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Profiles, trends and startupers in their own words

375 STARTUPERS

375 STARTUPERSProfiles, trends and startupers in their own words

ROLAND BERGER / NUMA

Roland Berger / NUMA

35

About Roland Berger

Operating in France since 1990, Roland Berger is the world’s leading management strategy consulting firm of European origin and boasts 2,400 employees at 50 offices in 36 countries. Our Paris office employs some 300 of them, including 240 consultants and 29 partners, and advises major French and international corporations on key business issues. Roland Berger is the creative force behind the Terra Numerata™ digital network, an open and non-exclusive partnership platform pooling skills and expertise that industry, associations and public institutions can draw on for their digital projects.

About NUMA

A major player in the digital ecosystem for the last 15 years, NUMA brings together inventors, entrepreneurs and startup founders with the aim of enhancing and showcasing innovation. With offices in Paris, Moscow, Bangalore and Casablanca, NUMA pursues three main goals: the event-driven nurturing and structuring of communities (it is the founder of the “Cantine Numérique” (“Digital Canteen”) and staged 1,500 events attracting 80,000 people in 2015); the acceleration of startups (having provided such a service to 104 of them since 2011, and over 200 mentors); and the digital transformation of companies (NUMA supports one third of CAC 40 companies in their digitalization and also set up the first public/private multi-partner program) through open innovation and experimentation.

FURTHER INFO

Links & favoritesORDER ANDDOWNLOADwww.rolandberger.comwww.375.numa.co

STAY CONNECTEDwww.twitter.com/BergerPariswww.twitter.com/numaparis

LIKE AND SHAREwww.facebook.com/Roland BergerStrategyConsultantswww.facebook.com/numaparis

ABOUTROLAND BERGER & NUMAwww.rolandberger.comwww.numa.co

375 startupers: profiles, trends and startupers in their own words



Methodology • 4

Introduction • 5

Why start my own business? • 6The need for freedom • 7

A market opportunity first and foremost • 7

Who am I? • 10A young man… • 11

… with a business school degree • 11I met my co-founders on my course • 19

What do I do? • 24B2C is sexy • 25

Widely varying target markets: a cause of potential creative disruption • 28

How can I help myself? • 30Technical support and market knowledge: two key needs • 31

Core essentials • 31Support for decision-making • 32

Conclusion • 33

About Roland Berger and NUMA • 35

Table of contents


04 375 startupers: profiles, trends and startupers in their own words

MethodologyThis study is based on two surveys of 375 startups applying for NUMA’s business accelerator program: a Startups survey comprising 19 questions on the business project’s origin and environment and the difficulties and needs of entrepreneurs; and an Entrepreneurs’ survey made up of 21 questions on the sociological characteristics of startup founders (age, education, etc.) and the way in which they work on a daily basis. From this initial sample, we chose to remove some 40 foreign startups and 27 startups that have already attracted more than €100,000 in funding, the idea being for us to focus solely on the target group of our study: newly created French startups that have yet to raise funding.

NUMA’s business accelerator program attracts startup founders looking for help in developing their projects. In reflecting that support, this study provides an insight into a less well-known aspect of French entrepreneurship: newly founded startups about to embark on their business adventure.



For the first time, an international consultancy firm, Roland Berger, and a global startup accelerator, NUMA, have joined forces in a bid to enhance the digital transformation of the French economy and develop its digital ecosystem. The two have combined in this study to shed a revealing light on new French startups, a breeding ground that is still something of an unknown quantity among the media, investors and public authorities.

ince 2011, NUMA’s business accelerator pro-gram has provided support for more than 100 digital startups and received 2,930 applica-tions. Some 80% of these companies are still

operating and create hundreds of jobs each year. Hun-dreds of startups have been successfully taken over, while some have continued their development by join-ing leading business accelerators abroad and others have achieved growth by attracting funding.

In choosing their markets, striving for an impact and expressing their desire to innovate, these new business owners are driving French entrepreneurship forward. Getting to know them better will provide us with a fresh way of interpreting economic and social trends. So what do we really know about these entrepreneurs? Why do they decide to take the plunge and go into business? Where do the successful businesses of the near and not-so-near future emerge from? Just what are the emerging business models and industries? And what are the obstacles facing these entrepreneurs? What are their needs?

While there has never been a shortage of analysis of new startups and the entrepreneurs behind them, the fact is there has been relatively little data available up to now. How can they get it right, and how can we help get funds moving if we can only see the tip of the iceberg, namely the startups that have raised funding? In seeking to ad-dress that very lack of information, this study enables a number of conclusions to be drawn on the economic and social nature of French entrepreneurship:

→ The desire for a challenge and to make an impact is the main reason why entrepreneurs start a business, an indication of how they call the conventional enter-prise into question.

