HeyCrowd

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Paris, France, HeyCrowd was established by Emmanuel Bellity and Matt Rouif to disrupt the conventional survey industry. The company identified an opportunity in the expanding smartphone market to create a more engaging, mobile-centric user experience for sharing opinions.

The initial product was a social voting application for iOS, conceived as a community where users could pose questions to various "crowds" and vote on queries from others. This platform gained considerable traction, attracting 500,000 users who cast over 160 million votes across its primary markets in the US, France, UK, Germany, and Brazil. A significant milestone was achieved in December 2011 when HeyCrowd secured the silver award at the LeWeb start-up competition, leading to seed funding from notable investors Kima Ventures and Jacques-Antoine Granjon.

The business model evolved to encompass two distinct product lines. The first was the consumer-facing social polling app, which fostered an active community. The second product was an online survey creation tool tailored for businesses, students, and other organizations. This tool enabled clients to design sophisticated web and mobile surveys, distribute them via email or social media, and access real-time data visualization and statistics. Revenue was generated by offering marketing researchers paid access to targeted segments of the HeyCrowd user community, providing a direct and affordable method for gathering specific market insights.

The core service allowed individuals to instantly poll a community, receiving immediate feedback in a dynamic format. For business clients, the platform offered a user-friendly tool to create and disseminate detailed questionnaires. This dual approach allowed the company to build a large, engaged user base and then monetize that community by providing valuable, targeted survey respondents to market researchers. The app was noted for its engaging design and the rapid response times to user questions, creating a social network built around content and opinions. Keywords: social polling, mobile surveys, opinion polling, market research, survey software, data collection, community feedback, online questionnaires, audience insights, consumer opinions, Emmanuel Bellity, Matt Rouif, Kima Ventures, LeWeb, social voting app, real-time analytics, mobile polling, brand sentiment, public opinion