SME Innovation | helloDarwin, a Tinder for businesses

Innovation: offering companies 5,000 selected and verified suppliers offering around sixty services, in particular for marketing, web development and customer relationship management (CRM).

Karim Benessaieh
The Press

Who ?

In May 2017, four young Montrealers with diverse backgrounds, having in common, above all, having founded businesses and obtained a Qualité Étudiants franchise that offers painting or window cleaning services, decided to found what was called the B2BQuotes era. The inspiration actually comes from one of them, Michel Jodoin, who had been CEO of Soumission Rénovation since 2013. Rather than offering quotes for renovations, we decided to offer an equivalent service to businesses. Mathieu Plante became CEO, Jeff Carrier director of service providers and Francis Desrochers, later director of operations. Michel Jodoin is now involved on a part-time basis.

In 2021, we are changing the angle of attack: instead of being a simple provider of suppliers, we want to better support client companies by favoring partnerships. B2BQuotes becomes helloDarwin and today has about ten employees in its offices on Saint-Laurent Boulevard, neighbors, moreover, of Soumission Rénovation, still managed by Mr. Jodoin.

The product

The helloDarwin company has built over the years a catalog of 5,000 companies that offers around sixty services in nine areas, from marketing strategy to the design of web applications, including telecommunications, web marketing and tracking software. operations. Each supplier has its file with its precise expertise, its evaluations, the validity of its registration, its price list and its availabilities. Of the lot, we discard about fifty per year for various reasons.

Every month, around 500 clients contact helloDarwin for projects with an average value of around $15,000. helloDarwin advisors refine these projects and retain about half of them. In 48 hours, we promise, the client is put in contact with three suppliers who agree to pay between 2 and 3% of the amount of the contract for this opportunity to meet. Clients, like suppliers, are noted for their professionalism and the rigor of their operations.

The criteria vary according to the size of the suppliers and the cost of the contracts offered, he specifies. “We are inclusive. We have lg2, but we also have self-employed workers, and then there are customer comments. »

Challenges

The three colleagues demonstrate this by their liveliness during the interview with The Press : there is no shortage of development projects. Giving them a priority is a great challenge, believes Mr. Plante. “We have limited resources. You have to find how to always be on the right priority, when you have to know how to pull the plog. »

Although algorithms are used to some extent to match suppliers and customers, most of helloDarwin’s reputation is based on very human interactions. The need for impeccable customer service is unavoidable, explains Francis Desrochers. “If you look at our ratings, it’s 5 stars. We really differentiated ourselves by being a placement service. When there are errors, the response time is fast and it’s done by humans. »

The future

helloDarwin wants to go further in its clients’ projects, before and after they are submitted. “We want to be able to go into project planning, that’s the stage we want to help tie up,” explains Mr. Desrochers.

Subsequently, it is the management of the relationship between the supplier and the customer that is in the line of sight.

If the coupling is essentially based on the expertise of the supplier and the nature of the project, the company “wants to go further and take into account the values ​​of the companies”, continues the director of operations. Inclusion, environmental awareness, the place of women in company management could become criteria for a successful partnership. “It’s something that is in high demand, notes Jeff Carrier. We do it manually, we would like to do it even more. »