Tim MacLean (SK 2005) mixes passion and entrepreneurship in Chamonix

On 25 September 2019, SKEMA Business School announced a new partnership with Sowefund, an investment platform specialising in innovative startups.

We took the opportunity to interview one of our alumni who has turned to the platform for his own business. Tim MacLean  founded Whympr in 2016. With his equity funding campaign in full swing, this mountain enthusiast took time out to tell us about his entrepreneurial journey in Chamonix, where he mixes passion and business!

Tim, could you briefly explain what Whympr is?

Whympr is a community-based app for people who practise different sports and activities in the mountains. We help mountain lovers prepare their alpine outings: hiking, snowshoeing, rock climbing, mountaineering, etc. The idea is to offer our users a digital “log book” in which they can find thousands of itinerary descriptions around the world, as well as topographic maps. For a little bit of trivia, our app is named after Edward Whymper, a great English mountaineer best known for the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865, a legendary peak in the Alps.

Your passion is obvious when you talk about the app. How did you come up with the idea?

After spending 15 years working for tech giants (Apple, HP, Creative Labs) as an international project manager, I wanted to return to my family’s roots in Chamonix. I felt a real need to reconnect with the mountains, the backdrop to my childhood. At the same time, I’d already had a taste of entrepreneurship and I was feeling its pull again. While coming back down from a mountain run with my cousin, Whympr’s co-founder, we reached the conclusion that it would be useful to have a simple and intuitive tool to guide us during our outings.

But it was in Costa Rica, while spending three days in a beach hut on the edge of the ocean, that the penny really dropped for me. The owner, a surf-mad American, made his living renting out his huts and that enabled him to keep surfing every day. When I got back to London to my work emails and all the pressure, I made my decision: I was going to return to Chamonix and live off my passion.

You chose to raise funds via equity funding, on the Sowefund platform. What made you choose that option over others?

As a startup targeting the general public, it’s important to us to offer our users the possibility of “being part of the rope team”. We’re convinced that if they’re investing in Whympr, it’s because they see the app’s potential and usefulness. This makes us confident that we’ve chosen the right path. Through this campaign, our users also become our best ambassadors.

What projects do you want to develop thanks to this campaign?

We have two development goals in mind for this equity injection.

• Technical: develop the app to improve the experience for hikers. They represent 70% of mountain sports enthusiasts and are primarily looking for tracking capabilities. We’d like to offer them a more advanced app by the spring of 2020.

• International: while France represents 7% of the mountain sports enthusiast market, the USA accounts for 50%. We would like to be able to enter that market thanks to a business developer based over there, at Lake Tahoe.

You’re a member of the vast SKEMA Alumni network. In what way(s) does that help you on your entrepreneurial journey?

Being able to talk to my school’s network of alumni is a blessing for several reasons. First of all, since we’re right in the middle of an equity funding campaign, if there are any professionals out there who are interested in Whympr and believe in what we’re doing, all investments are welcome.

I’d also like to approach Club Genève, near Chamonix. I might be lucky enough to bump into some mountain enthusiasts there or find some entrepreneurs to talk to. All feedback is valuable!

Plus, you never know what life has in store and the network leaves the door open for all sorts of opportunities. A partnership, new ideas, a future employee... who knows?

Support Whympr by investing through Tim’s equity funding campaign. You have until 2 December to do so through the Sowefund platform!

SKEMA alumni, we have a special code for you that will waive the payment fee: SKEMAWHYMPR*.
*at step 2, when choosing your payment method, click on “Add a special code” and enter the code.