Reflecting on a partnership — and friendship — of almost 20 years, co-founders of Contact Center as a Solution (CCaaS) leader Ringover, Renaud Charvet and Jean-Samuel Najnudel, sit down to discuss the company’s journey from a tech start-up to a global cloud calling powerhouse.

1. How it all began: sit down with the founders
of Ringover?
~ Renaud Charvet and Jean-Samuel Najnudel reflect on the company’s
journey ~
Reflecting on a partnership — and friendship — of almost 20 years, co-founders of
Contact Center as a Solution (CCaaS) leader Ringover, Renaud Charvet and Jean-
Samuel Najnudel, sit down to discuss the company’s journey from a tech start-up
to a global cloud calling powerhouse.
Where it all started?
Ringover was founded by Renaud Charvet and Jean-Samuel Najnudel, who met at
ESCP, one of the most prestigious and selective business schools in France. There,
Charvet and Najnudel developed a common interest in business startups. “When I
first met Jean-Samuel, he knew that he wanted to do something big in telecoms,
but couldn’t quite put his finger on it,” said Charvet. “I however, had plans to work
in financial services and it wasn’t until I was set to begin my first job at a bank that
I heard of Jean-Samuel’s ideas.”
Before Ringover came to fruition, Najnudel had already dabbled into
entrepreneurship. “I started a company that provided online payment services for
websites, but it didn’t work out,” said Najnudel. “I was still a student and
balancing the two was difficult. I didn’t have any experience in running a business

2. and it just wasn’t meant to be. But I took these hard lessons on board when it came
to founding Ringover. I knew that my next venture needed to be with a partner I
could trust, so I approached Renaud with a proposal before he left to start his
banking job.”
Ringover’s evolution
After agreeing to become equal partners in 2005, Charvet and Najnudel began
developing a range of telecom services for small businesses. This included a
French version of Telediscount, the affordable international call provider,fax mail
and audio conferencing services, an inbound call management product, as well as a
voicemail service for mobile phones. In fact, the two were among the first to
develop a service that allows callers to directly leave a voicemail even if the phone
is reachable.
“Back in 2007, this was a small but useful revolution in calling,” revealed
Najnudel. “However, we soon realized that there was significant risk of
competition with rise of mobile apps. Instead, we moved our efforts to another area
of the market — providing calls via the web. Most business phone infrastructure of
the time required the installation of lines and the onboarding of equipment, which
is time-consuming and costly. So, we wanted to provide something to eliminate
these discrepancies and, after three years of product development, the first version
of Ringover was launched in 2015.”
Originally, Ringover was accessible from a web browser, but as the software’s
capabilities expanded, it transformed into a standalone app that can be easily
installed and integrated with all the major CRMs. In just a few minutes, anyone
can get started with Ringover.
“Ringover is now established as a Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) publisher,”
said Najnudel. ”It supports companies with a 100 per cent cloud communication
solution that integrates voice calling, texting, videoconferencing and group
messaging services.
“It’s an all-in-one solution for companies wanting to revolutionize their
communication tools — with the goal of simplifying communications for
businesses of all sizes. Our product also encompasses a range of call analytics
features that can be used to monitor and improve productivity, as well as VoIP
calls to over 100 countries.”
“We wanted to give businesses the ability to transform their calls into a key asset
for their customer experience, with minimal effort required on their end,” said
Charvet. “We always thought that efforts in tech should be with the developer, and
not with the customer. That’s why the platform demonstrates ease for the user with
every function.”

3. Global growth
Although Ringover was founded in France, its efforts to internationalize have
taken great shape over the last few years with the launch of its London, Barcelona
and Atlanta offices in 2021.
Speaking on why they chose Atlanta, Charvet said: “It’s the business hub of the
Southeast and boasts the third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in
the country. All of the big brands have some relation to Atlanta including Coca
Cola, UPS and Delta Airlines. We knew that Atlanta would be the best place to
launch in the US and currently we have 12 employees working for us in the
States.”
However, international expansion has presented some of the company’s greatest
challenges to date. “While it’s something we’re very proud of, expanding
internationally has been difficult at times,” said Najnudel. “For ten years Ringover
employed under 40 people and only three years ago there were less than 50 people.
Now we have over 200 staff members working for us across four different
countries. This rapid growth is a testament to our position in the market, but it
hasn’t come without challenges.
“Not only was entering the US, Spain and UK markets difficult because of
competition, but expanding internationally brings challenges in terms of language,
culture and the onboarding of employees. We also needed to make sure the product
was developed in a way that made it available and useable in multiple countries,
considering that each country is at a different stage in its VoIP journey. For
example, the US is much further ahead in this journey compared to Europe, but the
UK is increasingly turning to VoIP with the upcoming switch off of the Public
Switched Telephone Network (PSTN),” continued Najnudel.
“Other challenges include funding the company, a common consideration when
founding a startup,” said Charvet. “Jean-Samuel and I invested our savings to get
the business off the ground, but of course, that wasn’t substantial enough to keep
us going. Our first funding round was a long process. But eventually we raised €10
million. We plan to raise another round in 2023 to support our growth plans.”
When reflecting on the advantages of building a business, Najnudel said: “When
you are the leader of a company, seeing your vision come to life is magical, and
nothing compares. Your actions leave a mark and influence the path that the
company takes, and it’s amazing to see how your vision makes a difference to
people’s lives.”
“You also get to choose who you work with and ensure the people onboard have
the same passion and drive as you,” continued Charvet. “Employees are after all,
the driving force behind any successful business.”

4. What’s next?
Next on list for Ringover’s roadmap is the development of AI tools and
transforming into a multichannel communications suite. After the success of its
sales prospecting tool, Cadence, Ringover is now delving into the power of AI. “AI
is proving how valuable it is in business communications applications,” said
Najnudel. “We’re currently creating a tool that analyzes the language used in calls
to determine the temperament of it, and whether particular phrases are used more
than others.
“This gives users greater insights into calls to help them define more specific
follow up actions. The tool also automatically transcribes calls and voicemails to
save time with manual transcription.”
“Everything we do is about saving time and streamlining our customer’s efforts,”
added Charvet. “That’s why this year we plan topartner with more integrations,
jumping from 40 to close to 100,” said Charvet.
“This will also be key in helping us to become a fully unified communications
suite, one of the most valuable areas of Ringover. It will mean that businesses can
manage every function from one tool,creating a very powerful all-in-one set-up.
With this in mind, we’re also working to provide the option to connection with
social media platforms and messaging services like Whatsapp to fully encompass
every available communication channel.
“Also high on the agenda is to continue expanding internationally and we plan to
hire 100 people in 2023 as a result — it really does take a village,” added Charvet.
“We’ve evolved from product on the web to an intuitive communications tool for
improving customer service, call quality and managing productivity,” said
Najnudel. “And we’ve made great strides to get where we are today. But the
adventure continues, so watch this space.”