Effectuation Chronicle #27 : Umòja, A Story On Your Sneakers

Effectuation Chronicle #27 : Umòja, A Story On Your Sneakers Effectuation Chronicle #27 : Umòja, A Story On Your Sneakers The search for meaning, impact and human relationship is increasingly predominant in our society. This research has led to the awareness of a consumption that is not very responsible and not very respectful of the environment. Many brands are trying to restore meaning to their production by bludgeoning advertising showing small producers all over the world. But what about projects that have been under the radar of consumers and are fighting for cleaner consumption? In a nutshell. Cultural sneakers. Umòja Shoes is a « solidarity, artistic, cultural and human » project. So many values gathered in a daily consumer product, a pair of sneakers. The creation of the brand is based on African natural products from organic farming. Forget the mass production of cotton and make way for natural fibres produced by small African communities with great know-how. To replace the traditional leather of shoes, Umòja uses manually reworked tree bark, a process considered by UNESCO to be « the oldest human know-how in textiles ». Materials little known by consumers that give sneakers their personality and history: banana tree fibres, raffia and traditional weavings will make you discover the dexterity of African craftsmanship. Idea. Back to the roots. Dieuveil, a Master of Law student, is getting closer and closer to the end of his studies without having the intimate conviction to start on the right path. At the beginning of the job search, Dieuveil had a revelation: « I didn’t want to evolve in this elitist sphere of law, I wanted to find human beings in my daily life ». Without further ado, the young student from Brest stopped his studies and became a volunteer at Secours Populaire. Following his volunteer experience, Dieuveil travels to Africa to see his loved ones and the landscapes of his childhood. Then in Côte d’Ivoire and Benin, he discovered « a very rich African craft that we do not find Europe ». From this journey, the idea of exporting this little-used know-how to create new alternatives grew. Article to be found in full on Forbes Chronicle

Effectuation Chronicle #25: Bodyo, A Healthy Body In A Healthy Spirit

Effectuation Chronicle #25: Bodyo, A Healthy Body In A Healthy Spirit Effectuation Chronicle #25: Bodyo, A Healthy Body In A Healthy Spirit No need to remind you how a lack of sport and poor nutrition can affect your health. There is a real awareness of the problem and the means exist to remedy it. On the other hand, it is more difficult, without coaching, to be able to make a personalized effort as well as a long-term follow-up. Diets and fitness solutions are often blindly monitored and it is impossible to verify their positive effects in practice, except on « external » data such as weight. On this personalized follow-up and coaching, BodyO intervenes. In a nutshell. Know yourself. BodyO is a three-step solution that allows users to get to know each other better through a comprehensive health test. Using an AIPod, in other words an electronic booth worthy of science fiction movies, 19 parameters such as height, weight, blood pressure or blood sugar level are evaluated in less than 10 minutes. The patient receives a report analyzed by an artificial intelligence carefully developed by Patrice Coutard, a sports doctor, and his team. The collected data are then correlated with the BodyO fitness application to monitor performance and health indicators. This is the second step, the « Live Healthier ». With coaching exercises or culinary preparations, the application helps you to make the effort and prepare the diet adapted to your needs. It is even possible to request a follow-up with a professional – doctor or coach – online. Finally, under development is the « reward your health » using Blockchain technology. When you start the process, a smart contract is created, and you will receive BodyO tokens in your portfolio as you progress and work. The remuneration is not only symbolic, it will be monetized! Whether in governments or mutuals, tokens can be exchanged for discounts or gifts. Indeed, for these institutions, there are many savings to be made by encouraging people to eat healthy and exercise… The problem is. Prevention is better than cure. With its solution, BodyO addresses a social problem. The gigantic health market is mainly focused on curative care. People get sick and they are treated. They have a poor lifestyle; problems emerge and are then treated. And these bad habits are very expensive, while 75% of the health costs deployed to treat obesity, hypertension and type 2 diabetes could be saved with prevention. To put it in figures, diabetes care accounted for 7.7 billion dollars in health insurance spending in 2013, according to the Ministry of Solidarity and Health. Article to be found in full on Forbes Chronicle

Effectuation Chronicle #26 : Move Your Box : Move, And The Glass Ceiling Will Move

