiency and a bit of centralisation. Meero did it at the right time
• France is trying to nurture the next European hub of innovation and to create a deserving alternative to London, whose reputation was heavily damaged by Brexit and anti-immigrant sentiments.

Future:
Currently, Meero’s main focus is the brands. The consumer market has fallen victim to the company’s expansion ambitions, but only time will show whether it is a good next step. Individual photos are heavily subjective. But then again, have you ever checked out the prices for a basic photoshoot? They are not cheap. The question now is whether the lower price is enough to attract a critical number of customers and to make them close their eyes on the lack of an option to make a choice of the professional you work with.

Another concern is the rising number of complaints from the photographer community regarding low pay, exploitation and killing of the creativity in the industry.

Concluding remarks:

• Meero is a fine example of how to scale a seemingly simple idea efficiently and quickly and to create a huge buzz around it.
• For the founders, Thomas Rebaud is a good example of persistence. You don’t have to be an expert in the industry. Good idea, nice team and, most importantly, great execution is the key.
• Focus on making money and selling your product.