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Jonas Petit (PGE 2022) – Co-founder & CEO of Wiseone
A recent graduate of the SKEMA Class of 2022, Jonas Petit has founded Wiseone, an AI start-up offering a new way to read and explore information online. He explains all in this interview with SKEMA Alumni.
Hi Jonas, could you introduce yourself briefly?
My name is Jonas Petit; I'm 24. I took the scientific track for the Baccalaureate (Engineering Sciences) and I’ve just graduated from the Entrepreneurship and Technology double degree programme run in partnership with Berkeley. I’m thrilled that SKEMA is entering into this type of partnership that combines entrepreneurship and tech and represents a wonderful professional opportunity for students wanting to head down that path.
You co-founded the start-up Wiseone. How did the idea for this project come about ?
I’m passionate about technology, especially artificial intelligence and space. These are two major areas in which I really wanted to learn and evolve. For artificial intelligence, I created the company Wiseone, which I will explain later. As for space, in 2020, before starting Wiseone, I created a project with the idea of designing a magnetic levitation and acceleration track. The goal was to help a space launcher to reach low earth orbit with less engine ignition time, so less fuel, less risk, and potentially a lower cost too. The project took 6 months and resulted in the creation of a small technology demonstrator I’d built in my bedroom. I "cut my teeth" on this first entrepreneurial venture (which never got past the project stage), but in 2021 I really started to think about other reliable and feasible business ideas. My friend Julien Gourlet and I got to thinking about disinformation, critical thinking, and the problem of having quality information quickly to understand the world, understand what we read online or the news and information we find on the internet in general. We’d been talking about this for years and we felt it was time to implement a solution to improve the understanding of online information. There are several reasons why it's not always easy to understand the information found on the internet: there is a lot of information online these days, with billions of pieces of content created and published every day. This is huge and it’s well beyond what a human can actually manage. This is where AI is useful, as it can help humans manage phenomenal amounts of data. The quality of the information online is not always good. Some of the data or information is wrong and this will prevent readers from understanding important topics. And then perhaps one final reason why online information is complex is that we don't always have the knowledge needed to understand it. We can't know everything and that's normal! That's why Julien and I decided that a "technological brick" was missing from the information cycle. Google has made information available to the greatest number of people over the last 20 years, but now we have different needs. We need information to be rapidly accessible, but it has to be the right information so that people understand what they’re reading. That's why we created Wiseone.
Can you pitch us your project?
Yes, of course: Wiseone is a Google Chrome extension that offers a new way of reading and exploring information online. Our new AI-powered browser extension enriches your online reading experience by helping you simplify information and have easier access to factual and reliable information to help you effortlessly master any subject you're reading online.
Our solution offers five main features:
- Discover, which helps you understand & learn about complex concepts and words in an article online to master 100% of your reading. 🔎
- Cross-checking, which helps you verify facts with different sources talking about the same subject. ✅
- Ask anything, which helps you simplify the most complex information into understandable answers. 💬
- Summarize, which helps you read more efficiently without losing information by providing key information to remember. ⏱️
- Suggestions, which provide a list of articles from diverse sources to deepen your understanding of a subject. 📰
Can you sum up Wiseone today?
There are 6 of us in the company that we started in July 2021. We stayed in stealth mode for a year to develop our AI solution, then we conducted an initial alpha test phase with about twenty people and were able to gauge the solution’s usefulness and relevance. At present, and over the past few weeks now, we’ve entered the open beta test phase: we’re testing our different functionalities on a growing international audience. With more than 10000 downloads since the opening of the beta, our goal is to really step up user acquisition.
Why did you become an entrepreneur?
In my view, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship are really one of the most direct ways to solve society's problems. For me it makes sense to be an entrepreneur and I can't see myself doing anything else. During my undergraduate studies, before SKEMA, I stumbled upon videos about entrepreneurship and it was a world I didn't know at all. When I was younger, something clicked inside me when I thought about how there were people out there who woke up every morning asking themselves: "How am I going to try to have a positive impact on the world? "How am I going to try to solve problems?" And I thought, "Okay, I want to do that! It’s great!" And I was lucky enough, just before joining SKEMA, to be pretty clear on what I wanted to do. I mean, I knew I wanted to start a business. I didn't know in what area yet, but I wanted to be an entrepreneur – that much was obvious. That's also why I chose the Master's in Entrepreneurship & Innovation. I was also very inspired by the entrepreneurial journeys I found online. And for someone like me who likes to find solutions and figure out the meaning of things, entrepreneurship was the way to help this world which has many problems. In short, I wanted to make a difference.
