| Wednesday, September 16, 2009 |
| The Achievers: Christophe Cremer - Profiting from every day problems |
This is an old BusinessWeek article that discusses the achievement of entrepreneur, Christophe Cremer, who founded the the Paris-based online mortgage broker, Meilleurtaux in 1999. Although similar online-mortgage application sites like E-LOAN had already existed in the US, when Cremer tried to launch one in Paris, he received cold reception from his banks. Regardless, Cremer moved ahead and his site soon became popular, making it easy for him to convince banks to partner with his firm."I showed them the site was getting over 40,000 applications a month and that it wouldn't be profitable for them not to work with us," he says. Cremer got the idea of starting his firm from his brother-in-law who had shopped with just two banks when applying for a mortgage as he found the application process very boring and tedious. That conversation with his brother-in-law sparked the idea in Cremer to start his own firm."I thought, this is something the Internet could do," Cremer says. His idea works in the banks' favor, too, because "rather than doing 10 meetings and getting one customer, they can do two meetings and get two customers." The article shows how entrepreneurs from all over the world get ideas to start their businesses by listening to and observing every day problems faced by others, and then finding ways to solve those problems. As happens in most cases, others initially don't buy into their visions but successful entrepreneurs generally do not give in and forge ahead anyways, and in the process, often achieve tremendous success."Meilleurtaux, operated by parent company Omnigain (MEX.PA), brought in revenues of more than $65.3 million last year, a 74% increase over 2005, and has now begun opening brick-and-mortar branches -- some 52 already in France, plus 60 franchises that sell insurance and provide mortgage refinancing services. It was the first company to be listed on Alternext, a trading market for small and midsize firms, in 2005, and soon graduated to the bigger Eurolist in October, 2006." For complete article, see:
BusinessWeek Online: Online Mortgage Rates? Ooh-la-la...Labels: achievers, inspiration, inspiratonal story, motivation, motivational story |
posted by Little Rishi @ Wednesday, September 16, 2009
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