An interview with Christophe Folschette, partner and founder of Talkwalker, a Luxembourg start-up with offices in New York.

 

 

Can you explain what Talkwalker sells?

Who is Talkwalker aimed at?

Talkwalker sells a social media analytics platform which helps companies to optimise their marketing campaigns, to protect their brand reputation and to connect with their customers, using Big Data. By analysing public comments, posts and articles online and on social networks, we can uncover key insights which businesses can then use to adapt and formulate more effective business strategies and tactics. At present, our main clients are in marketing and PR but we also have many clients who use our tool for more comprehensive data research for product development and general market research.

 

« Talkwalker is growing at more than 100% year-on-year. »
 

What are the benefits of a New York presence for a Luxembourg company?

Having a presence in New York gives Talkwalker a strong foothold in the world’s biggest market for social media analytics. It allows us to meet clients and potential clients in person and to provide them with a more localised service which meets their needs. Our US team is comprised of people with in-depth knowledge of a variety of key market sectors which really helps us to provide our clients and potential clients with all the information they need to make the most of all the social and online data at their fingertips.

 

How would you compare the respective speed of start-up growth in Luxembourg and the US?

How fast is Talkwalker growing?

Talkwalker is growing at more than 100%, year-on-year, and currently has more than 110 employees. In the US we see start-ups growing from 8 to 50 employees within 3 months.

It all depends on the initial investments made by a company. But we think that it’s more important to control our growth and to maintain our unique culture which is focused on long-term success by growing at a steady, although still fast, pace. We have more than 20 job openings at the moment on our website.

 

Where do you see Talkwalker in a year’s time and in five years‘ time?

We see Talkwalker developing into an intelligence driver for businesses. In the last year, we’ve made great strides in incorporating artificial intelligence into our platform which can automatically identify the type of information each type of business will need. With so much data now available to businesses, companies are faced with the difficulty of making sense of this data. Our goal is to build a platform which will give every company clear and effective guidance based on their specific needs. It will be like having your own personal business consultant by your side, crunching and analysing data from all angles and helping you to understand what to do next.