Pasquel Lorne
He’s a thrill seeker who loves hiking, skiing and trail running. He has a knack for inventing new products and his latest one is taking teenagers by storm. Pasquel Lorne is The Inventor Of the new app called “LET”.
-Tell me something about your new invention – The “LET” App.
Pasquel: “LET” is a new social network for teenagers. It is a cool app for young teenagers to be able to talk with their friends in a chat room with everyone in the world. It’s a place that allows teenagers to connect with each other. When “LET” first came out, a famous teenage celebrity called me on the phone and asked if he can join the chat room. I said yes. And from that day on, “LET” went viral. A lot of teenagers have joined. Traditional, social networks like “Face Book” or “Twitter”, you can basically talk with your friends by sending texts and direct messages. But there’s no way you can access any kind of global chat rooms with the entire world next to you. What “LET” basically does, it organizes hash tags. Every hash tag is the center of interest which has a chat room attached to it. So, you just jump into a hash tag that you can connect with unlike Twitter. But on top of that, you can basically discuss any issues in a chat room with every device that uses hash tags. The teenagers love it because they can actually meet new people they have never heard of before. So, it’s kind of a local way to access any global network around the world. We are connecting more teenagers all around the world. Not only in their schools; not only in their city; not only in their inner circle of friends and family, now with “LET” teenagers are discovering new friends all over the planet. My three boys have joined and they think it’s cool.
-Where were you born and raised?
Pasquel: I was born and raised in France 42 years ago. I spent most of my childhood years outside of France. I left France when I was 17 years old and then I went to Germany to do some skiing because they have a lot of good snow over there and I love skiing. I also went to Austria for a while. That’s also a nice place for skiing. I then stayed in London for a year before going to Brazil. I had just married my wife Sylvie before moving to Brazil in 1996. Sylvie is a ceramic pottery artist. She makes Japanese teapot handles which I thought was very cool. Before I left Brazil in 1998, I worked as an engineer for a manufacturer called Renault. Renault is the French brand for doing tires over there. While I was there, I saw kids hanging on the streets and they were homeless. I wanted to help them. I wanted to get those kids off the streets and I wanted to try to get them into Special Houses for rehab. I learned a lot about “How to turn bad kids into good kids when you give them a lot of love.” I have skills in financial resources and I tried to dedicate it to what I’ve learned in Brazil while I was getting the kids off the streets. And “LET” is all about that. “LET” is not only connecting people with a revolutionary source which is better than “Face book or Twitter” but, it allow these kids to connect with a non violent communication where there’s no bullying. There’s only nice chat rooms. If someone is doing bad, instead of banning that person and say “Hey We Don’t Want You”, we’re trying to tell the kids hey, why don’t you stick together and ask “What’s Going Wrong?” Try to get together again because maybe it’s just a little detail that you have missed which could make you hate each other rather than using “LET” to become good friends. I believe training the teenagers today is the main challenge for everyone on this planet. They are the next generation. They are the next leaders of this world. So if your investing time taking them not only out of the streets like what I’ve done in Brazil, but you teach all of the teenagers around the world to interact together. I think with the “LET” App, we are doing a great job. We have a great program for the future. We have three boys of our own. Their ages are seven, ten and fourteen. They love the “LET” App.
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-When interacting with your three boys on a daily basis, when do you find time to invent the “LET” APP?
Inventing Apps or inventing a company is not like something you would wake up every day and say “I want to find time and try to invent something”. Usually an invention is a long process where, during your career, you would have numerous meetings with other people and other companies. First, you start having a little idea of what you want to do. And down the road, you are gathering thoughts and ideas for your invention. Finally, when it’s the right time, your ideas begin to come to life. These inventions could take many years. (Pasquel began reminiscing about his previous company)… When I first sold my previous company, well after I sold my company, I think I had all the pieces of the puzzle in my head and I thought, now that I have time, a little bit of money and resources to dedicate my time to it, now is the time to build my puzzle. That’s basically how I invented the “LET” App. It took a twenty year process in maturing my vision of the world and meeting with great scientists that altogether gathered in one place at one time.