→ First and foremost they are seeking market oppor-tunities, including openings in markets they know lit-tle about. Business startup trends can therefore pro-vide indicators of future creative disruption.

→ Entrepreneurs are mainly young men who meet at an elite school (grande école) and have largely similar profiles.

→ In terms of economic models, they are mostly in-spired by the success of other startups, which points to the importance of a certain collective entrepreneurial imagination.

→ They have many needs, which mainly involve knowledge of the market they are looking to break into, technical aspects and, above all, support with de-cision making.

We hope that this study serves as a guide for those who, in some way or other, have an interest in the world of startups, are thinking about taking the plunge or who are looking to offer support to French entrepreneurs. If, in the coming months and years, private and public stakeholders engage in initiatives that are not mere posturing and white washing but instead have a genuine impact on entrepreneurs who are starting out, then we will have achieved our aim.

Happy reading everyone.

S



Why start my own business? What motivates startup founders?

1

KEY FACTS AND FIGURES

The potential growth of the target market is the main criteria when it comes to selecting a project, and was cited by 50% of startup founders, well ahead of the next most common factor: having a technical innovation to promote (36%).

«Meeting challenges» and «changing the rules» are the two main motivations for entrepreneurs.

Some 50% of projects come into existence as a result of friendships and business school networks.

06



The need for freedomFirst and foremost, startup founders like to be free and independent in the way that they work. «Meeting challenges», «changing the rules», «being indepen-dent» and «creating a job for myself» are the four main sources of motivation for entrepreneurs. These results highlight the rather dim view that entrepreneurs have of conventional enterprise, a place where they feel re-stricted and find it hard to bring their projects to frui-tion. It is a view expressed many times in the course of their interviews.

This desire for freedom at work has a price, however, namely considerable financial uncertainty. Only 30% of startup founders have the resources to stay in the game for a year.

A market opportunityfirst and foremostThough the commonly held view of entrepreneurs is that they are geeks driven by technical concepts and lacking in knowledge and insight into the market, half of startup founders were motivated more than anything by their wish to engage in a market they believe to be growing fast. Some 28% also pointed to the size of the market as a reason for their decision, while 36% said they were driven by a desire to respond to a need not catered for by the market. However, only 36% said that the fact they had come up with a technical innovation was the reason why they had gone into business.

The increased importance attached to «market awareness» over technical concepts is reflected in the skills that startup founders possess. Topping that list is business and finance (34%), followed by marketing and communication (25%), technical development (24%) and product design and development. This ranking in terms of skills is backed up by the profiles and educational background of startup founders, more and more of whom are business school graduates (see page 18).

Source: NUMA; Roland Berger study

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MOTIVATION

What are your reasons for starting up your own business?




50%

36%

36%

28%

10%

8%

3%

It’s growing quickly

We felt there was a need that wasn’t being met

We have an innovative solution for this market

It’s a big market

The sector appeals to us

We know this market well

We’re operating in this market and want to launch our product

BUSINESS/ FINANCE

MARKETING/COMMUNI-

CATION

TECHNICAL DEVELOP-

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UX/DESIGN/ PRODUCT

DEVELOPMENT

OTHER DESIGN/GRAPHIC DESIGN

34%

25%

24%

8% 6%

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SELECTION CRITERIA

Why have you targeted your particular market?

SKILLS

Main skill possessed by founder(s)



Profiles of Simon and Augustin, the founders of Read

The geek and the designer.Made for each other

How did you come up with the idea behind this project? AUGUSTIN: What brought us together was the fact we’re all pretty intellectual and bookish and we all have a thing for technology. We really have three different profiles that complement each other well, which makes it all pretty natural. We also wanted to go on an adventure with friends. We’re more than just colleagues.SIMON: It was a couple of years ago and we were all talking about starting our theses in economics, philosophy and design. We decided instead to go into business on our own because we had a passion for the market and a desire to make a product that people really wanted. Then there was also the fact that we rejected the vertical organizational structures of conventional companies.

What’s your take on French entrepreneurship? SIMON: It’s getting sexier and sexier. A few years ago you really didn’t get that many people coming out of business school and starting up companies on their own. AUGUSTIN: We’re looking to the USA. That’s where the B2C culture is. There’s a market there for that kind of company and team, which you don’t have in France. An investor can come along and make a crazy investment in a product that you might think is risky. We’re focusing our fundraising efforts on business angels, who look at the team and not just the product.

imon, an MBA graduate, and his bro-ther Thomas, who has a degree in Fine Arts, have already designed se-veral digital reading apps. It was at

NUMA in early 2015 that they met

École Polytechnique graduate Augustin, who was working on a book recommendation system. Putting their heads together, they came up with Read, a mobile digital reading app for e-books and documents. Now avai-lable at the App Store, it stands out for its de-sign, the level of reader comfort it offers, and its ability to integrate with existing services.

