Emeric NoëlPhoto: Courtesy of Planned
How he got his start: Emeric Noël always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur. He studied business and started his first company while he was in college. "It was a marketplace of successful kickstarter products; it’s with that experience that I learned everything I know about product building," he explains. "After this, I kept thinking about what my next business would be. I consulted for other startups for a while, and then I met my [Planned] co-founder, Marc-Antoine Bonin."
The two both realized from their previous experiences how difficult and expensive it can be to find a venue to host events. "We decided to build what we thought would be the Airbnb of events," Noël says. "But as we started talking and working with enterprise users, we saw the pain that they were experiencing when planning multiple events at the same time while following internal processes. That sparked an idea, and that’s when Planned’s journey really started."
What innovation means to him: To Noël, innovation is about challenging conventional thinking in order to make people’s lives easier. "It’s about refusing to settle for the status quo and being willing to shake things up for the best—even when the odds are against you," he says. "That’s the way I’ve always approached my professional life and how I want Planned to keep growing: by being willing to take risks and push our limits whenever we see a problem worth solving."
Noël adds, "It’s challenging, personally and as a team, because you need to constantly observe and challenge the world around you. You can get ideas from very random places, but one of the things that works the best for me is obsessively talking or listening to clients to understand what stands in the way of a good user experience."
Memorable moments: Noël cites one of Planned's first large-scale events for a Big Four firm as one of his most memorable events, where he and his team secured Cirque du Soleil as a supplier. "We really felt the power of our platform in being able to bring an original venue with great suppliers to create a really unique experience for the guest," he says.
His vision for the future of the events industry: "The consumerization of event planning and management tools is the trend that I think will change our industry the most profoundly," Noël says. "More and more, professionals want to pick their own tools based on their personal goals and preferences. Expectations are rising, and now most people expect their professional tools to be as intuitive and fast as the ones they use in their personal lives. This is going to put pressure on tech providers to provide better experiences."
