When it comes to traveling, Raphaël enjoys finding the best deals. However, he is tired of running around at the last minute to get find the best exchange rate. He loose time and he can’t verify if he has got the best deal or not. This is why he decided to make the currency exchange market fluid and transparent.
There are some things that money can’t buy, such as a trip with one’s daughter, for everything else there’s… currency exchange. Raphaël is precisely visiting New York City with his daughter. He needs to exchange euros to cold, hard green bills. So he starts looking for a bureau de change that he will never find (in fact it was closed). Only the day after he finds the good deal, in the mythical Wall Street District. With the iPad release, the idea of a mobile app to locate exchange offices took roots in his head.
An idea never comes alone in Raphaël’s mind. While queuing up in the exchange office, he sees that the guy before him wants to exchange his dollars to euros. So why not create a mobile app to exchange money from person to person that could be used in airports and touristic areas?
Then he goes back to Paris. Time goes on, he travels in other countries, follows an intense working life, but his ideas remains…
There are some things that money can’t buy, such as a trip with one’s daughter, for everything else there’s… currency exchange.
Here is the coffee machine that coChanged the world.
One day, waiting in front of the coffee machine, he encounters the man that convinces him. He talks with Jérome and tells him about his idea. They understand at that moment that they want to coChange the world together and they decide to launch their own business!
However, the Banque de France rejects the peer-to-peer project. Holly money is a too serious issue to be exchanged out of dedicated offices. So they advise Raphaël to set the company in a foreign country. After many mails and formalities (it is hard to contact central banks), coChange is finally created.
A few months after the creation, coChange as many other significant startups has to change its guideline. The number of potential users interested in peer-to-peer money exchange is too small to create growth. So Jérôme and Raphaël decide to focus the activity on improving the access to currency exchange offices. The mobile app aims to become the reference tool for money exchange: Where, when, which rate, and how to change to have the best of its money?
From Nepal to Peru, in only a few days, users from some fifty countries download the mobile application. It confirmed to Jerome and Raphael that their project is useful for the world. Now they are certain that coChange will help millions of travellers exchanging their currency easily while contributing to the development of local business.