S

of entrepreneurs get more than seven hours’ sleep a night (16% get less than five).

57%FUN FACT



10

Who am I? The typical startup founder

2


81% of startup founders are men.

60% are aged between 25 and 34.

Engineers and business school graduates are equally represented (23%), while sales and marketing are the most common backgrounds among younger age groups.



A young man… The figures speak for themselves: 81% of startup founders are men. In the world of startups the issue of equality represents even more of a challenge than it does anywhere else. Many explanations have been given for this state of affairs (gender-based accounts of what it is to go into business on one’s own, self-censorship, and the under-representation of women in some industries, etc.), all of which say as much about government policy on gender equality as they do about initiative in the business world. While, for example, the women surveyed feel potential investors take them a good deal less seriously than they do men, young entrepreneurs are averse to any form of positive discrimination in favor of women entrepreneurs (see «Women entrepreneurs» on page 13).

Startup founders are also young: 60% are aged between 25 and 34, with a further 15% under 25 and 11% aged 40 for more. For every age group, going into business poses a series of specific challenges (see «Starting up at 20 and 40» on page 15).

…with a business school degreeFrench startup founders are also highly qualified, with 46% possessing elite-school degrees, a significantly higher percentage than those with university degrees (32%) or PhDs (4%). At 23%, engineering and bu-siness school graduates are equally represented.

There are, however, a higher proportion of business school degree holders among younger startup foun-ders, whereas the proportion of engineers seems to decrease with age, which undermines the idea that entrepreneurs are geeky whizzkids and reflects the spread of skills among startup founders, where tech-nical development ranks only third highest, behind business and finance, and marketing.


AGE OF STARTUP FOUNDERS

<20 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 >40

15%

1%

35%

24%

14%

11%



81%

MALE/FEMALE STARTUP FOUNDERS: BREAKDOWN

19%

12



DomitilleFlore

Women entrepreneurs

Profiles of Flore and Domitille, the founders of Filoute



What are the main difficulties female entrepreneurs face? FLORE: The main difficulty is credibility. We’re both women and we look about five years younger than we actually are. People say things to us like: ‘You’re a couple of little cuties having fun with your hands. That’s all well and good, but you can’t make a business out of it.’ Well, we’ve shown that we can. DOMITILLE: They say we’re just bloggers, but we’re so much more than that. If we were operating in a male industry, they’d be more inclined to call us ‘media’, not bloggers. When we meet with people about raising funds we always have to talk up what we’re doing. We have to make the point that we’ve looked into what we’re doing, that we haven’t gone into this blind.

n ESSCA business science graduate, Flore took up knitting while working for a major fashion and luxury group in the Philippine capital of

Manila, the simple reason being that she needed a hobby to occupy her time whenever there was a power cut during the typhoon season. The holder of a degree from the ESSEC Business School, Domitille picked up sewing from her grandmother. Prompted by one of their conversations lamenting the lack of instructive sewing tutorials on the internet, she came up with the idea behind Filoute. After launching the first version of the site in September 2014 and following up two months later with a blog, Flore and Domitille began selling patterns online in March 2015. We asked the female tandem, something of a rarity in a very masculine environment, to share their entrepreneurial experiences with us.

A What’s it like to be a female entrepreneur in France? DOMITILLE: There aren’t many women doing their own startups at all, and there aren’t many specific initiatives to encourage them either. Of the ones there are, some might help us – but does it make much sense to do things that help women only? FLORE: Then there’s the fact that female entrepre-neurs with young children aren’t eligible for day nur-series! Some people think we’re housewives who can just down tools when we need to.

And what do you think of French entrepreneurship in general? DOMITILLE: What I think is positive is that France was a bit behind but that now you’ve got incubators pop-ping up pretty much everywhere, and the media are talking about it too. It’s become cool to launch your own company and to be your own boss, which wasn’t the case five years ago. FLORE: It goes without saying that we’re looking to the international market. We’re close to the fashion world, although we’re more ‘ready to make’ than ‘ready to wear’. It makes sense for us to project a ‘Made in France’ image abroad.

People say things to us like: «You’re a couple of little

cuties having fun with your hands. That’s all well

and good, but you can’t make a business out of it.»

Well, we’ve shown that we can.



Starting up at 20 and 40

Florent

lorent was at engineering school when he came up with an app that allowed users with similar interests to link up with each other.

After launching it, he teamed up with a class-mate and founded Olea Park, a networking application for professional events. For his part, Matthieu spent 15 years working for a company before deciding to team up with a childhood friend and launch LoungeUp, a cloud-based hospitality solution for the hotel industry. As these intrepid entrepreneurs show, age is no impediment to going it alone.