How did SKEMA contribute to your project?
SKEMA's contribution is not direct, because the project came together very fast. We quickly raised funds from investors in France’s Greater East region. We also received financial support from the BPI and the Caisse d'Épargne to move forward with our venture. We were incubated at Incubateur Lorrain, which provided a link between public research and private companies. But before all of that, I talked a lot with Nicolas Servel (DS of the Master), who was always there for me and played an incredible and fundamental role in the project. He listened to me and advised me throughout my master’s. During all 3 years we discussed the subject and I participated in events, in Raleigh in particular, to pitch my project. He was really a great help to me.
Why did you choose the MSc Entrepreneurship & Innovation and what did you get from that master's degree?
First of all, I would like to say that this is a really incredible master's degree. If I can give one piece of advice to SKEMA students who are interested in entrepreneurship: go for it!
If you're interested in the world of start-ups, that's where you need to be. I personally learned a lot from Americans who have a more technical/coding mindset, which interested me. I met people with incredible backgrounds, not just professionally speaking, but on a personal level as well. All these encounters opened up my mind and new possibilities. The lecturers are also amazing – you can have well-known entrepreneurs with really inspiring backgrounds in front of you. Like the course on technology entrepreneurship – the lecturer, Naeem Zafar, is a successful entrepreneur before being a professor. This means you get exposed to real-world experience and not just theory in class. I was already moving forward with my entrepreneurial venture, so I was able to pitch my project and make some contacts that I’m now activating in the beta test phase, especially since we’re aiming to develop the business in the US with a branch in San Francisco.
Any advice NOT to follow to become an entrepreneur?
One piece of advice that you hear a lot is to wait before starting a business, because you don't have enough experience. To me, this is bad advice because in reality entrepreneurship is something you’re never ready for. You could get to 40 or 50 years old and still have the same project in mind, spend your life studying the subjects and do nothing. But I think it's important to understand that entrepreneurship is really the art of taking action, of going for it, of doing something to bring your vision to life, and not thinking too much before starting. Of course, you need to think a little bit before starting a project but I always, at least, I have the impression that it's more rewarding to be a go-getter. I just go for it and don't think too much, and then I level up afterwards. If you think about every single thing that could happen, then you don't move forward, because the more knowledge you have, the more you understand situations, the more you think, "You'd have to be crazy to go for it; I'm going to crash and burn, there's no point!"
So if I had one piece of advice to give it would be: don't hesitate! In my opinion, the best time to start is when you’re a student. Yes, it means not having a "real" student life, being focused on your project, working, etc. But when you're a student, your brain is primed for learning and that's when you have to push your limits. Today, there is a lot of help available; there are organisations, incubators (including SKEMA Ventures) to help us launch ourselves as entrepreneurs. We’re no longer alone.
To conclude, I’d like to come back to Wiseone's mission: our goal is to help readers of online content to harness the information they find. Wiseone makes it possible to read faster, better and to learn more while reading. Wiseone makes reading more efficient and more qualitative, and allows you to sharpen your critical thinking skills and feed your intelligence with a simple and intuitive solution.
Wiseone is currently in the beta test phase: their number 1 objective today is to be able to onboard as many users as possible in order to gather as much feedback as possible on their solution and fine-tune their product-market fit. For the time being, they’re only targeting English-speaking readers of online information, since the extension currently only supports English. If you’re interested in joining their beta, please visit the Wiseone website or the Chrome web store page to download the extension directly: (https://wiseone.io/)
Twitter: https: //twitter.com/Wiseone_io
LinkedIn: https: //www.linkedin.com/company/wiseone/
Contact: Jonas Petit, Co-founder & CEO of Wiseone
