• Louis Demessine and Laure Matarese have developed Surfnow, a web application to find and book surf lessons online.

  • The objective is to simplify the life of customers but especially surf schools often overwhelmed in high season.

  • The two co-founders have the ambition to enrich their product with new functionalities in the coming months.

It was time !

So much for no longer spending “two days on the phone trying to find and book a surf lesson” as Marco experienced a little over a year ago when he came to the Basque coast.

So much also for the instructors to no longer “take long days” as Louis Demessine, the co-founder of Surfnow, points out.

In short, “it was time to digitize surfing” sums up the young 22-year-old teacher.

“The idea came from an observation.

We spend between 3,000 and 4,000 hours a year in the water, sometimes more than five times an hour and a half a day for lessons.

Afterwards, we have the washing, the administration and all the emails to deal with or phone calls to take for the following day… We had to find a solution to save time, ”explains the one who has just created with his partner, Laure Matarese , the first web application for online booking of geolocated surf lessons.

A tool that allowed Marco to “book his surf lesson this year in two minutes and five clicks”.

All this by giving only five pieces of information: surname, first name, date of birth, email and telephone.

About twenty surf schools already partners

“The goal is to make life easier for everyone,” says Louis Demessine.

Not necessarily to attract even more people since the number of practitioners is exploding [especially since its appearance at the Olympic Games in 2020].

Help our customers but especially the schools in order to have a less catastrophic management.

There, for example, they can offer their lessons in the pre-season and have reservations well in advance to organize themselves”.

Three months after the launch, Surfnow already has around twenty partner surf schools.

If a large majority is on the Atlantic coast, there are also three in the Mediterranean and three others in the Caribbean.

Another, installed in Bali, could soon join the web application (the term is important because it works in airplane mode).

Schools pay a subscription of 80 euros per month to offer their courses on the platform, plus an additional 20 euros for each teacher from the second.

To be just referenced, it's 40 euros a month.

"We absolutely do not take a commission on each course booked via Surfnow as other types of applications can do", insists the instructor installed at Grand Crohot in Gironde and former fifth Frenchman in long board.

The schools choose themselves if they want to charge the customer directly on the web application.

This makes it possible in particular to limit the number, sometimes significant, of last-minute cancellations and the loss of earnings that it accompanies.

New features to come?

But Louis Demessine and Laure Matarese do not intend to stop there.

They want to develop the same system by integrating surfing equipment.

Another objective is to move forward on BtoB.

That is to say, to allow schools to find, thanks to a referencing on Surfnow, an instructor when there are “more and more lack of them” according to the co-founders.

For his part, Marco has some ideas for further improving the product in the coming years: "I would find it interesting to be able to put notes or comments on the courses that we receive as on other applications and then for insiders , not necessarily for me the beginner, it could be good to have access to live cameras to see the state of the sea and the waves to know if it's worth the lesson to go there with your board.

Some ski resorts offer this to find out how much snow there is on the slopes”.

Did you see ?

He surfs a wave 26 meters high and breaks the world record

In the middle of a surf lesson, an instructor saves two teenagers from drowning

  • Sport

  • Surf

  • Mobile app

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  • Ocean

  • Bordeaux

  • Aquitaine