Behind Webshell, a humanist social network
Two years ago, Arnaud Richard, Mehdi Medjaoui and Thibaud Arnault wanted to create their own social network, Humankindwall.
The idea was to bring together artistic, cultural and historical content which deserved to be kept in collective memory, as chosen by users.
Images and videos were to form a gigantic mosaic, a kind of “Monument to the Internet”.
This network was not, therefore, born out of narcissism but of the common desire to collectively write the digital memory of humanity.
A beautiful idea…
… but what has that got to do with Webshell?
In order to create the technological basis for this social network, Arnaud and Thibaud (the two programmers) wanted to make their lives easier by creating a platform much like the APIs* that were necessary to create the network itself.
And that’s how Webshell came about!
*For those who are not necessarily of the geek persuasion
Created by a company wishing to open up part of their database, an API can be defined as a “front door”. Using the philosophy of Open Innovation, this data can then be re-used by developers who sort through them and go on to create new services. Bigger companies such as Google or Facebook have several different APIs.
Webshell, the true value of their creation
Once they had released a private beta version, they realised that the true value of their creation lay not, as they first thought, in the the social network but rather in the way in which they created it.
“Developers waste a great deal of time gathering data from different APIs“, explains Mehdi Medjaoui, COO of Webshell.
Always handy with a relevant image when it comes to making such a geeked-up-to-the-max subject more intelligible, he makes a comparison with the world of cooking.
“To make a dish, you need quite a few different ingredients. You could go looking for them in different shops all over the place… or go to the supermarket and save a whole lot of time!“
Webshell can therefore be said to be a kind of API supermarket, which makes developers’ lives that much easier!
Where are they after two months of Le Camping?
Around 40 APIs are available through Webshell, currently in private beta format. “The most important thing at the moment is to get feedback on our platform. More than 400 developers are currently testing it and giving us that precious feedback.“
Once fully developed, Webshell will be useful to both developers and web service agencies, which might, in turn, make this tool available to their own developers.
One month out from Demo Day, how do the folks at Webshell feel?
“We are excited to launch the product soon but one month before Demo Day, we are a little stressed to make a technical company very understandable for a large investor audience. Should we focus only on tech investors and risk losing the others or pitch for everybody? Just 1 month left to decide and work hard on our pitch!”.