Kameleoon Russia: “You need to be prepared to wait if you want to succeed in Russia.”
French Tech met with Jean-Noel Rivasseau, the CTO of Kameleoon, a French company with a Moscow office and learned about the right time to launch a product to the market, the cost of IT developers in Russia and the advantages of living there for the French.
Jean-Noel Rivasseau is a graduate from Ecole Polytechnique in France where he studied Computer Science. He always wanted to create his own business and in 2008 started to develop a SaaS-based conversion optimization platform for digital brands. The product was a resounding success, so later in 2012 he created a company in France and named it Kameleoon. Today, Kameleoon has 140+ employees, 5 offices (France, Russia, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy) and more than 450 happy customers.
Jean-Noel, why was Kameleoon’s product so successful in France when you started and why did you decide to open an office in Russia at that point?
Our solution provided an innovative way of solving online conversion problems by using A/B & Multivariate (MVT) testing, alongside web personalization. Kameleoon offered clients a very useful product that delivered a fast ROI, so they quickly understood the advantages our platform brought. Among our first clients in France were media websites, along with retailers and e-commerce companies. We are now present in three more key sectors: financial services, travel and leisure, and automotive.
I arrived in Russia in 2013 for two reasons. Firstly, my wife is Russian and she wanted to live here, and also because at that time it wasn’t easy to find IT specialists in France, but there were plenty of them in Russia. I’d really emphasize the high quality of Russian engineers — they are smart and productive. So, we continued to develop our business here in Russia and now there are 50 of us in the Moscow office.
Could you tell us about the Russian market compared to France?
Kameleoon has been in Russia since 2013 and we work with 15 European companies that have offices in Moscow, such as Decathlon, L’Oréal, Yves Rocher, and Renault. We are also developing quickly in terms of working with Russian companies.
What must a foreign entrepreneur know about Russia?
In my opinion, if you want to succeed in Russia market, you must put in at least 10 years of hard work in order to create your position in the market. It’s also important to add that Russians prefer to have consultancy provided along with the product itself, so Kameleoon also offers this to our clients.
How has COVID-19 influenced your business?
Well, as we are an IT company and our platform doesn’t need to be physically manufactured or distributed, we haven’t really suffered. We did lose some clients in the travel sector, because people are clearly now not really traveling. We haven’t closed our offices, although we work from home, but for IT developers this is pretty natural. As a company Kameleoon is still hiring, despite the pandemic!
What do you think about French Tech Moscow?
I really like the idea. I recently took part in an event with Leroy Merlin where we talked about hiring IT developers in Russia. I think that events like this are very useful for the French community in Moscow — the important thing is to attract the right attendees to them.