F

Profiles of Florent, the founder Olea Park, and Mathieu, the founder of LoungeUp



Tell us about Lounge Up, Matthieu.MATTHIEU: I started it up with a childhood friend who had a technical background, while I was more into the product and business side. We wanted to set up our own thing and that’s what drove us on. We worked together every weekend for a year, with the idea of starting a company together in B2B in mobile. Prior to that, I did some work experience at an incubator at the ESSEC Business School. After three months there we had to come up with a business project, which I did with a friend of mine at the time, though we weren’t brave enough to go on and launch it. Then, one day 15 years later, I was out with my business partner Lionel, who’s a father like me, and we were pushing our pushchairs and talking about how we were going to start something up together.

How did you go about that?I left my job. I handed the keys to my company car back on September 10, 2011 and the very next day I was at NUMA with all these ‘youngsters’. I remember it well. Being with those young entrepreneurs and with experts and mentors in an inspiring environment like that was a challenge for us. We went there feeling like we were pretty mature people with management experience behind us, but it took us out of our comfort zone.

So where are you now?We’ve got a profitable business that employs about ten people. We’re the market leaders in France, with more than 1,000 hotels. It feels very satisfying to be running a profit, and we’ve also managed to attract funding. We’ve been through quite a bit of uncertainty in the last four years, so it feels great now to have a little bit of security.

How hard is it to deal with the stress?MATTHIEU: Starting up a company is like running a marathon: you have to stay the distance and not get out of breath. It’s always been important for me to strike a work/life balance. When I get home at night, I switch off and try to kick back and relax. They call me ‘Papa’ at NUMA! I arrive at nine or ten in the morning and I’m out the door at seven in the evening. It’s a real eye-opener for me when I see all the younger entrepre-neurs staying on virtually the whole night.

«It’s important to be respected, by customers and investors, even if you’re young.»

Where did the idea behind Olea Park come from? FLORENT: It all started at engineering school. I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life, but then I had this idea that I wanted to make happen: to bring people with the same interests and living in the same area into contact with each other. It was technically com-plex but I started to develop it on my own, and it was then that I suddenly realized that I was totally into it. I spent my entire summer holidays on it and it became a school project. Then I started on the Olea Park pro-ject with my business partner. We reworked the origi-nal idea based on what we’d seen on the ground. Then we decided to move to Berlin!

What happened there?In business terms, it was very tough, especially when it came to monetizing the application. We tried to raise some money but decided to stop, and the project came to a natural and logical end. ‘Fail fast’, as they say. All the choices we made were very instinctive.

And now? Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur?Yes. Once you tasted the adrenaline of building a pro-duct by yourself there’s no way you can do anything else. I joined a startup and specialized in the product side of things. I’ve moved on to another startup now. It’s the start of the adventure, so here I am being an entrepreneur again.

What’s the difference between France and Berlin in terms of being an entrepreneur?There’s more capital, especially from ‘consumer’ in-vestment. Quite a few American funds come out of San Francisco and set up in Berlin. It’s less real now. As for ideas, Paris has a lot of interesting projects that we didn’t see in Berlin.


FLORENT: That’s very true! One of the first pieces of advice I’d give entrepreneurs is to not work too hard. Olea Park has been exhausting and I lost a lot of weight when we started out. We had to move fast and battle it out with competitors who had more money than us. You can’t exist like that for very long though. It’s important to have a life, not work too late, get some sleep and let your hair down.

Is it hard to gain credibility when you’re just 20? FLORENT: NUMA has given us a certain amount of credibility, which was essential given that we were 20 and didn’t have degrees. We’ve come across some cus-tomers who like to take you under their wing and in-vestors who try to teach you the lot. You have to stand your ground a bit. It’s important to be respected by customers and investors, even if you’re young. That said, it’s also good to have mentors and experts around you for the big meetings, people with experience and who can explain the rules to you. We’ve never worked for a company, so we do need help. We’re aware of that.

«Starting up a company is like running a marathon: you have to stay the distance.»

of entrepreneurs say beer is their drink of choice

45%FUN FACT

Matthieu



TRAININGWhat is your main degree?


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27.8

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31.6

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30.3

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University degree A level/college diploma

Business schoolMaster

PhD Self-educated

Engineering school Specialized school

BUSINESS SCHOOLMASTER’S



I met my co-founders on my course

Networks of friends and the ties forged at universities and colleges provide the source for entrepreneurial partnerships in 27% and 23% of cases respectively, far more than professional relationships (17%) and links to the entrepreneurial world (5%), while family ties, including spouses, account for 6% of the teams who go into business together.

We live together

Through entrepreneurial networks

We are parents

By chance!

