It
all started in Suzhou, in 2019. While finishing his semester at the Suzhou
campus, Théo Rouilly noticed a young Chinese man borrowing a portable battery
for free at a bar to recharge his phone. “I'd never seen that before," he
says, "and I thought it was a very clever concept.“ When you arrive
in a town at the end of the day and need to charge your phone, this kind of service
is really handy."
The student immediately decided to work on the project
in Suzhou, before incubating it at SKEMA Ventures, at the Grand Paris Campus.
In 2020, he launched "Nono" in the midst of a health crisis, during a
lockdown – which might easily have killed any hope for the start-up to grow.
Nono at Monoprix and SKEMA
But
one year on, it’s clear that Théo has proved his staying power, for his new
company has taken off and continues to flourish. It works with 250 French
establishments, in every part of the country.
"We are present in Nice, Strasbourg, Marseille, Nantes, Cannes,
Nice, Paris, Lyon. We have equipped 70 Monop’s, 35 Carrefour Markets and
several hotels, and we have a kiosk on SKEMA's Grand Paris Campus!” says the
young entrepreneur with pride.
Generating traffic for its clients
Nono is first and foremost a local service provided to supermarket and hotel customers. The retailer pays for the service, but it is free for customers, and should help to generate traffic for a store. "If you log on to the app, locate your position and see a battery available in a store, you can go there. This is an advantage for the retailer, and it's convenient for you as a consumer." Today, Nono employs seven people and plans to open its services at a Boulanger shop in Lille, and at Printemps, the Boulevard Haussmann department store in Paris.