The lockdown has changed lives. Jules Simiand Brocherie can attest to this. The student of Terminale, in Neuilly (Hauts-de-Seine) at the time, had begun to create a small platform for the exchange of sheets and revisions, called "Solidarity Students". Three years later, at just 20 years old, he has just raised 1.5 million euros to develop his application.
Since March 2020, the project has changed a lot. From "Solidarity Students", we arrived at "ExtraStudent", a real student social network - a "LinkedIn of high school and university students". The objective: sharing courses, presentation of schools, virtual orientation fair. All integrated into a system of ratings, likes and rewards.
"Overnight"
"ExtraStudent is a real social network where people meet and create social ties through school guidance. There is a system of points awarded to registered pupils and students. If you answer a question, if you share a document, you earn points. We then pass levels and at a certain point, we can win gifts such as concert tickets, "summarizes the young entrepreneur to the Figaro Étudiant.
The 2nd year Bachelor of Commerce student at IE University in Madrid had this good idea in Terminale in full confinement, noting the inequalities in the face of dropping out of school. "I heard everywhere on TV, on the radio, around me, that dropping out of school was exploding. I had a click and the desire to commit. So in one night, I developed this platform," he told the Planète Grandes Écoles website.
"We want a platform where the "Gen Z" can exchange" From his beginnings on the benches of the school to his ambitious entrepreneurial project "
ExtraStudent", Jules Simiand tells us his career in La Dalle 🔥 pic.twitter.com/wvj7PvsqLb
— melty (@melty_fr) December 7, 2022
ExtraStudent, which already interests several ministries, responds to a gap: apart from a few paid review sites, such as Cartable, some forums or some teachers or students stars of social networks, high school and university students are generally content to exchange with classmates on Discord or WhatsApp groups.
In the Forbes ranking
Decorated with the Order of Merit by the prefect of Hauts-de-Seine for his first site, the young man knocked on several doors before obtaining real funding. "I did the Collège citoyen (a new political science school, free, which welcomes prestigious speakers) and I ended up going to see speakers," he explains. On a set, he meets a young entrepreneur who turns out to be the daughter of Michaël Benabou, co-founder of Veepee (ex-Vente-privée.com). The businessman will be his first investor.
One thing leading to another, with also a loan from Bpifrance, others follow, such as Pascal Chevalier, founder of Reworld Media, Carlo Purassanta, former boss of Microsoft France, Adrien Montfort, co-founder of Sorare (digital football player cards), and former minister Benjamin Griveaux. The father of ExtraStudent has also recruited several young creators of successful content, including Luca Lescop, founder of the media Fast Infos, François Mari, founder of Elyze, the voting assistance app that was a hit during the 2022 presidential election, and Mathilde Fouqué, the young creator of school content very popular on Instagram.
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Result: nearly 1.5 million euros raised to further develop its platform, in addition to the revenue it offers. If the application is free, it is the schools that bring turnover, paying to use the site as a showcase for their training. With already 100,000 users, ExtraStudent now has 5 employees and aims to have 10 by the end of 2023. Goal: one million users in 2025.
A success that has not gone unnoticed. The major American magazine Forbes has included Jules Simiand Brocherie in its "30 Under 30" ranking.