We work together

I‘m a one-man band

At school

We were already friends 27%

23%

17%

15%

6%

4%

4%

2%

GETTING TOGETHER How do founders meet each other?


FUN FACT

of entrepreneurs live together, 22% of which are married (2% say it’s «complicated»).

62%



Profiles of Aleksandra and Pierre,the founders of Kwalito; and of Meryl, the founder of La boîte qui cartonne

Married couple versus solo founder

ogether for the last ten years, Pierre and Aleksandra have, for health rea-sons, always made a point of check-ing the composition of the food they

buy. Their concern with what they eat led to them create Kwalito, an app that scans the barcodes of food products and tells users everything they need to know about their contents. Having attracted 9,000 users, Kwalito is now looking to raise funding.

T

How does Kwalito work?ALEKSANDRA: The idea was to enable people to cross-reference their dietary requirements (glu-ten-free, pork-free, vegan, etc.) with products. It’s a free-to-use app but our business model is 100% BtoB. We monetize the data with manufacturers and retail-ers using a Google analytics model, albeit for food products. Our aim is to track the market in real time.

What does being an entrepreneur mean to you?PIERRE: First and foremost, it’s a lot of work, but we were working hard before anyway. Being entrepre-neurs gives us the freedom to make the choices we want. When we come up with an idea or put forward a solution, we don’t have to think about whether our su-periors are going to be on the same wavelength as us.

ALEKSANDRA: We also really want to do something that has an impact on society. Making money is not our main objective, though that could happen of course. In our eyes, being an entrepreneur is a way of helping the world move forward.

And how does being a couple fit into it all? ALEKSANDRA: It’s pretty lonely to be an entrepre-neur. You can’t really share what you go through every day with your family because they don’t know what it involves. But in our case, we have to share it!PIERRE: We manage it pretty well and we’re very orga-nized with our daily routine. We have children and we get up at 7.20 in the morning to get them ready for school. Then we drop them off. That gives a structure to our day, which comes to an end when we give them dinner and put them to bed. We get back down to our work afterwards, though. And we also make sure ev-eryone has time for themselves. I play sport on Wednesday nights, Aleksandra does on Thursdays, and we go out for a meal on Fridays.ALEKSANDRA: We met over ten years ago and we’ve embarked on plenty of other major life projects together. If this one works out, it’ll be a professional and family success story. There is a lot of uncertainty in terms of our income, though, because we’re both involved in it and it’s not easy to juggle things with the children. You need to have broad shoulders to cope with all that uncertainty.



Aleksandra Pierre

«We met over ten years ago and we’ve embarked on plenty of major life projects together. If this one works out, it’ll be a professional and family success story.»



eryl has been living in a 15m² flat in Paris since her student days and knows what it means to live in a confined space.

On learning of the home storage services available abroad and in the USA in particular, she decided to adapt the concept for the French market. After studying Entrepreneur-ship at the Sorbonne and the ESCP, she launched her own startup, «La boite qui car-tonne», a service that has attracted around 500 users to date and has put as many box-es into safe storage.

M

How does the service work? We deliver boxes to our customers. They fill them up and we then store them at our secure facilities. We also provide an online inventory of what’s in the boxes: e.g. Box 1086 contains customer X’s winter things. They can get them back whenever they need.

Meryl

You’re sailing your ship alone. How is it going? I think I’ve always known that I wanted to start up my own company, create my own thing and be free. The thing is, I didn’t feel like doing it all on my own. When I was studying I set up a students’ association that worked really well. It made me want to become an entrepreneur. So I came up with the idea of «La boîte qui cartonne», worked on the project and did my market studies. I got a software developer in and got the project up and running. The site was ready, and then, the very next day I felt like calling a halt to everything because I was on my own.



Meryl

«It’s tough but I started out on my own and I can take care of things just fine on my own. I can keep on going.»

Within a month, though, I started getting customers. It was just me and the software developer, whom I was paying, but she got pregnant and had to leave. I man-aged to find another software developer straightaway, though we parted ways not long afterwards.

How do you see the future? There are people who keep tabs on what I’m doing but I haven’t found the ideal partner yet. I’m always on the lookout, even if I’m not actively searching. Maybe they’ll come to me, though I know that won’t be easy. The more time goes by, the harder that will be. If I could start again, I’d do things differently. I know that for my next company, and there might well be another one, I won’t be going it alone.I’ve seen that there’s a need on the market and that people are buying into it. I’m now testing out the technical concept at a logistical level and I’ve improved the whole delivery process, which is the really technical part of the project. The growth phase comes next.

of entrepreneurs do not drink coffee (47% drink between one and three cups a day

and 2% have more than ten)

24%FUN FACT



24

What do I do? Business models, markets, trends

3


38.8% of startups are based on a B2C business model and 19.7% on a B2B model.