-I read that you’ve invented other things. Tell me a little bit about your first invention. The ISMAP.
Approximately ten years ago if you can remember, there were no way to get email on a phone. I mean, there were Blackberries but that was it. So at the time, my team and I (Pasquel then said) I need to give a lot of credit to my co-founder because he is a genius as well. Well, my team and I invented a way to read an email on a featured phone. Do you remember those black and white phones? “Yes I do remember them Pasquel.” Well, we came up with that invention for a phone to read email and Insta messages. That was when I was still in Europe. I had a chance to meet with the CEO of Microsoft back in Seattle. I then initially met with the Microsoft team. When they saw our technology, they said wow! They were totally amazed by our invention. Microsoft was the leader of email and hotmail. Microsoft team told us if we can bring Hotmail on every phone device, that was going to be massive. When they realized the potential of the technology, they literally helped my company get from two guys in a garage to two hundred people in two years. We went very fast.
Microsoft helped my company with a lot. After that, they invited me to meet with the executive and that’s how our company grew so fast. With our invention, you can see who’s connected and then you can chat. Remember, there was no way to chat before. There was no SMS. No one was using SMS. That was pretty much what was on the phone at that time until our invention. We were the very first one to bring the Hotmail, Email and messaging on the phone.
-In 2004, you sold your company to NOKIA. What type of invention was that?.
That was an interesting company. We completely messed it up and that’s a shame. We had a company which was as efficient and as amazing as Google Map. We were a little bit ahead of schedule because internet was not that much similar. We did very well but my co-founder and I didn’t go well together, as far as strategic reasons and family reasons. And in an instant, we went from zero to 150 employees and then from 150 employees to zero in about four years. I was very fortunate to sell it to NOKIA just before we crashed. I was very privileged there. NOKIA decided to take it to their company and put it into every single NOKIA device with a GPS. So we have been embedding our mapping system which was equivalent to GOOGLE Map on every NOKIA device almost 30 years ago. No one remembers that time. But these were the black and white screens with GPS phone and the little maps moving very slowly. That was the ancestors, the prehistoric ages of the Google Map on your I-Phone.
-Your next invention was the MIYOWA. Tell me about that invention.
When we first did HOTMAIL and Insta-Messaging for Microsoft back in 2004, which was the very beginning of Face Book and Twitter In 2007, I moved to the US and met with Mark Zuckerberg from Face Book and the founder of Twitter and I told him to look at what we do at Mobile. You guys should be there. And they said, if you did that for Microsoft, you should do that for us. So I basically brought Face Book to mobile. So we did the very first Face Book for Mobile.
-You sold that software to Synchronos Technology in 2012 for $59,000,000. Did you really want to sell that company?
Well, we raised a lot of funds and we had a lot of investors whom we really wanted to give their money back. They were putting a lot of pressure on me to sell that company and they wanted to get their money back. So at some point I committed to make an exit. I sold the company even though I was not for sale. Believe me or not, when Synchronos reached us in October of 2011, I told them my company and I were not for sale. That’s when they came back to me with a very nice offer in eight weeks. From the very first day of hearing about this company Synchronos, who wanted to purchase our company, I have never heard of them. All I know was their money was in the bank account and the deal was closed in eight weeks. The deal went so fast. In January of 2012, I will never forget it, I was riding in a train coming back from Paris because the deal transpired in Paris. As I was walking in the train station, my head was spinning. I knew the money was in my bank account, which was wired from their bank to mine from the day before. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I said to myself; OK! I began screaming and crying and started saying to myself; what’s next? What am I going to do tomorrow? I was literally crying and I kept saying… This is the end. This is the end. It took me about six months to figure out what’s next? I was like a philanthropist. I took care of a lot of my family members including my parents who still reside in France. I had enough time to take care of them. My wife and my kids were definitely taken care of. I rested a lot for six months. I was forty at that time. After resting for six months and taking care of my family, I became restless. I said I need to do something. I needed to do something with my hands. I wanted to create jobs. So, that’s when I decided I wanted to do something bigger than before. Am I going to open up a restaurant? Am I going to become a Taxi driver. I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur because I’m independent. I really don’t like having thousands of employees reporting to me. I’m independent. So, I kept thinking of what type of job can I do? I needed a job that would give me enough freedom and action potential to change the world. Then I thought to myself, that’s what I have to do. That’s when I came up with this idea to do a new social network.
