The guest on the second episode of the Struggle is Emeric Ernoult, CEO and Co-founder of social media platform AgoraPulse. On that subset 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 but other times in failure.

His story of struggle dates back to July of 2000 when as a successful business lawyer, Emeric found first hand a fundamental truth about the human existence - money alone will never make you happy. Earning close to €17,000 euros 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 perspective. Instead, he wanted to build his own company.

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 it can sometimes be the case, for one company and idea to lift 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 has followed are 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 Emeric’s personal life would take the toll on this. But he couldn't let it go. This is the story of AgoraPulse: 18 years in the making.

To hear more about the early years of AgoraPulse, listen back to the episode we recorded with Emeric in 2016. You can also watch his very candid presentation from SaaStock17.

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