Twenty-five years ago, Frédéric Charles Petit started Toluna in his kitchen in Paris. This week, he announced he will step down as CEO, staying on as a Board member, Senior Advisor and shareholder.
Before the transition, I spoke with him about Toluna’s early days, the decisions that shaped the company and what lies ahead.
Q. Take us back to the kitchen in Paris. What did you see in this industry that others didn’t?
A: “That it was set for a huge transformation through online data collection. As the cost of online connection went down, more and more consumers would get online. From the first week, I was doing two things at once: raising money and meeting as many people as I could to start building the team.”
Q. Was there a moment you thought it might not work?
A: “There are always moments like that, and you meet a lot of people who kindly advise you to stop. In those moments, you have to try even harder and keep building.
In my mind, one particular piece of advice saved the company. The market was not yet ready for what we were doing. Many agencies pitched us to run a big ad campaign, and one of them said: “This is not good for us, but our recommendation is not to spend the money. Keep your cash to weather the storm.” It was the best advice I received.”
Q. Who took a chance on you early?
A: “The first members of staff, and a couple of them are still here! They believed in me as much as they believed in the project.”
The early bet on online research held firm. The next question was how far a Paris start-up could travel.
Q. When did Toluna start to feel like a global business?
A: “A very long time ago, in Paris, we got a call from AOL in the US. They wanted to license our survey software, saying it was the best they had tried in the industry. They were our first US client. That gave us so much confidence to go global.
My first objective was to become pan-European, so we opened in the UK and Germany, I can proudly say we were pan-European (long before Brexit). Then, when we started selling sample in the US, I said we were truly global, because we catered to local needs. I used to tell the team: if we keep selling baguettes in the US, we will just be a French provider. If we sell bagels, we become international. We have kept that recipe of localization everywhere.”
Along the way, Frederic understood that not every big decision was about geography.
Q. Which decision looked risky at the time and turned out to define the company?
A: “To pivot the company toward serving the research industry. We were complete outsiders to that industry, and in less than a month we reallocated all our resources toward it.”
The result of this decision was seeing Toluna start to scale. Each decision made the company bigger and changed his job along the way.
Q. What was the hardest part of going from founder to CEO of thousands of people?
A: “It happened gradually, and I felt I was changing jobs every other year. I had no playbook for being a CEO. What I learned is that a CEO cannot sit in a tower. You have to be with people: clients, staff, partners. You decide when to delegate and when to handle things directly, but always in partnership with the team.”
On his watch, the research industry has reinvented itself several times.
Q. Market research has been reinvented several times in the last 25 years. Which shift matters most, and what developments do you expect in the next five years?
A: “They all count, but the most important is the one we are going through now: AI.
What excites me in this transformation is the potential to democratize research and make it a mass market. That has really been the drive behind Toluna from the beginning.”
To close, I took him back to where it all started and discovered that some things haven’t changed.
Q. Is the kitchen where the entrepreneurial spark occurred still standing?
A: “We have changed the countertop multiple times. I still have the same desk I started with.”
Q. And after a brutal week, what’s for dinner?
A: “A huge green salad with grilled chicken. Not so fancy, but so good. Homemade, and I make it.”
Toluna began with one person in a kitchen in Paris, but it was never a one-man show. Today, there are around 2,600 people in more than 75 markets. I asked him what he wants them to carry forward.
Q. Finally, Frederic, what is your message to the team for the next 25 years?
A: “Be yourselves. Be a team. All of you need to be on the field, in the action. Because being in the action and working with passion, you cannot lose. Founding and leading Toluna and working with all those who have been part of the journey has been a privilege. And seeing what Toluna does next may be one of the most exciting parts of the journey, because I truly believe the best is yet to come.”
