Frederick Besson, CEO, and Founder of PERFUMIST tells us about the perfume tinder.
Tell us about you, your career, and how you founded PERFUMIST.
Frederick Besson: I worked in the perfume industry for 20 years, mostly in Asia and Europe. I used to operate a perfume chain, then worked as a distributor before launching my own scents with celebrities. After touching every aspect of the fragrance industry, I concluded that customers need to understand this universe since they are often confused by the variety of references available. PERFUMIST was founded in September 2018 as a solution.
Do you have small habits that made a meaningful impact on your life and business?
Frederick Besson: I put several French expressions into practice, such as The world belongs to those who get up early; Dream far and wide to go somewhere; There is no dream crazy enough…All these expressions really are my life philosophies and push me to work hard every day.
How does PERFUMIST market its product/services online?
Frederick Besson: Our App PERFUMIST is available on AppStore and Google Play.
What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to manage your online marketing?
Frederick Besson: We work particularly on content marketing, whether through our articles, our social networks, our newsletters, our visual content, or our videos, as well as SEO. Our community being very important to us, we make sure to create a real link of proximity and trust.
We are currently redesigning our website to make it reflect our image, which is, for us, the basis of a successful online strategy.
What is your hiring policy/process, and how do you retain your employees?
Frederick Besson: PERFUMIST is a closed circle where everyone appreciates each other. We consider that each person who wants to enter this circle, whether we go looking for him with Linkedin offers or whether he comes by himself, must be validated by all its members. Each arrival of employees, trainees, and alternates goes through an interview with all the members of PERFUMIST. We do this because, given the time that people spend together, it is important that there is a good atmosphere in the office.
How are you funding your growth?
Frederick Besson: Our application is free. In fact, PERFUMIST puts the users at the center of our concerns, but it is not at the center of our remuneration. We are a B2C company, but our income comes from B2B solutions thanks to partnerships with perfumery players, whether online or offline.
Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?
Frederick Besson: Other fragrance advisers are on the market, but none are completely independent and free for consumers. None have such a vast global community on IOS and Android. In fact, With a worldwide community of 2 million users in 120 countries, PERFUMIST is the N°1 perfume App in the world.
Another difference with our concurrence is our offaltive focus.
We hold brands and retailers in high regard and perceive ourselves as “value creators” for them. We recently took our expertise online by creating a PERFUMIST widget to assist internet consumers in finding and purchasing the appropriate perfumes when they can’t smell anything.
Tell us a customer success story of yours.
Frederick Besson: My biggest success is that we are available everywhere, allowing us to help people all over the world
First of all, we are in all the distribution channels with our application, so we cover the whole industry. This goes from travel retail to department stores, supermarkets, duty-free, local perfumeries…and secondly, we are available worldwide with representatives and users all over the planet.
Your final thoughts?
Frederick Besson: I will finish on one last French expression: There is no success without a great team.
Therefore, the first objective as an entrepreneur is to find the best team of employees and get them on board.
We are lucky at PERFUMIST because we are a great team.
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