In this new episode of Entrepreneur Talks, we sit down with Blaise Matuidi and Ilan Abehassera, Co-founders and General Partners of Origins, to learn more about building a VC fund that combines funding with influence.

Origins is a Venture Capital fund investing across Paris, NYC and Miami in legendary consumer founders. In this episode of Entrepreneur Talks, we hear more about how Origins is funding early stage companies with the help of their limited partners (LPs) who have a combined social media following of 160,000,000.

Tune in to this new episode to learn about the founding story behind the fund, how Blaise, Ilan and their fund co-founders spotted an opportunity to combine early-stage funding with access to influence, and the many lessons to be shared between the sports and investing world.

This episode was recorded in French 🇫🇷

Topics

01:00 to 05:45 — Introduction to Blaise and Ilan

05:45 to 11:00 — Presentation of Origins

11:00 to 19:30 — From Zoom call to VC fund co-founders

19:30 to 27:00 — US vs Europe, on the pitch and in the boardroom

27:00 to 29:00 — Raising the fund

29:00 to 35:00 — Investment thesis and founder-market-fit

35:00 to 41:00 — Making the move from Angel Investor to General Partner

41:00 to 43:30 — Dealflow realtalk

43:30 to 54:00 — Learning resilience and dealing with failure

54:00 to 56:00 — The importance of emotional intelligence

57:00 to the end — Outro questions: 1 word to describe entrepreneurship, a dream LP, unpopular opinion about tech or investment

If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know by leaving a rating and a review!

This episode is hosted by Yacine Sqalli, and produced with STATION F.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this new episode of Entrepreneur Talks, we catch up with Nicolas Morin-Forest, co-founder & CEO of Gourmey, a company that creates culinary delights like foie gras, directly from cell cultivation.

Thanks to Gourmey, it’s now possible to eat foie gras that doesn’t come from an animal! In this new episode of Entrepreneur Talks, we have the pleasure of welcoming Nicolas Morin-Forest, CEO & cofounder of Gourmey.

Tune in to this new episode to learn about Nicolas’ entrepreneurial journey so far, how he built a deep tech startup with a non-technical background, and how he plans to revolutionize meat production.

Topics

01:00 to 04:00 — Introduction and presentation of Nicolas

04:00 to 10:00 — Presentation of Gourmey

10:00 to 20:00 — Why and how Nicolas became a deep tech founder

20:00 to 26:00 — The moment he decided he wanted to build a sustainable business

26:00 to 31:00 — Nicolas’ biggest failure during his entrepreneurial journey

31:00 to 36:00 — How to manage a deeptech company as a non-tech CEO

36:00 to 43:00 — Why foie gras as a first product and Gourmey’s next products?

43:00 to 47:00 — Outro questions: Best quality trait of an entrepreneur? A board member he wishes to have? The most underrated advice for an entrepreneur to succeed?

If you have enjoyed this episode, please let us know by leaving a rating and a review!

This episode is hosted by Yacine Sqalli, and produced with STATION F.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the latest episode of Entrepreneur Talks, STATION F's podcast. We had the chance to sit down with Frédéric Montagnon, Founder & Chairman of Arianee. He created 7 companies, exited 5 of them, killed one, and invested in more than 150 startups.

Arianee is on a mission to empower brands and owners to give digital life to products, experiences, or communities through NFTs. Last year, they issued more than 1M NFTs.

Tune in to this new episode to learn about his journey so far as an entrepreneur and investor, why he believes Web3 is the solution to data sovereignty, and why founders should now seek for the Environment-Market fit rather than Product-Market fit.

Topics

01:00 to 04:00 — Introduction and presentation of Fred by ChatGPt and himself

04:00 to 09:00 — His background and why Web3 with Arianee

09:00 to 12:00 — Why did he become an entrepreneur, only 2 years after graduation?

12:00 to 15:00 — His strength: at the intersection of Tech and Business

15:00 to 19:00 — His failures and learnings as an entrepreneur

19:00 to 24:30 — The "environment-market fit"

24:30 to 29:00 — How did you become an expert in Web3?

29:00 to 31:00 — The beauty of open source

31:00 to 35:00 — The pain: digital sovereignty

35:00 to 37:00 — His views on Twitter acquired by Elon Musk

37:00 to 42:00 — Arianee's solutions and the future of data ownership

43:00 to 45:00 — Arianee’s KPIs and its clients

45:00 to 47:00 — Business Angel: why and how to invest in 150 startups?

47:00 to 49:00 — Is he a philanthropist?

49:00 to 52:00 — Outro questions: his unpopular opinion about Web3? Best quality trait of an entrepreneur? The company he would build tomorrow?

If you have enjoyed this episode, please let us know by leaving a rating and a review!

This episode is hosted by Yacine Sqalli, and produced with STATION F.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Having a deep impact on pollution with a breakthrough technology! That's one bet Neoplants is about to win in the next few months. After 4 years of R&D, the Neo P1, an indoor plant to purify the air, is coming to home.

