Nicholas Cohen is one of the four co-founders of Ankorstore. Currently, he is serving as the company’s co-CEO, with the other being Nicholas d’Audiffret. On the whole, the wholesale market seems promising, as shown by how it has managed to reach a valuation of $2 billion in just two years’ time.
1. Is a Mechanical Engineer
Cohen has an unsurprising interest in tech. After all, he is a mechanical engineer, meaning that it would be very strange if he had no interest in tech when he would have been expected to interact with a wide range of tech in a wide range of ways.
2. Based Out of the Greater Paris Metropolitan Area
In the present time, Cohen is based out of the Greater Paris metropolitan area. It should come as no surprise to learn that this area encompasses the whole of Île-de-France, which started out as the personal domain of the King of France. However, it is important to note that Greater Paris metropolitan area extends beyond it. For context, Île-de-France makes up 12,012 square km of the Greater Paris metropolitan area’s 17,194 square km.
3. Is an Angel Investor
Cohen is no stranger to the process of start-ups seeking out funding. He couldn’t be because he is an angel investor. Generally speaking, angel investors are seen as being beneficial to start-ups because they provide more funding, which is always useful for businesses. However, they can also serve as sources of advice, contacts, and other useful resources. In any case, the number of angel investors has seen a huge increase in the United States as well as other countries in recent decades, meaning that there are now more of them around than ever before. Cohen himself is very active in this regard, as shown by his investments in multiple start-ups.
4. Not His First Team-Up with Nicolas d’Audiffret
Ankorstore is not the first time that Cohen has teamed up with d’Audiffret. The two co-founded A Little Market in 2008, which is a marketplace meant for handmade products. Eventually, the two were able to sell their start-up to Etsy in 2014, with the result that they were then able to run Etsy’s European operations for three years’ time. It was during that time that they met another one of Ankorstore’s co-founders Pierre-Louis Lacoste.
5. Wants to Have a Positive Effect on People’s Lives
Entrepreneurs can have a wide range of reasons for their entrepreneurship. For example, a lot of them want to make money. Similarly, a lot of them want to do something that they enjoy. For that matter, it is normal for entrepreneurs to have more than one of these motivations because most people are multi-faceted like that. In Cohen’s case, he says that his primary motivation for being an entrepreneur is having a positive effect on people’s lives.
6. Believes that Ankorstore Is Preserving Value Rather than Disrupting Value
Cohen has voiced the belief that Ankorstore is helping people to preserve that which is important to them. He says that this is something that enables it to stand out from other kinds of tech, which are often seen as something that can have a very disruptive effect on value. For people who are confused, think about how new tech can make old tech obsolete. Something that can be very disruptive for those who are invested in that old tech for one reason or another.
7. Runs a Wholesale Marketplace for Independent Retailers
In any case, Cohen runs a wholesale marketplace for independent retailers. Interested parties can find a wide range of products on Ankorstore. However, some of those products such as home items and non-perishable groceries have fared better than the others. Still, there can be no doubt about its success, seeing as how it is now being used by 200,000 retailers. A figure that will presumably continue increasing in the times to come.
8. Faces Little Competition
Cohen’s company specifically operates in Europe, with the result that it has teams in five countries. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those include France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, with the other two being Sweden and the Netherlands. Combined, those teams enable Ankorstore to operate in 23 European markets. It is interesting to note that Ankorstore doesn’t face a lot of competition in its chosen niche. There are other companies targeting the same niche. However, the best-known of them seems to be a U.S.-based company that has just started breaking into the European market, meaning that it isn’t as threatening as it would be if it was already well-established.
9. Doesn’t Need a Lot of Infrastructure
One of the neat things about Cohen’s company is that it doesn’t need a lot of infrastructure. This is because Ankorstore isn’t selling anything of its own, meaning that it doesn’t have any inventory that needs to be stored in warehouses before being sent out to its customers. Instead, Cohen’s company facilitates transactions between independent brands and independent retailers, meaning that the tech is what matters most for its operations. He has outright compared his company to LinkedIn in the sense that it is helping a network of professionals to connect with one another.
10. Has a Number of Potential Ways to Expand
Cohen and his co-CEO are continuing to grow Ankorstore at a rapid pace, not least because the company has a number of potential ways to expand. For example, it doesn’t have a lot of infrastructure at the moment. However, that is something that could change in the future, which could enable it to provide its users with increased convenience. For the time being, Ankorstore seems more interested in expanding its product categories. In particular, non-perishable food has been mentioned, which is presumably more challenging to implement because it can’t last as long as the other products that can be found on the wholesale marketplace.
