We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sylvestre Dupont a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sylvestre , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Naming a company can indeed be challenging. We were looking for something striking, short, and with an available .com domain. The term “parse” is deeply rooted in what we do at Parseur. We automate the process of analyzing and interpreting data from documents like emails and PDFs, called “parsing”. It seemed natural to incorporate this concept into our company name.

The product name we first came up with was “Captain Parser”. We even considered a pirate-themed brand and playful language for our marketing. The mockups looked glorious! However, since our target audience is primarily small and medium businesses worldwide, we quickly realized it might not be the best fit. So, back to the drawing board we went. “Parseur” is essentially the French word for “parser,” which aligns perfectly with our mission to parse data efficiently. We wanted a name that would reflect our core function and be memorable for our customers. The name “Parseur” does just that, conveying our focus on data extraction and automation in a simple yet effective way. Our audience is primarily made up of native English speakers, and many ask us how to pronounce “Parseur.” If you’re wondering too, just say it like “parser”. If you throw in your best French “r” at the end you’ll be golden.

In 2020, we added “Robots. Witchcraft. And Unicorns” as our tagline and on our logo. Robots represent our AI and automation services. Witchcraft symbolizes the amazing team behind Parseur, casting spells to make the Robots deliver outstanding results for our customers. And Unicorns are the magic sauce that ties it all together and makes Parseur stand out from the rest. We threw the pirates out the door—only for magicians to fly back in through the window!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My journey into the tech world began with my studies in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics in France, followed by nearly a decade at Accenture where I climbed the ranks from analyst to manager, working with team members and clients all around the world.

The idea for Parseur was born out of a common frustration I observed in the business world – the endless hours wasted on manual data entry. I thought, “There has to be a better way.” And that’s how Parseur came to be. At Parseur, we’ve created an AI-powered platform that automates data extraction from various documents – emails, PDFs, spreadsheets, you name it. What sets us apart is our user-friendly approach. We’ve designed Parseur so that anyone, regardless of their technical background, can use it. It’s as simple as telling our AI what data you want to extract from your documents in your own words. It just works.

I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved. We’ve been profitable since June 2017, just months after our launch. We serve thousands of businesses globally, processing tens of thousands of documents daily. Today, our team, while still small, spans five countries and works across 12 time zones. We’ve fully embraced asynchronous and remote work, allowing us to stay connected and productive no matter where we are.

But what really excites me is the time we’re giving back to businesses – time they can now spend on more valuable tasks instead of mundane data entry.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I co-founded Parseur with Sylvain Josserand. Sylvain and I have known each other since university, that’s over 20 years now! We’re also travel buddies and have explored countless countries together. We even had a friendly competition to see who could visit the most countries, but I eventually stopped playing once it became clear I was losing (yes, I’m a little ashamed). Sylvain brings decades of experience as a Python programmer and a reliability engineer. Around 2016, we both felt the urge to start a business, so we took the leap.

I’ve read plenty of horror stories about friends starting businesses together, only to see the business, the friendship, or both fall apart. Fortunately, that hasn’t been the case for us, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. While we don’t always agree on every detail, we are both good listeners and we always set our egos aside and evaluate each other’s ideas on their merits alone.

We each own 50% of the business, which many warned us against, saying it could lead to deadlock when making decisions. But for us, equal ownership has been a strength — it forces us to align on key decisions and refine a shared vision for the business. Sharing the same vision for our business has been incredibly powerful and likely explains why Parseur has been growing steadily for almost 10 years — and hopefully why it’s poised to keep thriving for the next decade!

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Funding Parseur was an interesting journey. Unlike many startups and most of our competitors, we decided to bootstrap our company. We’re 100% owned and funded by ourselves – no external investors. Our strategy was to develop a minimum viable product quickly and get it to market. We launched our first public release, Parseur v0, in December 2016.

The gamble paid off. By June 2017, just six months later, we were making money. This validation, directly from our customers, convinced us we were onto something and to reinvest in the business, funding our own growth and development. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing, but this approach has given us complete control over our company’s direction. We’ve focused on building a product our customers want us to build, rather than chasing rapid growth to satisfy investors.

Looking back, I’m proud of the sustainable business we’ve built. From our first release to our latest AI parsing engine, every step has been funded by our own success, and that’s incredibly motivating and rewarding. It’s a testament to the value we’re providing to our customers, and it’s allowed us to grow at a pace that feels right for us and our users.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://parseur.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/parseur.com/posts/?feedView=all
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@parseur