Effectuation Chronicle #26 : Move Your Box : Move, And The Glass Ceiling Will Move Effectuation Chronicle #26 : Move Your Box : Move, And The Glass Ceiling Will Move « The next emerging market is not China or India, it’s women. Marie Eloy’s favourite quote, founder of Bouge ta Boite, illustrates her way of thinking. In the feminine drive to find balance in the societal space, she federates and supports women entrepreneurs to develop their businesses through her business network of recommendations in order to gain in leadership and especially in turnover. « There is a glass ceiling for women entrepreneurs, » says Marie, « fuelled by the low sense of legitimacy that women have in prospecting and doing business. They create many companies that make sense, but now the meaning must go with the business. The problem. Some statistics Out of the 1000 people with the highest media coverage in 2018, 15.3% are women. The situation is even more alarming when we focus on the « big business » category, where only 1% of women are represented. In general, women make up only 14% of business leaders in companies with more than 10 employees, according to a KPMG study. Women entrepreneurs are therefore desperately lacking examples to identify with. According to a report by Séverine le Loarne, a GEM researcher, it is estimated that 20% of women live correctly in their companies compared to 50% of men, even though they need to earn more money than women to be able to consider « living » from them. Also, women are more likely to look for meaning in what they do, not money. But this is not enough to justify the gap, and it has to be said that they have more difficulty in passing a profitability cap and developing. The consequences are not only economic but also societal. Article to be found in full on Forbes Chronicle

Effectuation Chronicle #24: ATAWA, The Event Revolution

Effectuation Chronicle #24: ATAWA, The Event Revolution Effectuation Chronicle #24: ATAWA, The Event Revolution « We must consider that all the events that happen to us are happy events, » says playwright Sacha Guitry. Easier said than done. The entire success of the event you have been planning for months now rests on the shoulders of your service providers. A delay in delivery, a misunderstanding or misunderstanding… and the drama happens. Your event is over and you don’t know who to contact anymore. In a nutshell. No room for hazards. It all started with Aymeric and Maxime, an entrepreneur and a financier, who are getting into the event business. They start from a simple observation: to organize an event, it is necessary to call upon a multitude of service providers that must be managed individually and independently. ATAWA does not leave room for hazards thanks to its event infrastructure service. The infrastructure includes: tents, exhibition stands, furniture, lighting, sound systems, sanitary facilities, decoration and energy needs. The start-up centralizes all your infrastructure needs and becomes your unique intermediary. The problem. fragmentation of actors and guaranteed frustration. With a few phone calls to friends who are event project managers, Aymeric and Maxime understand that there is a systematic frustration between clients and event providers, especially when it comes to renting event structures and equipment. In the event ecosystem, the problem is twofold. On the one hand, the average customer, who has never ordered tents or sanitary facilities, is confused. Especially since this environment is governed by a multitude of SMEs with very heterogeneous skills and prices. On the other hand, providers communicate little effectively about their offers. « Their sites are not clear, they are not good commercial and there are no guarantees as to customer satisfaction, » says Aymeric. The consumer is therefore lost, and the right service provider is drowned in the mass. And quickly an economic phenomenon of anti-selection resulting from information asymmetries appears, such as the second-hand car market modelled in the 1970s by Nobel Akerlof in his article « The Market for « Lemons ». The idea. One stone, two shots. A solution for two problems: on the one hand, to help SMEs offering event infrastructure rental services to increase their business volume, and on the other hand to support, advise and select the best partners for their clients. Unlike a marketplace, ATAWA does not seek to relieve itself of its responsibility. On the contrary, the start-up is positioned as a brand in its own right, responsible for the smooth running of the event and the satisfaction of its customers. Article to be found in full on Forbes. Chronicle

Effectuation Chronicle #23: Private Cuvée, Giving Back To Wine Its Symbolic Value

Effectuation Chronicle #23: Private Cuvée, Giving Back To Wine Its Symbolic Value Effectuation Chronicle #23: Private Cuvée, Giving Back To Wine Its Symbolic Value Trend or real awareness, the return to the land is on the rise. A return to the land very often accompanied by the will to know the producers and their stories. Who wouldn’t be tempted to participate in one way or another in the production of what they consume? We can already adopt a hen and receive her eggs, or rent vegetable plots to benefit from vegetables. Why not repeat this experience of customizing products for the vine? In two words: Adopting is trying Suggest to wine lovers that they adopt vines in an exceptional estate in order to receive a high quality vintage in a bottle personalized with their name. This Private Cuvée concept aims both to offer a unique wine tasting experience and to bring the often novice consumer closer to the producer. This rapprochement is not just about logistics! In addition to a technical sheet on the sponsored vines, an invitation is offered to the client to visit the site and get to know the winegrower personally, his history and that of his wine. The idea. At that time I was twenty years old…. Marie, Aurélie and Morgane meet at the HEC Oenology Association. Aurélie confides to us « it was during one of the Club’s events that we realized that by putting a winegrower and a story behind the bottle, the wine takes on its full meaning ». Then in the last year of their Master’s degree in Entrepreneurship, the three students decide to design a project that refocuses on this friendly relationship. Marie, Aurélie and Morgane were able to pool their different personalities and appetites for the world of work around this project: Marie, winegrower’s daughter, for the relationship with the winegrowers and the management of the catalogue, Aurélie for finance and business development, and Morgane for the product and marketing. Article to be found in full on Forbes Chronicle