I felt Face Book is about bullying and putting light on stupid stories and stupid pictures and stupid videos and I didn’t think this was doing any good for the world. I then thought, if we use their potential of connecting people all over the world, (I tried to look at that from a different angle) maybe we could change something. I was thinking about going into politics. Entrepreneurs like myself thought about running for some sort of election. I spoke to some of my friends about running for some kind of political office and my friends said, don’t do it. They said, that’s the worst place you want to be. They said, working as a politician, you need to learn how to “Lie”, Never “Promise”, and your only goal is to get elected. You wouldn’t care about the citizens. Don’t get into politics and become a politician. Change the world in the way you know how to and change it with a company that is positive. The most positive thing that came out of this was my invention for the “LET” app. I love it.
-How many people are following your “LET” App?
It’s not that many. We’ve reached a million users within two months without advertising about “LET”. It’s amazing. It’s all word of mouth. My business is definitely growing. We have one new celebrity joining every single day. There are a few guys like “Jack Dail” and “Jake Boise” who had joined. No-one knew of them then but now, everybody knows of them. They literally blew up from zero to millions of followers. Both of them are on “LET”, Instagram and Twitter. By joining “LET”, we helped them reach more people and become famous. They blew up thanks to us.
Prince Jackson, Michael Jackson’s son joined about a week ago. I didn’t even know he was on it. He sent me a message on “LET” and said… “Pasquel, Can I be verified?” I said OK. But who are you? He said Prince Jackson. I said… Yeah. Ok. Why do you want to be verified? What’s up? He said, you can link to my website and then you will understand. I then realized, he was a celebrity. Oh my GOD. This is a celebrity. Celebrities are joining “LET” now. They are inviting their friends. Everything has been going crazy since last month. I literally have one celebrity joining every day. It’s just fascinating what is happening. It’s so cool.
-While your out skiing, hiking and trail running, what’s your wife doing?
She comes with me (Pasquel laughs). Every-time I go, she’s with me. We always tried to watch the weather condition before we go skiing or do any hiking or trail running. We are pretty cautious. Hiking and trail running is dangerous but, it’s a good way to get the balance of the nature. You need to learn how to listen and learn the nature before you go. Anything and Everything might go wrong when you start saying you’re the best. Just stop and listen to the nature especially if nature is telling you not to go when it’s windy out there. Stay inside. We’re very cautious about doing those things. Another one of my favorites is yoga. I do a lot of yoga. Every single morning, I dedicate 30 minutes of my day to yoga. I connect with the ground and I also try to connect with the environment.
-Can I join “LET” or is it only for teenagers?
You can join as well. But, mostly teenagers are on it. Your on Instagram right? I’m on Instagram too. Instagram was initially formed for teenagers. Everyone is on it now. “LET” was initially formed for teenagers to have an outlet and connect to the world. We have a lot of people on “LET” now. Teenagers like it more.
-What’s next for “LET” Pasquel?
Next is to try to get more celebrities onto “LET”. We are having a show over the weekend in New York for 4,000.00 fans and 300 celebrities who will be showing up in one place and hopefully we can sign all of them on that day. 95% of teenagers on “LET” are girls and my sons are boys. They are not into the dating frenzy right now but, they made a lot of friends on “LET” who plays video games. So, they are discovering new friends as well. My sons names are Simeon whose 7; Pablo is 10; and Zephio is 14. I’m glad I invented this “LET” App. I won’t be selling this one no time soon. I think I will hold onto this one.
-Pasquel Lorne has had many inventions. Some which made him millions. The last invention “LET”, has raised his popularity from zero to millions within a couple of weeks. Pasquel is young, talented and gifted when it comes to his mind and hands. Follow him and find out what invention he will invent next. Pasquel Lorne, is the man of many visions.