The projects encompass a very broad range of around 20 industries.



B2C is sexy Accounting for 42.6% of business models, B2C is a popular choice, with B2B and B2B2C being adopted by 23% and nearly 30% of entrepreneurs respectively. The appeal of B2C to young people going into business on their own reflects the impact of major entrepreneurial success stories such as Airbnb or Blablacar, B2C companies that have proved an inspiration to this new breed.

The startups we focus on here are newly created, however, and their founders are devoting their energies first and foremost to developing their products. While they evidently have a vision of their business model and the ways in which they aim to monetize their services, they will necessarily have to evolve and «tilt» by switching from one model to another. Tapping into NUMA’s services is a vital step, therefore, in bringing projects to fruition. The interviews conducted with entrepreneurs revealed that after receiving the support of NUMA over a period of several months, many of them then decided to take their projects in a different direction, often switching from B2C to B2B, which is more profitable and better suited to the structure of French and European markets: B2B startups need lower volumes than B2Cs to make money, customers are less volatile and average spends are higher. B2B models are also founded more on technology than marketing development, which is often more random in nature.

It is for these reasons that Kawet startup founder Ben-jamin Hardy (see profile on page 27) chose to tilt a B2C model towards a fully B2B service. The venture was launched in 2010 on the back of a mobile app creation service called Cashew. Over the last three years, howev-er, Kawet has developed into a collaborative business solution available on mobiles and tablets.

The surveys revealed that the most common way to monetize products and services is direct selling (42.5%) followed by Airbnb-type sales commission (29%) and advertising (22.5%). Generally speaking, most of the projects use the same economic models as successful applications: freemium, mobile advertis-ing, paid downloads.


BUSINESS MODEL

What is the business model for your startup?

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odel

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ase

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s-se

lling

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tner

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s

40.5

%

30.3

%

13.6

%

23.5

%

9.9%

8.5%

4.4%

4.1%

17.0

%

4.8%

7.5%

Eg: Airbnb App model E.g.: SaaS and boxes



Profile of Benjamin Hardy, the founder of Kawet

Making a go of it without raising funds

Where did the idea come from?We gave up our jobs to create applications, get some training and sell them. We were in «agency mode». Then we realized that we could make the app development process easier by creating specific tools, a kind of Wordpress but for applications. And so, without even trying to make it happen, Kawet was born. The time we spent at NUMA really helped us structure our business. Then we signed a few big contracts before being taken over in 2013.

How did that go?We weren’t the average company. We were a group of friends and we all mucked in. It wasn’t your average set-up and we put up the capital between us. Given all that, raising funds was always going to be complicated.

awet came into being shortly after the App Store opened its doors, starting life as a mobile app creation service targeted at

professionals, this at a time when apps were being introduced at companies via their employees. Within a few years, and without having sought funding from venture capitalists, the startup was taken over. Its founder, Benjamin Hardy, walks us through the slightly unusual story behind it.

K The idea was to move on to the next phase without bringing investors in. We wanted to go in with a group so that we could develop more quickly and enable Kawet to grow. In the end, we joined an emerging group and we’ve kept our entrepreneurial adventure going.

How has work changed on a day-to-day basis? I sleep better! With the admin stuff out of the way, the stress continues: that ongoing search for the secret sauce that will let you scale up. Let me put it like this: we were crossing the Atlantic in a little boat and an ocean liner came along and took us with it! All of a sudden we have the security of knowing that at the end of the month all the employees will get paid and that the company will keep on going. With the buyout, the roadmap was laid out for two years; all we had to do was put the battle plans into action. Finally we could concentrate on execution.

Why didn’t you try to attract investment? Raising funds requires a lot of time and energy, which is something that you don’t always appreciate when you’re a young entrepreneur. Time and energy are rare commodities when it comes to startups. And then there was the fact that after three years we were no longer willing to rip everything up and start again.

How do you feel about being an entrepreneur in France?Three years ago I would have said: ‘I want to go to the US and set up my own company there, mainly because of the ecosystem.’ But now I think it’s entirely possible to achieve big things in France. The ecosystem has developed a lot and it’s all very positive.



A variety of target markets: a result of the potential for disruption Newly created startups operate in a very broad range of target markets. While French startups have enjoyed well-documented success in high-profile industries such as health and biotechnology, sustainable development, and e-commerce, the fact is that new startups pursue business opportunities across a much wider spectrum that includes design, lifestyle, professional services, media, leisure and social media.


SECTORS

What is the target project’s sector/market?

There is hardly an industry into which young people, in their desire to explore every sector open to them, do not venture. Given that market opportunities are a prime motivation for entrepreneurs, the industries they choose to operate in are the ones they see as offering the greatest potential for disruption.

