Thomas Bordier is a seasoned entrepreneur with a passion for technology. Having spent the last two decades as a serial entrepreneur, his journey began in France and led him to study in the UK and Canada, where his fascination with technology grew.
After joining Exapro in 2004, a marketplace for used machinery, he recognized the challenges in pricing second-hand industrial equipment. He then embarked on a mission to create a groundbreaking pricing algorithm that leverages machine learning and data to set fair market prices for various machinery.
Allow me to introduce Co-founder, Thomas Bordier…
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Hi, I am Thomas and have been a serial entrepreneur for the past 20 years. I grew up in France before studying in the UK and Canada and was always quite keen on technologies.
Naturally, I joined a small company as Partner in Canada, then joined Exapro in 2004. Exapro is a marketplace for used machinery. We took over a marketplace called Kitmondo (used machinery again with a focus on Northern America) in 2018, which reinforced our data. Two years ago, we started a joint venture with our English partners to create a pricing algorithm for second-hand industrial equipment: Valorexo.
We always struggled to pinpoint prices for used machinery in our business. Clearly, this was a pain point for this specific trade, so we decided to take on the challenge of putting together all our pricing history and developing a smart engine to set a fair market price for each piece of equipment.
We had a lot of cleanup in our combined 40 years of data so we could have enough structured data to use machine learning and come up with our algorithm. We then had to take into account the difference between voluntary sales (fair market prices) and auction prices (quick sale) to come up with smarter reports for our clients.
It took us a year to develop our initial product: a one-shot valuation for many different types of machines in different industrial sectors. This has been going well, serving factories to better understand how much they could expect for their equipment. We recently launched a SaaS service for corporations in need of appraisals (banks, insurance companies, appraisal companies).
There has been no reference so far but many appraisal specialists are doing a mix of desktop and on-site analysis. Valorexo provides now the first part in an agreeable user experience. While factories usually use it as a one-shot need, professionals, including dealers of used machinery, use our engine to find out machine prices.
There were many but if I had to choose a few: SEO books and blogs in general, Jay Shetty’s podcast on personal balance, and a Masterclass book on applied strategy inspired by Sun Tzu.
We are now scaling our sales, reinforcing our data, and opening up new industrial sectors. In the near future, we should be able to become a major reference in the market.
“Be persistent and agile.” While those seem like opposites, I mean that you need to be resilient in the challenge you set yourself against, but always readjust your strategy according to the details to go forward.
Here are a few links:
https://www.valorexo.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/72708704/
https://www.exapro.com/
https://www.kitmondo.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasbordier
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