About Djengo
Djengo is the story of 4 young university graduates super entrepreneurs who still think they can change the world. Great for them.
Briefly, djengo is a web start-up which facilitates travel on a short and medium distance basis in a car with somebody else (carpooling). With djengo you can book a driver or a passenger in a click. True story.
Before going any further, let us inform you that we still have NO IDEA what the meaning of « djengo » is or where this name came from! It just came about one day and now we sticked to it. Sort of addictive. By the way, if you have any good idea for us, keep us posted and you may win the «creative » badge.
How did these 4 guys (not eaving out the girl) meet??
One day Guillaume was hitchhiking and no one in all the empty cars which passed, stopped for him. He thought something had to change. He spoke of his vision to Anissia (the girl) who thought there might be something in this (Guillaume comes up with 10 ideas a week). Together they formed their first dream team with 3 IT guys. Hello djengo or rather shall I say at this stage “an embryo” of djengo!
Meanwhile, in April 2011, they signed up to the « Founder Institute » which is an American program helping entrepreneurs launch enduring “tech companies”. This program sets milestones which companies have to adhere to. We had exactly 3 weeks to incorporate the company!
However the team they set up was not so dreamy. The 3 IT guys were not entrepreneurs ready for the big adventure. They could not face the prospect of quitting their jobs, of working 80 hours a week, or of going back to live with their parents without receiving any salary. Founder Institute helped Anissia and Guillaume to kick them out of djengo. They were alone again.
Anissia & Guillaume still had confidence because they felt they formed a perfect match. She is the kind of pragmatic and straight and forward girl and he is the visionary & funny guy. Just to give you an example, he wrote this text and she corrected it.
They had precious little time to find new super IT co-founders. They found them just in time.
Tanguy was betting in casinos, visiting the Google headquarters and presenting his thesis in Silicon Valley when he got his first Skype call from Anissia.
Tanguy is used to working with his sidekick: David. Djengo succeeded in getting the 2 most brilliant young IT entrepreneurs from the entire Belgium Kingdom. Still not understood? Do you know how many “ruby on rails” (IT language) coders exist in Belgium? Not many. They are rare!
Their young folly, thirst for adventure and good feeling motivated the four guys (and the girl) into establishing the company in 3 weeks. Djengo was created during May 2011.
Finally, what brought these bright young things together?
Make the most out of every empty seat!
Does that sound Chinese to you? Right.
Today thanks to the web revolution we are moving more and more towards a collaborative consumption society: everyone is sharing with everyone else and some even collaborate to other’s achievements. Let’s just have a look to the last examples: Couchsurfing enables people to offer their couch, Airbnb enables people rent their room, Buzzcar enables people rent their car etc.
Also, the current state of mobility vs ecology is a disaster. Did you know that the average car is used only for 1h00 per day and is filled by 1,1 person. That the average driver issues 4 tons CO2 emissions par year? A cow on overage releases between 70 and 120 kg of Methane per year which is equivalent to about 2300 kg CO2 per year. You as a driver pollute more than cow farts.
One solution to these issues is carpooling.
The word «carpooling» however is so uncool that it literally gives one goosebumps. Djengo is looking to change this.
The djengo founders found a good recipe.
From now on, djengo would become the « carpooling doodle ». As an easy tool to coordinate your trips. The system generates a link that can easily be communicated by the creator.
On djengo, anyone can create an event for free. The creation of a djengo event will facilitate carpooling to and from the event.
But more that that, djengo aims to be the new mobile social network.
- Djengo integrates – under the user’s agreement – information available on other social networking sites onto its user profile. The user will then be able to notice, for example, that he has 3 common Facebook friends with a potential carpooler proposed by djengo.
- Finally, djengo has a compulsory rating system. At the end of the journey djengo users must rate the person with whom they travelled. This rating is based on the use of fun badges (“nice”, “funny”, “bob” but also “late”, “never showed up”, “cancelled last minute”, “I didn’t like this trip”).
That is just the poetry behind the facts and figures. Now it is time to test it in real life. We already thank you for checking out our website. Don’t hesitate to send us feedback and comments on twitter, facebook, by mail. You are also welcome to come see us in our offices.
We thank you for using djengo,
Anissia, Tanguy, Guillaume & David