What is DoYouBuzz? Interview with Evy Wilkins – Part 1

In less than 3 years since inception, the French version of DoYouBuzz is home to a 45,000 (and growing) user base of professionals from all walks of life. Earlier this year, DoYouBuzz launched the english version of their product / service in the United States.

Evy Wilkins, COO for the US Operations of DoYouBuzz, took time of her buzz’y schedule last week to talk to me about DoYouBuzz. We met at pariSoma – San Francisco’s hottest CoWorking Innovation Loft. She spoke at length about what DoYouBuzz is, how it was formed, what value it brings to professionals, who can benefit from it, how optimized it is for search engines and how anyone can create a free profile in under 5 minutes!

I will bring it all to you in a multi-part series, starting with this 1st interview, which is about DoYouBuzz, the Company.

Can’t wait for the rest to learn more about DoYouBuzz? Then just head over to DoYouBuzz.com and create your free professional online resume today!

Interview with Evy Wilkins of DoYouBuzz – Part 1

Opportunity Clicks Everyday! - COO Evy Wilkins with DoYouBuzz.com

So tell me a little bit about DoYouBuzz.  What is DoYouBuzz ? When and Where was the it formed?

Sure. DoYouBuzz is about creating personal professional spaces for people on the web.  We offer a next-generation online resume to professionals.  That means it is a resume website.  So, each professional is equipped with very simple tools to create an entire website dedicated to their professional offering—their personal brand, for example.

The company was founded in France in Nantes, which is on the West Coast of France, in 2007.  Our product, DoYouBuzz.com, went life in 2008.  And then just a few months ago—a month ago, actually, we launched DoYouBuzz in English here in the United States.

Who came up with the idea for DoYouBuzz and Why?

The company was created by Ludovic Simon—is our CEO.  He was working for a major media publisher in France, and he just knew that he wanted to kind of change directions a bit, and so he started looking for another job.  And like most people, he was sending his resume around as a Word document and not working and he was, like, “There’s gotta be a better way to do this.”  So, he created himself a resume website, and started sharing that with people online and people were really impressed.  And all of a sudden, he started getting more requests from people who wanted the same thing than from people who had jobs for him. So he said, “All right, I’m going to turn this into my job!”

And so he created DoYouBuzz!

That’s awesome.  Tell me a little bit about yourself and about your role at DoYouBuzz?

Sure.  So, I come from a communications and marketing background.  I used to work for the non-profit world, specifically for funds that invested in biodiversity conservation.  And over the last couple of years I’ve switched more into the technology world.

For DoYouBuzz, my role is, very simply, making DoYouBuzz work in the United States—bringing it to Americans!

So, create a lot of buzz around it?

Yes, my job is to say, “Yes, I buzz” every day and make that a reality.

So, who are the other key players in the company and what is their background, like your CEO, and—?

Right.  So, DoYouBuzz was founded by Ludovic Simon. There’s a founding team that includes three core people.  There is Julien Maleinge, Jeremie Pottier – oh, the names are really funny saying them with an American accent! – and Emmanuel Mazurier.

So amongst these three – there’s a marketing background, a technical background, and a project management background. All three of them bring those skill-sets to DoYouBuzz, and previously most of the founding team had worked together at this media publishing company in France.