Effectuation Chronicle #21: Kaiko, Crypto Data Expedition

Effectuation Chronicle #21: Kaiko, Crypto Data Expedition Effectuation Chronicle #21: Kaiko, Crypto Data Expedition Exploring the deepest seabed remains mysterious for most of us. Dark, almost unknown and full of risks, oceanic faults have been explored using increasingly powerful technologies. A fascinating and disturbing universe, including the deepest fault, Challenger Deep, at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, has finally been explored by the Kaiko submarine. This Japanese submersible is the first to have returned with scientific data that can be used by humans. In a nutshell. Crypto and Data. Like these marine expeditions, the recovery of quality data from cryptomones, or « digital assets », is a real odyssey. Kaiko, like the deep-sea submarine, has been working since 2014 to collect, standardize and distribute data from this emerging world and its shifting borders to blockchain market players. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero,… digital currencies that are traded on marketplaces and whose trading generates an immense amount of data to be processed for Kaiko, which currently covers more than 12,000 asset pairs. The team. Knowing how to be reborn like a phoenix. Kaiko’s team has had two lives. 2014-2017 with Pascal Gauthier, and 2017 to now, with Ambre Soubiran. A mathematician graduated from Dauphine, Ambre began her career at HSBC where she worked for 10 years in the Equity Derivatives market. Amber or « Madame Bitcoin » had a very specific background in the world of finance, but in 2015, she met Pascal Gauthier, former COO of Criteo and original founder of Kaiko. Instantly, she became interested in the project. In 2017, Pascal proposed to Amber to take over, or rather to turn around, Kaiko, « almost bankrupt because it was too far ahead of its time ». Indeed, the market between 2014 and 2016 was not yet fully mature and « institutional investors would not be interested in this new asset class ». Pascal is called to another mission: he joins Ledger, another start-up in the blockchain in which he is also a shareholder, as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Starting from practice-zero with a functional platform and a stock of historical data, Ambre surrounds itself with two developers to deploy Kaiko’s potential. Erik Fonselius and Robert Edström, two Swedish specialists in Big Data and Cryptography/Blockchain, join the « Kaiko 2.0 » adventure at its beginning. Today based in Paris, the shock team is composed of 11 people, including 7 engineers, and 3 business people. Article to be found in full on Forbes Chronicle

Effectuation Chronicle #20: Gatling, Getting Armed for the Rise in Charge

Effectuation Chronicle #20: Gatling, Getting Armed for the Rise in Charge Effectuation Chronicle #20: Gatling, Getting Armed for the Rise in Charge Your Tech team has been developing for several months now the new version of your site specially designed for the sales that are coming soon. Three, two, one… live launch on D-Day! Victim of its success, your site does not resist the thousands of users rushing to good deals. It’s a panic on the Tech side and soon the site crashes. Patatras… goodbye calf, cow, pig, brood! In a nutshell. Avoid the crash. To avoid this kind of dramatic situation, Gatling offers the possibility to test the robustness of applications by simulating the most critical moments. Co-founder Paul Henri tells us: « It’s like a sports coach, we prepare applications to hold very high loads so that they don’t crack at 100 meters, i.e. events like Black Friday or the launch of a new product or service. » The team. The right viewfinder. At the origin of Gatling, Stéphane Landelle, a nuclear engineer reconverted into the Web then in full boom. Working in large groups, Stéphane does not find tools adapted to the new challenges of the web and the explosion of audiences. Like any self-respecting Tech, Stéphane began to develop his own tool before meeting the right partner in 2014: Paul-Henri. Paul-Henri, who defines himself as a « touch-and-go », naturally turns to the world of start-ups after his studies at HEC. For him, at first, Gatling was a « super interesting project but one that was not designed to be monetized at all ». Even if he doesn’t know the world of software development at all, the idea goes through his head for a while until he decides to take up the challenge of the impossible. « The Gatling company was born from a rather crazy bet: to put two people with profiles that have nothing to do with valuing a project with very high technological added value. ». Four years later, Gatling has 7 employees. The two co-founders Stéphane and Paul-Henri respectively CTO and CEO are accompanied by a team of four Techs and a sales manager. Paul-Henri explains that the developers of Gatling are « in the oven and in the mill » and very concerned by the project. It is not uncommon to see its developers in contact with customers and to put on the clothes of a sales representative. Article to be found in full on Forbes Chronicle

