Les Ripeurs: the end of uncontrolled dumping!
To collect or not to collect…that is no longer the question!
At a time when businesses are focusing on productivity and profitability, few solutions contribute to managing negative externalities that are generated (such as pollution). Amongst them, there are notably stocks of errant waste abandoned across acres of land… But all is not lost! And, naturally, things are begin to change, as suggested by the well-known scientific saying.
Indeed, the situation could change with the arrival of new players who are both sensitive to environmental issues and eager to help businesses save money.
Les Ripeurs, a startup that specialises in collecting and recycling construction site waste, embodies this growing awareness of ecological issues and has decided to tackle the problem head on by providing professional craftspeople with an app enabling them to get rid of their waste the right way and to help the environment at the same time! Let us explain.
Using its expertise to help the environment
Friends since childhood, Romain Icol and Quentin Limbourg — the two entrepreneurs behind Les Ripeurs — both had their own career paths before deciding to combine their respective experience and materialise their shared vision to “give meaning to their professional activity” and “have a positive impact on the environment”. Driven by this principle, Romain and Quentin left their companies at the same time to work on their entrepreneurial project fuelled by their complementary backgrounds.
The two entrepreneurs’ thought process regarding waste was based on a frightening observation: 70% of the waste produced by towns and cities comes from the construction sector, and 18,000 tonnes of building waste is evacuated each day in the Paris region, the equivalent of the weight of 1 and a half Eiffel Towers. Lastly, it is estimated that 40% of this waste ends up in unauthorised landfill!
By talking to a number of craftspeople about this phenomenon, they understood that evacuating waste is seen as a time-consuming, costly and arduous task with no added value.
Worse than that, there was no legal solution for evacuating waste from construction sites in highly-urban areas.
Having grasped this fact, Romain and Quentin wanted to fight unauthorised dumping by providing a 3-hour waste evacuation solution with two core principles: recycling of waste and quality of service.
In practice, Les Ripeurs offer a mobile app aimed at craftspeople enabling them to organise the removal of waste. The user lets the app know the quantities and type of waste, the address from which this waste is to be evacuated and the timeslot. In just three hours, a Ripeurs team arrives and removes the craftsperson’s waste. The receipt is signed and an invoice is sent out within 24 hours.
Client acquisition: a pivotal issue
Whilst their business model is a relatively standard and recurrent one from the standpoint of the startup ecosystem, it does mark a major change in the highly specific craftsperson B To B sector, which is reluctant to use app services. This relative timorousness in terms of the consumption process represents a serious barrier to entry for Les Ripeurs regarding the acquisition of new clients. Basically, the startup is having difficulty increasing its appeal amongst craftspeople and lacks visibility.
However, this phenomenon is offset by the existence of partnerships with organisations such as Homly-you, Travauxlib but also (and most importantly) La Plateforme du Bâtiment, the main distribution platform for the building industry, which is considerable boosting the client acquisition process.
Once it has acquired this clientele, the startup is able to retain them over the long term with a client retention rate of 66%, giving it substantial current growth.
In order to find clients throughout Paris and the surrounding area, Les Ripeurs are thinking about modernising their own fleet by acquiring new equipment and processes more able to help the handlers transport the waste, notably in highly urban areas (example: creation of a basket filled with waste to move between floors).
Simultaneously, the Ripeurs team would like to increase its visibility by creating a web interface. Lastly, from a commercial perspective, Romain and Quentin want to take their annual revenue to over a million euros over the next year. It won’t be easy, but nothing is impossible for Les Ripeurs!
The “Les Ripeurs” startup has been in residence on Le Plateau since 26 April, 2018.#LePlateau is a 1,000m² space that accommodates, under one roof and for periods of up to 6 months, Societe Generale teams and ecosystem startups. Each resident works on their own project, either disruptive or innovative, in open spaces where teams commingle. The Plateau provides an environment that enables this work to be undertaken in a single place, but also and more importantly methodological support to accelerate projects, the organising of the residents and premises to enable them to swap and share their expertise and experience.
