Florian Gardesse (SKEMA 2018) launches Invinee, a photo solution designed for weddings

One thing is clear: the career path of Florian Gardesse, founder of Invinee, bears the mark of an international outlook. After a first semester on the Sophia Antipolis campus, the alumnus went to the United States, completed a gap year between Shanghai and Paris with PwC, continued his studies in Canada, in Sherbrooke, and completed his degree in Brazil, in Belo Horizonte. “I made full use of SKEMA’s international dimension. That was the reason I applied to and chose the school. My international experience brought me a great deal and helped me grow,” he explains.

First project, first step into entrepreneurship

It was during his studies that he began working on his first entrepreneurial project. Odoori, his first venture, was an augmented reality-based social network, somewhere between Instagram and Pokémon Go. “The project did not take off. I then went to work for Google, in Dublin, for a year and a half, while continuing to build projects on the side.”

Failure, but not the end

Failure did not close the door. It made it heavier. Florian then became a freelancer, supporting several start-ups on business development assignments, before developing Invinee. “The principle behind this new project is simple: couples create an online gallery, generate a QR code, and then place it on tables or in different areas of the wedding venue. Guests scan the code and share their photos and videos in a few clicks, with no app to download and no account to create,” explains the entrepreneur, who comes from south-west France.

The aim is to prevent wedding memories from being scattered across dozens of WhatsApp conversations, Instagram threads or forgotten albums. The solution has already been used at more than 500 weddings, with most customers based in France, as well as in Switzerland, Belgium and Canada.

Weddings: a niche, but a solid one

Although the tool can also be used for birthdays, baptisms and other events, Florian Gardesse has chosen to focus on weddings. It is a strategic choice. “I wanted to focus on a niche to simplify the marketing and build a strong product for a strong niche,” he explains. The French market represents between 240,000 and 250,000 weddings a year, a volume large enough to build a specialised offer before opening up, at a later stage, to other verticals.

Less friction, more photos

In a market already occupied by several players, Invinee is focusing on ease of use and its French positioning. No download, no account creation, hosting in France and an experience designed to limit friction for guests. For Florian Gardesse, this smooth user experience is central: “the easier the sharing process is, the more content couples recover.”

Flying solo

Today, the entrepreneur is working on the project alone. He develops, tests, makes decisions and also uses artificial intelligence to support decision-making or speed up certain tasks. “I work seven days a week, but that’s part of the game,” he explains. The past year has allowed him to acquire new skills, including in SEO, a key lever for making Invinee known without relying on advertising campaigns.

The entrepreneurial bug

For Florian Gardesse, entrepreneurship is as much about creation as endurance. “When you launch a first project and it fails, there are two options: either you give up, or you catch the bug. And it is hard to get out of it,” he says. After several attempts, Invinee appears as a new stage in a path shaped by trials, learning and successive comebacks.