Here is the Wajam story

How Wajam started

As an angel investor and startup mentor, founder Martin-Luc Archambault has relied on the knowledge of his friends on countless occasions to make good business decisions.

With the popularity of social networks, Martin-Luc wondered why it was so difficult to search through what his friends had shared with him. "My friends share bits of wisdom each day across social networks— there has to be an easy way to tap into this knowledge." This idea gave birth to Wajam.

What started as a prototype with one engineer and one business guy quickly grew into a 10 person startup crunching massive amounts of social data.

Today, the team works on the forefront of innovation— bringing you the best in social search.

The team

Martin-Luc Archambault

Martin-Luc Archambault

CEO & Co-Founder

As Wajam's chief executive officer, Martin-Luc is responsible for day-to-day operations as well as leading the company's product development. Martin-Luc is an accomplished serial entrepreneur and angel investor with more than 15 years of leadership experience building, selling and advising technology companies. As co-founder and chairman of start-up incubator Bolidea, Martin-Luc has invested in Planbox, Artfox, Acadam, Modasuite, Anomalous Networks, Real Ventures and Montreal Start Up. Martin-Luc holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from HEC Montreal, and participates in the Canadian start-up community as a mentor for FounderFuel and GrowLab as well as a board member for Anges Québec.

Sebastien Giroux

Sebastien Giroux

Web Developer

As the first web developer at Wajam, Sebastien is a core member of our engineering team— building the first Wajam prototype. His preferred web language is PHP, but he has handled everything thrown at him, from building X in Java and Y in C++. He's a frequent contributor to the open source community, most recently open-sourcing a graphic user interface for Cassandra, our database. Prior to Wajam, Sebastien launched websites for fashion brands, schools, and night clubs. He's most proud of his modded 1993 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24.

Pierre-Alain Loiseau

Pierre-Alain Loiseau

Web Developer

As the front-end developer at Wajam, Pierre-Alain translates the Wajam product into a usable and accessible piece of art. He's sticky on details, and relentless in his quest for perfection. Hailing from Normandy, France, Pierre-Alain has an affinity for spicy Asian food, travel, wine and classic rock.

Andre-Philippe Paquet

Andre-Philippe Paquet

Web Developer

Andre-Philippe is our Big Data specialist at Wajam. Having earned his Engineering degree at ETS, he's dabbled in all sorts of projects, from Linux to mainframes, COBOL to C#. He currently leads our efforts to make Wajam search results more relevant by working on information extraction and machine learning. He's responsible for designing and maintaining a scalable architecture. In short, his work lets Wajam store and serve up relevant results quickly. In his free time, he enjoys riding four wheelers in the backwoods of Quebec.

Guillaume Soustelle

Guillaume Soustelle

Web Developer

Proficient in many languages including C, C++, SQL, Java and Haskell, Guillaume is a key part of the Wajam engineering team. Guillaume graduated from Université du Québec à Montréal with a Bachelor in Computer and Software Engineering. His dedication to solving any problem sent his way has made him a great chess player and a tenacious developer. Guillaume thinks that Wajam is best used for looking up stand-up comics. He highly recommends Ray William Johnson and Chris Pirillo for the LEGO fanatics.

Gabriel Tataranu

Gabriel Tataranu

System Administrator

Gabriel is our resident system administrator, making sure that all the data we crunch works in symphony with the hardware we use. He's been a member of the Linux community since 1993, when you could still count the number of Linux users on one hand. A proud family man, Gabriel was originally trained as a chemical engineer in his native land of Romania.

Benjamin P Rollert

Benjamin P Rollert

Business Intelligence

As Wajam's business intelligence analyst, Ben is responsible for optimizing conversion and user retention. He makes the sign up flow easy. Having earned a degree in economics from McGill University, he sharpened his analytics skills in the online dating industry. Originally from the United States, Ben is an international man of mystery. When he’s not fencing or keeping the sky from falling, Ben can be found working on his jazz music. He also likes chocolate cake for breakfast.

Vincent Przybyla

Vincent Przybyla

Web Designer

Although Vincent worked hard to earn his Master's in marketing, he's most proud of teaching himself the art of web design. Between late night sessions perusing through the latest visual galleries and coding his side projects, he honed his design chops, earning a double-page spread in WebDesign magazine. Self-taught, Vincent knows first-hand the value of links shared online. He's a big fan of Carsonified, UX Magazine and Smashing Magazine and thinks you should follow them too. Vincent is originally from Lille, France.

Alain Wong

Alain Wong

Community Manager

Alain came to Wajam fresh off a week of DJ’ing in Boston and brings with him a wealth of experience, having previously worked at Montreal startups Akoha and Standout Jobs. Although he spends the majority of his time helping users and spreading the Wajam love, he’s also be sitting in on our design sessions to help us improve the look and flow of the product. When not working, Alain can be found dancing and choreographing for swing dancers as well as taking LONG bike rides.

Felix Trepanier

Felix Trepanier

Web Developer

Felix is the newest addition to our team, but don't let that fool you. He comes with many, many years of experience. After finishing his Masters in Computer Systems Engineering in New Zealand, Felix honed his coding skills at Oz Communication, Nokia and Synchronica before arriving at Wajam. Little known facts: Felix is a runner, having ran multiple half-marathons, and he's also visited every continent except Antarctica. That's his next vacation destination!

Felix Trepanier

Israel Halle

Web Developer