Q&A with Ghislain de Noue

Growing up in a family wine business in Burgundy, France exposed me to the hospitality and service industry in great depth. Upon graduating from the Université Panthéon Assas in Economics, and then receiving my Masters in Business and Administration from the University of Paris I: Panthéon-Sorbonne, I arrived in New York City in 2003 as a distributor for restaurant POS (Point of Sale) systems. Before the iPad and other service Apps came along, I was selling the one and only software that instantly took orders on tablets in the US. When the market grew saturated with iPads and other Apps selling their own POS services for a fraction of the price, I figured I needed to rethink what I was selling.

In 2008, I saw the opportunity in the restaurant industry to successfully and profitably utilize Social Media like never before. In June of 2015, I founded Clickdaily, a social media software solution coupled with a premier boutique digital marketing agency focused on Social Media marketing and analytics. Clickdaily is a technology company with proprietary software that services clients with the goal of allowing business owners to focus strictly on the daily operations of the business, while Clickdaily takes care of the creative online presence to simultaneously increase their desired digital footprint across many different mediums.

The big problem today with restaurants and Social Media, is that it’s difficult for large and small business merchants to understand the value of it when their return on investment (ROI) has been next to nothing; those hours and dollars spent taking and editing photos seem to not translate into new clients, customers, or sales. The number one priority of growing businesses is to convert the ‘Likes’ on Instagram and Facebook into paying customers.

With our proprietary Social Media Management Software, we will be able to convert Social Media activity into a loyalty points system that allows people to redeem at stores and restaurants. This loyalty program would utilize existing clients while reaching new ones. For example, if you want to promote your café, you can offer a dish on the menu for 200 points, which equates to the number of ‘Likes’ a user generates for your feed, so when they check-into your café, they can redeem the points at the café. We also manage accounts on multiple platforms, as well as, provide an open dialogue with the followers who comment. This combination of comprehensive digital services coupled with a unique technology solution is something that does not currently exist for this market. We plan to be the first to bring this software, as the only one of it’s kind, to market.

We are based in Manhattan so our suite of products currently aims to serve restaurants, retail, and beverage companies of both small and large scale in the surrounding New York City area. We offer packages that range to fit each business’ needs and budgets, so we can help businesses manage their Social Media feeds, track analytics, connect with users, and create a tangible return on their investment through engagement and loyalty programs. We help facilitate the traffic from digital ‘Likes’ to real-life sales. Our current clients include Felix, Le Cirque, Tick Tock Diner, Financier Patisserie, and Roast Kitchen.

As an entrepreneur, I’ve always self-funded my projects and have been a one-man show throughout my career. Conducting the sales without a trained sales team has limited the company’s ability to scale. At Clickdaily, we are currently building out the core team, including our new Head of Sales, Sacha Silberfeld, who introduced Clickdaily to the Beverage and Liquor industry.

Another challenge we have is being able to fund our software developers in the speed of ‘scale’ that is required. Our proprietary Social Media Management software has not progressed at the same rate of client growth and demand, so we are raising funds to fuel that growth and enhance the back-end operational efficiency of the company. The product is tested and vetted everyday with existing clients. It works really well and there is less software-risk than there is with other ventures that have a product that hasn’t been client facing yet.

There is no other all-in-one loyalty software platform out there doing what we do. Someone working in a restaurant may manage the Social Media posts on the side, but this is a full-time job requiring time and skill to photograph, post, engage, and constantly update the feed with new and relevant posts. It is also another full-time job analyzing the data and traffic Social Media accounts harness. There are other apps, bots, and agencies out there that focus on growing Social Media following, but we take it a step ahead by turning meaningless ‘Likes’ from Social Media users into tangible sales from real followers.

In the current online market, consumers do not have any incentive to interact with businesses in a digital manner, other than for leisurely pleasure. We are changing the landscape by having every digital interaction that a consumer has with a business to be rewarded with real loyalty rewards. We offer a 360-degree solution for our clients to create a viral Social Media Loyalty platform so as to disrupt consumer behavior toward restaurant’s online presence.

We are looking to raise up to $1M. The funding will be used to continue and speed up development of Clickdaily’s proprietary software platform, and Social Media Loyalty platform. Both of these enhance the operational efficiency of the company and provide a unique added value to Clickdaily’s offerings. We also plan to license our complete software platform in 2018 to other Digital Marketing Agencies across the world.

Our ideal investor is a decision maker who represents, or is part of a Family Office. We are a startup, so we would like someone who understands our concept and vision. When AirBnb first started, many people didn’t believe in their idea nor did they feel good about it. We’ve de-risked the investment opportunity for investors who are cautious about getting involved with software companies. We already created something that works and is in demand in the market with real-life case studies and a guaranteed return.

Our mission is to show that Social Media has real value when used correctly for both the business and the consumer.

Today there are over 2 billion users on Facebook and 800 million on Instagram. Mobile device addiction is increasing by the day. Clickdaily’s plans are to use this opportunity to create a loyalty and rewards system that benefits both users and businesses mutually. Our key future objective is to fully launch our platform while building our sales team.