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Nathan VIAUD, a student in the “Digital Marketing & Innovation” Master’s cycle of the Grande École Program at IÉSEG, has devised a clever business model to finance his Virtuosobook project. This innovative concept rides the wave of digital technologies by combining them with the love of reading. He presents his projects and explains how it all works.

What is Virtuosobook all about?

The concept behind Virtuosobook is to provide an extraordinary reading experience. The reader can listen to a soundtrack tailored to their reading speed, allowing for a unique immersive experience. For example, for horror novels, dramatic music will have a major impact on the reading experience. The idea is to integrate these adaptive soundtracks directly into e-books to make it as user-friendly as possible.

Did the idea come from your personal reading experience?

Indeed, I love to read, and I realized that I don’t enjoy reading without music because I need to isolate myself from the surrounding noise, especially when I read in the subway. Unfortunately, the music I listen to is almost never suitable for the book I’m reading, and it doesn’t help me stay focused and immersed in the story.

I have learned a lot through reading, and I have noticed that many people never read. I find this unfortunate because they close themselves off to a vast range of possibilities. Many get lost in various online content that is not always of high quality, whereas books represent a colossal source of information. So, I wanted to find a way to make reading more attractive for people who don’t read and make it even more appealing for those who already do on a daily basis.

To finance the future launch of Virtuosobook, you decided to create a second company…

During the summer of 2022, I thought about how I could fine-tune the concept. I realized that I had an interesting idea but lacked the technical skills to develop the product myself. Nevertheless, I managed to draft a product outline with a few pages of a book, set to a 10-minute music track, to test my idea with different people. To go further, I will need to consult experts, and that comes with a cost. Being a student, I wanted to find a solution that would allow me to generate income immediately while also enabling me to reinvest some of that money into Virtuosobook. That’s why I worked on another business model, in a completely different field: ZENTAG.

So, what is ZENTAG?

This project addresses a completely different issue. Indeed, through ZENTAG, I offer all cat and dog owners a way of avoiding the fear of losing a beloved pet. Thanks to a QR code system visible on a collar, coupled with an application available on Android and iOS, anyone finding a lost animal can directly access the animal’s “profile” by scanning the QR code. This allows them to see the instructions to follow and the owner’s contact information. When the person scans the QR code, a notification is sent to the owner, and they have access to the location of their animal at that moment. The profile page of the animal in question is fully customizable by its owner.

By launching a crowdfunding campaign, I managed to fund the equipment needed to customize the lockets myself and thus accelerate production and delivery time. Thanks to the orders received, I have a real-time source of income that will allow me to go further in the development of Virtuosobook later on.

Have you always wanted to be an entrepreneur?

Early on, I started creating small businesses to generate income, but the pursuit of profit alone did not satisfy me. I wanted to go further by thinking about a project that could address a real issue in a field that interests me. Hence, Virtuosobook… Beyond wanting to make an impact, it is also the search for freedom and autonomy that pushed me to try things and embark on the entrepreneurial adventure. For now, I am currently an apprentice in a dynamic and motivating startup where I enjoy myself a lot, so we’ll see what life has in store for me!

Did your studies at IÉSEG help you to get into entrepreneurship?

I think that without Jacques ANGOT’s course on entrepreneurship, I would not have launched ZENTAG so soon. His course, thanks to his expertise and advice, was a steppingstone because it allowed me to think outside the box and dare to do things. Beyond this specific course, the study program is interesting, and the speakers are truly qualified. Overall, there is also a strong entrepreneurial spirit among the students. Many of us want to make things happen, and that creates a dynamic, motivating, and challenging environment.