Qwant SAS

Context

Qwant is Europe's privacy-first search engine. At the start there were around nine people and no product team; three years had gone into modernising the technology, but product was uncharted territory. UX, prioritisation and monetisation were all still to be built.

What we did

With no product team in place, I built the product function from the ground up: as team lead I ran Qwant's first UX overhaul, then spent six months leading a business-intelligence team to turn anonymous usage data into clear patterns and pain points. That evidence drove the move to agile ways of working and a sharper approach to prioritisation.

On monetisation, I rebuilt the shopping-search category end to end, strengthened paid-ads revenue, and opened new channels including homepage promotion and the first build of Qwant's own ad server. I also contributed to the music, games and junior verticals and led Qwant Causes, which shared ad revenue with charities.

Outcome

Daily active users grew from 500,000 to 6 million. The company was not yet profitable, but optimising its revenue channels halved the operating deficit. Thousands of euros were channelled to charities through Qwant Causes.

What lasts

By the time I moved on, the product function stood on its own: three product managers in place, a UX team built from scratch, and a genuine analytics and data culture. The agile ways of working and the in-house ad server carried on without me.

What people say