Effectuation Chronicle #15: Pipplet Or One Click Language Certification

Effectuation Chronicle #15: Pipplet Or One Click Language Certification Effectuation Chronicle #15: Pipplet Or One Click Language Certification In a nutshell. Do you speak english? « Yas, vary goude. » Three atypical French engineers, Mathieu, Adrien and Baptiste, are at the origin of Pipplet, a start-up created in Paris in 2015. Far from English level tests such as TOEIC, Pipplet is a foreign language proficiency assessment service. Already 11 languages can be checked, ranging from English to Japanese and Portuguese from Brazil. What sets them apart from their competitors: « no cramming possible before the examination ». Their objective is to test an individual’s ability to understand and be understood in a professional context, both orally and in writing. Our three « Frenchys » went to the same school: UTC, but met by chance in London. As he started his first job in the United Kingdom, Baptiste picked up his phone and there was a panic to understand his interlocutor! « It’s still weird that after 14 years of learning English I can’t understand a Welsh customer on the phone. » He was in a lot of trouble and so was his company. Baptiste therefore realized that there were gaps in language assessment in the human resources process. And their market has opened up to them: a decision-making tool for HR. The problem is. Standardized tests and cramming. Every student in higher education has gone through this: the certification of their level of English via TOEIC or TOEFL to graduate. To pass this standardized test, you don’t need to be a bilingual cador but rather a good cramming skills. Article to be found in full on Forbes. Chronicle

Effectuation Chronicle #13: Poetics, Hope Rock In A Punk Fashion

Effectuation Chronicle #13: Poetics, Hope Rock In A Punk Fashion Effectuation Chronicle #13: Poetics, Hope Rock In A Punk Fashion 1967. The Beatles were releasing the iconic Sergeant Lonely Heart Club band. Johnny was the idol of the young people. Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot loved each other with style. Ah, the dream and nostalgia of the carefree yéyés… But here we are, the world has changed a lot. Or rather, we lost the naivety with which we looked at him. When we listen to the Beatles again, we think of separation and disappearance. The image of Johnny’s glory is replaced by a sordid quarrel over his succession. And if the ephemeral and flamboyant idyll of Gainsbourg and BB has kept its charm, it has not prevented their decline. The singing world of the Jungle Book is now that of global warming, increasing inequality and community violence. In the same disenchantment, the animal cause forbids us to wear the same clothes as the stars of the 1960s. A James Dean style perfecto may give you a great look, but it’s hard to miss the suffering needed to get all this leather, except for Poétique Paris. In a nutshell. « Respectful aesthetics » is not an oxymoron. Will our dark present mark the end of the black jacket? Not if we are to believe Pauline Weinmann and Cattleya Malejac, the founders of Poétique Paris. The start-up is positioning itself as the first fashion house to offer a vegan alternative to leather. Their perfectos, pants, skirts and shorts are made from grain leather and apple leather. Created in 2017, the start-up is a victim of its success. Article to be found in full on Forbes. Chronicle

Effectuation Chronicle #10: Merito, Against the Trime That Doesn’t Pay

Effectuation Chronicle #10: Merito, Against the Trime That Doesn’t Pay Effectuation Chronicle #10: Merito, Against the Trime That Doesn’t Pay Today, you are the manager of a department store. The responsibility of a battalion of salesmen, warehouse workers, cashiers and department heads rests on your shoulders. It’s Monday at eight o’clock and the store is waking up. Your first customers are pounding in front of the doors and you’re ready… Crac! What? What? No ? He didn’t dare? « Again? « Your loyal DIY lieutenant informs you that Michel once again sprained his ankle at his Saturday football game. By dint of thinking he’s Neymar, it’s the store he’s going to put on his kneecaps. « Oh, no! Enough is enough! « We’re still going to have to use temporary workers. You know the drill: they are expensive, pretend to work and barely trained are already gone. But what should we do? These chainsaws are not going to sell themselves… Merito has the solution. In a nutshell. Job badly acquired never benefits. And yes, you can hear well! There is a solution: Merito, the Parisian start-up specialized in the personalized recruitment of salespeople to counter staff turnover and absenteeism. It also offers a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for temporary and voluntary employee mobility for more efficient personnel management for large groups. With a fundraising of 700,000 euros and a satisfaction rate of more than 95%, the start-up founded in 2016 hopes to triple its turnover in 2017. Its team of 13 people intends to capitalize on their 40 large client groups. Pierre Maury, one of the co-founders, tells us how Merito intends to grow in a « very competitive market soon at war »… Article to be found in full on Forbes Chronicle