World like Home

Could you imagine living anywhere around the globe and feeling at home? World like Home is a great business idea which became a reality due to creativity and persistence of the international start-up team. World like Home connects travellers to volunteers. The volunteer welcomes the traveller upon arrival and assists him/her in setting up and integration. How does it work? Volunteers simply add their availabilities on the platform indicating the services they are able to provide. The traveller looks for a volunteer on the platform, which then puts them in direct contact. Due to high online reputation standards the platform helps automatically create a trusted community by filtering out the bad guys.

” I received 3 students in Nancy in September 2015. It was an enriching experience that made me feel useful. For me, being a World like Home volunteer is the best way to be helpful to people we do not know while making new friends.” Habib, World like Home Volunteer

”Many Chinese students are spending more than 500 euros just for their reception. The arrival of World like Home will encourage many Chinese students to come to France, where they will be very well received at last! Thank you, World like Home, for such a social and solidarity concept ‘ Hi Yipeng, student in Le Mans.

Start-Up Booster supports great business ideas which make an impact in the world. We interviewed the World like Home team and found out the story behind the business:

“The adventure all started from a personal experience and we then vowed to provide a concrete solution to a problem faced by more than 4 billion travellers every year.   In 2014, I arrived in Paris from Cameroon as a student. I was admitted at ISMANS to study a second master’s degree. I had neither friends nor family members in the country. As such, I experienced difficulties upon my arrival, especially getting to Montparnasse from Paris Orly  Airport lugging all my belongings with me.   I thought I was the only one. However, arriving in Le Mans, I found out most of my friends had similar difficulties. Then, I thought it was probably just us. A few months later, I met a Colombian student lost in the city of Le Mans. I spent roughly three hours with him to help him find his student hostel and showed him around the city. I also assisted with getting his accommodation, food stuffs, university registration and insurance sorted out.

It was an enriching and wonderful experience. Immediately, I realized the universal nature of this problem and the idea of World Like Home was born. World like Home connects travellers to volunteers. The volunteer welcomes the travellers upon arrival and assists them in setting up.   That particular experience did not only shape my life, it changed my direction. We decided to embark on resolving this problem. We are ‘’democratising the process of reception, setting up and integration’’ of people in a town.”

The global nature of World like Home is seen right in her DNA, the Team. The team is composed of 3 young and passionate engineers, representing 3 different nationalities with a perfect mastery of Chinese, English and French.

The name says it all:

“We arrived at the name ‘’World like Home’’ after more than 6 months of research. We had to ask friends to propose 3 names each or more, of which more than 50 friends made proposals. We shortlisted 20 names and asked them to vote. The name ‘’World like Home’’ is powerful because it does not only represent the name of a start-up, it represents all in one: the Mission, the Vision, the Values & Principles. And I dare to say you don’t have so many start-ups nor established companies that enjoy such a privilege.”

After launching, World like Home was invited to participate in the innovation corner of the 2015 MEDEF summer university that took place in H.E.C in August 2015. They also participated in the Web Summit in Dublin which united more than 30 000 attendees from all over the world and close to 2500 start-ups.  Recently, Andrew, the general coordinator got sponsorship to attend the famous Start-up Grind Global Entrepreneurship Conference in Silicon Valley USA in February 2016. Roughly 500 candidates including Andrew were selected from more than 5 000 applications to join the prestigious Hive Global Leadership Program in Harvard USA, which unite people working on something really Big in the world… like ‘World like Home’, and who are committed to making a positive impact.  After a test phase which has seen a couple of international students benefiting from the concept, the platform is now preparing to deploy in the main cities of France with their 1  national campaign schedule to begin as early as possible.  A 1,000,000 USD funding will allow us to increase the size of our team and to scale up at a sustainable pace.

At the core of World like Home is social and service innovation, equality and nondiscrimination. According to World like Home, having a warm welcome when you go to a new place is not a privilege that should be reserved to the affluent, but a right that is supposed to be available to every human being irrespective of who they are or where they are going. Investing in World like Home is definitely promoting a better future for us all. Seeing it from the collaborative economy perspective, rapid growth and disruption only helps us better appreciate the untapped potential of World like Home.

As the General Coordinator Andrew puts it: ‘’our raison d’être is to make sure 5 to 10 years from now irrespective of where you choose to go, you are received as if you are going home’’.

” It’s a wonderful initiative indeed, who would not dream of making the world his/her home and feel everywhere like home. As for the volunteers, it is an excellent demonstration of solidarity ” Danielle, one of the very 1st users of the platform

”It was an enriching new experience that made me feel useful. For me, being a World like Home volunteer is the best way to be helpful to people we do not know while making new friends.” Habib, World like Home Volunteer.

World like Home has big plans:

“With such a great opportunity, we want everybody who wants to see a better world, a world where you can go to new places like going home, a world where you can have a friend or family everywhere you are going, to be part of it. That is why we will be launching our equity crowdfunding in less than 2 months’ times so that everybody can contribute in this vision. Please share this news with your friends and family! We all can be part of this vision, we all can be in this process of creating a better world for us all. Yes, you can be part of it too!”

Advice to founders or to-be founders:

Steve Jobs once said: ‘’To succeed, you need to be passionate and love what you do, because any ordinary person will Give-Up’’. Les Brown said: ‘’You better do what you are doing even if one million people say no to you, because at the end, you are not coming out alive from this life. There’s that one person that will say yes, keep looking’’. What I will add is: ‘’You have to be addicted to what you do. Work extremely hard and don’t let people tell you it can’t be done’’ because as the Chinese proverbs goes: ‘’They never knew it was impossible and they did it’’. ‘’Every day, look for something that gives you a reason to continue’’.

Keep in touch with us on:
Twitter: @WorldlikeHome
www.Facebook.com/worldlikehome/
www.world-like-home.com

Press contact:
Efuetngung Atem Andrew,
General Coordinator,
World like Home
+33 (0) 7 82 29 15 75
andrew@world-like-home.com