The importance of lifestyle, leisure and consumer goods explains the prevalence of B2C business models in these projects, as does the profile of entrepreneurs, who embark on projects that respond to their needs as young, city-based graduates.

Life

styl

e an

d le

isur

e

Art

and

des

ign

Cons

umer

goo

ds

Med

ia a

nd e

nter

tain

men

t

Educ

atio

n

Food

Prof

essi

onal

ser

vice

s

Mar

ketin

g &

com

mun

icat

ion

Fash

ion

and

text

iles

Soft

war

e

Trav

el a

nd to

uris

m

Fam

ily a

nd h

ome

Hea

lth

Ener

gy

Tran

spor

t

Char

ity/N

GO

s

Fina

ncia

l ser

vice

s

Secu

rity

Oth

ers12

.2%

11.8

%

8.4%

7.1%

6.4%

6.4%

6.4%

5.4%

4.7%

4.4%

3.7%

3.0%

2.4%

2.0%

2.0%

1.7%

1.7%

1.4%

8.8%


29

45%say blue is their favorite color

(followed by red and green)

FUN FACT




30

How can I help myself? What new startups need

3


According to startup founders, market expertise (32.6%) and technical expertise (29%) are their two biggest needs.

Essentials such as offices, networking and project support are also very important.

62% of teams take their decisions alone, without seeking external advice.



Technical support and market knowledge: two key needs When asked what type of mentor they would need to advise them, 32.6% of startup founders said they would opt for a market expert, with another 29% choo-sing a technical expert. At first sight, these responses might seem contradictory, given that most startup founders choose to go into business in what they per-ceive to be growing markets. In reality, however, young entrepreneurs at the helm of newly created startups have identified – often through a very innovative ap-proach to a market – opportunities in markets in which they lack specialist knowledge, hence the need for expertise. The creation of closer ties with major bu-siness groups would offer startups a potentially useful means of accessing this kind of expertise.

In contrast, only 15% of respondents said they would like advice on economic models, while 4.2% expressed a desire for help with drawing up a business plan. As for legal expertise, there was barely a mention. Entre-preneurs are focused more than anything on the deve-lopment of their products and their growth, with reve-nue models and fundraising being seen as almost natural consequences of placing the right product in the right market.

Core essentials

Aside from the need for technical and sales support, entrepreneurs expressed other basic requirements ranging from networking and office space to the weekly monitoring of projects and help with attracting customers.

What young startup founders need, therefore, is ge-nuinely global support based on two complementary factors: infrastructure and the network on the one hand and strategic aspects (technical and commer-cial) on the other.

MENTOR

What type of mentor would you need as a priority?

Mar

ket e

xper

t

Busi

ness

mod

el

Mar

ketin

g &

Com

mun

icat

ion

Fina

nce

Tech

nica

l exp

ert

UX

& D

esig

n

Busi

ness

pla

nnin

g

Lega

l

32.6

%

29.0

%

13.2

%

9.6%

4.2%

9.0%

2.1%

0.3%




Support with decision makingSome 62% of young startup founders make decisions on their own or with their co-founder. Only 20% of them call on an advisory committee to discuss strate-gic courses of action, while 18% seek advice from their connections outside the company.

Entrepreneurs often point to the fact that taking decisions on their own is the biggest obstacle they face, especially at the start of the process, when startups are at their most vulnerable. Support with decision making is therefore one of their most pressing needs in these initial phases.

NEEDS

GOING IT ALONE

What other forms of support would you need?

How are you going to make your decisions?


Net

wor

k

Hel

p w

ith e

xpan

ding

on

the

inte

rnat

iona

l mar

ket

Hel

p w

ith e

xpan

ding

on

the

Fren

ch m

arke

t

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ista

nce

with

the

busi

ness

pla

n

Off

ices

Wee

kly

proj

ect s

uppo

rt

Proj

ect s

uppo

rt o

n de

man

d

Dai

ly p

roje

ct s

uppo

rt

74%

61%

53%

50%

34%

47%

30%

10%

We

mak

e ou

r ow

n de

cisi

ons

We

have

an

advi

sory

com

mitt

ee

We

ask

our c

onne

ctio

ns fo

r adv

ice

62%

21%

17%


33

The digital era has seen markets reinvent themselves completely, creating new areas for exploration into which pioneering young entrepreneurs are now venturing. In view of this, there are several significant conclusions that can be drawn from this maiden study of young startup founders.

Support French entrepreneurs and help them diversify

An entrepreneur’s main strength lies in his or her ac-ceptance of the simple fact that they cannot succeed alone. On top of that, it is also true to say that there can be no innovation without diversity.

This study reminds entrepreneurs of the importance of not going it alone in their business ventures, a jour-ney that involves no shortage of pitfalls. If entrepre-neurs are to succeed, they must call on the support of others, seek advice and back up their hunches with the views of experts, of people well versed in the ways in which all these fast-changing industries now ope-rate in this the digital era. Successful startups are founded on a broad and complementary range of skills, on a raft of business, technical and creative pro-files.

Encourage cross-fertilization between startups and conventional enterprise

Just as young entrepreneurs need major corporations and experienced elders to lend solidity and weight to their projects, so public and economic decision-ma-kers – and here’s a first! – need young entrepreneurs to promote new ways of creating value (business models, products that respond to new consumer habits, and organizational, management, thought and exchange systems, etc.). Incubators, intrapreneurship, reverse mentoring and open innovation all exist with the aim of making that creative mix possible. This is the cru-cial consideration in shaping both a world that is eco-nomically efficient and competitive and a harmonious society.

This study thus sends the message to the ecosystem’s stakeholders and to public and economic decision-makers that there is a need to work together in actively promoting cross-fertilization in the entrepreneurial world, as has been achieved in many initiatives in the French ecosystem. To achieve this we need a blend of profiles, cultures and genders as well as a combination of different generations, styles and economic environments.

Reinvent the concept of work

Ultimately, this study poses society a key question re-garding the future of work and in particular work in the business environment. As far as these young en-trepreneurs are concerned, creating a startup is their way of expressing freedom, meaning and creativity. The question is, why can they not find all this in conventional business models? Work remains a strong indicator of identity, and responding to the ex-pectations, desires and inner motivations of this new generation is a decisive challenge.

Startup founders have the freedom to explore beyond the world of entrepreneurship. This study reveals the social mission that falls on entrepreneurs, who possess an unobstructed vision of a society in the process of being reinvented and who must seek to inspire key economic players and public decision-makers.

A powerful, unstoppable movement is on the rise. Let’s take it forward together!




EDITOR

Roland Berger

62-64, Rue de Lisbonne 75008 Paris +33 1 53670-320 www.rolandberger.com

AUTHORS

Roland Berger

Charles-Edouard Bouée, CEO [email protected]

Anne Bioulac, Partner [email protected]

Nicolas Teisseyre, Senior Partner [email protected]

INTERVIEWERS

Roland Berger

Anne Dujin [email protected]

MEDIA CONTACTS

Roland Berger

Agathe Lélu 01 53 67 03 57 [email protected]

PHOTOGRAPHY

Jacob Khrist

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank all the startupers and startups who agreed to appear in this study.

NUMA would also like to thank its partners: Google for Entrepreneurs, BNP Paribas, L‘Atelier BNP Paribas, CISCO

© 2016 ROLAND BERGER GMBH. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

NUMA

Marie-Vorgan Le Barzic, CEO [email protected]

Lucas Francou, Head of Strategy and Development [email protected]

Elise Nebout, Head of Resources Strategy [email protected]

NUMA39, rue du Caire 75002 Pariswww.paris.numa.co

NUMA

Elise Nebout [email protected]

NUMA

Arnaud Chaigneau 06 63 73 12 78 [email protected]


35

About Roland Berger

Operating in France since 1990, Roland Berger is the world’s leading management strategy consulting firm of European origin and boasts 2,400 employees at 50 offices in 36 countries. Our Paris office employs some 300 of them, including 240 consultants and 29 partners, and advises major French and international corporations on key business issues. Roland Berger is the creative force behind the Terra Numerata™ digital network, an open and non-exclusive partnership platform pooling skills and expertise that industry, associations and public institutions can draw on for their digital projects.

About NUMA

A major player in the digital ecosystem for the last 15 years, NUMA brings together inventors, entrepreneurs and startup founders with the aim of enhancing and showcasing innovation. With offices in Paris, Moscow, Bangalore and Casablanca, NUMA pursues three main goals: the event-driven nurturing and structuring of communities (it is the founder of the “Cantine Numérique” (“Digital Canteen”) and staged 1,500 events attracting 80,000 people in 2015); the acceleration of startups (having provided such a service to 104 of them since 2011, and over 200 mentors); and the digital transformation of companies (NUMA supports one third of CAC 40 companies in their digitalization and also set up the first public/private multi-partner program) through open innovation and experimentation.

FURTHER INFO

Links & favoritesORDER ANDDOWNLOADwww.rolandberger.comwww.375.numa.co

STAY CONNECTEDwww.twitter.com/RolandBergerwww.twitter.com/numaparis

LIKE AND SHAREwww.facebook.com/Roland BergerStrategyConsultantswww.facebook.com/numaparis

ABOUTROLAND BERGER & NUMAwww.rolandberger.comwww.numa.com


375

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Profiles, trends and startupers in their own words

375 STARTUPERS

375 STARTUPERSProfiles, trends and startupers in their own words

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