This is what we discuss with Lionel Mora, CEO & co-founder of Neoplants, amongst other topics, in this new episode of Entrepreneur Talks, STATION F podcast. Tune in to learn about Lionel's entrepreneurial journey, why he decided to build a deeptech company, the learnings so far, and what's coming next at Neoplants.

Topics

01:00 — Introduction and presentation of Neoplants

04:00 — The genesis of the company

08:00 — Breakthrough technology vulgarization

12:00 — 4 years of R&D before launching the market

17:00 — Product iteration: trying to kill the idea fast

24:00 — When tech meets bioengineering

27:00 — The risks they face

33:30 — Raising funds as a deeptech startup in the US vs Europe

35:00 — The vision: from indoor to outdoor plants

37:30 — The market launch

40:00 — Where to order?

42:00 — Outro: Best quality of an entrepreneur? Unpopular opinion about tech or entrepreneurship? A dream board member?

If you have enjoyed this episode, please let us know by leaving a rating and a review!

This episode is hosted by Yacine Sqalli, and produced with STATION F.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Creating a platform and a community to help launch 250,000+ products. That's what Ryan Hoover has accomplished with Product Hunt. Now he is investing in early-stage startups from all around the world with Weekend Fund, a VC fund he cofounded with Vedika Jain.

Tune in to this new episode to learn more about Ryan's entrepreneurial journey, his learnings and tips to succeed, his willingness to help and support other founders, and his expectations about investments.

Product Hunt is the place to curate new products every day. Product enthusiasts can share and geek out about the latest mobile apps, websites, hardware projects, and tech creations. Among 250,000+ products launched on the platform since 2013, we find great successes like Notion, Houseparty, Robinhood, or Front. Product Hunt was acquired by AngelList in 2016 (Ryan talks about it here).

Weekend Fund is the VC fund he created in 2017, to back early-stage founders from all around the world. Together with Vedika and a team of 2 analysts, they write checks from $100k to $300k, and offer an LP collective of 350+ exceptional founders and operators. They already invested in Intercom, Deel, and just raised their 3rd fund of $21M.

Topics

01:00 — Introduction and Proust survey

06:00 — The work-life balance

08:00 — The beginning of his entrepreneurial journey

10:00 — His vision of entrepreneurship: a creator or a manager?

17:00 — Scaling pace of PH before selling to Angelist

20:00 — Products that launched on his platform (Meerkat, Notion)

23:00 — Did u think of monetizing your database?

25:00 — The selling to AngelList

28:30 — The impostor syndrome

31:30 — Creation of Weekend Fund

38:00 — Convincing Limited Partners: a sales job

40:00 — Sourcing opportunities from Product Hunt?

42:00 — His thoughts on Angel investing in the next few years

46:00 — Outro (Definition of entrepreneurship? His biggest failure? One sector to be more digitized? Unpopular opinion about tech or entrepreneurship? Most underrated advice?)

If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know by leaving a rating and a review!

This episode is hosted by Yacine Sqalli.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you know that Jeff Lawson, the co-founder and CEO of Twilio, sold his wedding gifts to kick the company off? Back in the summer of 2008, this strategy may seem risky but looking at what Twilio achieved since, it clearly was a winning choice. Twilio is now the leading cloud communications platform and became an international company.

Despite its international growth, Twilio managed to keep its very strong company culture, focused on the well-being of its employees, and that’s something that Jeff is very proud of. He explains the concept of “Twilio Magic”, the company’s core values, and defines what is “blameless post-mortem”, an important mindset in the big Twilio family.

This episode is hosted by Roxanne Varza, STATION F’s Director, and Laurence Benamran, co-founder and CEO of Pinpo, a STATION F company selected to be part of Future 40 in 2019. Pinpo is a leading tech platform specializing in lead qualification and a happy user of Twilio.

Topics

00:10 — Introduction with Roxanne Varza (STATION F) and Laurence Benamran (Pinpo)

02:58 — The story behind Twilio’s funding. Spoiler: it involves Jeff Lawson’s wedding gifts!

12:35 — Jeff about Twilio going international and its launch in France

17:51 — How to implement a strong company culture, like Twilio does, on a large scale?

22:30 — Jeff describes Twilio’s core values as “Twilio Magic”

24:18 — The difference between a company culture and its values

26:16 — Jeff explains the concept of “blameless post-mortem”

32:30 — Jeff’s biggest advice for entrepreneurs

This episode is supported by TikTok, hosted by Roxanne Varza, produced by Cindy Yang, and edited by Grégoire Duhourcau. Art is by Gaëtan Lefebvre.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2018, only a few people knew what an NFT was and the term Web3 was far from being a buzzword. However, Nicolas Julia was convinced that it would be the next revolution in the tech space so he co-founded Sorare, global fantasy football game (or soccer game, for our American audience) that you play with NFTs.

Sorare became a unicorn in less than four years, reaching a $4.3 billion valuation. It is the French startup that has reached the unicorn status the fastest. How did Nicolas know that NFTs would become the new hype? How did he convince famous business angels such as Antoine Griezmann or Gerard Piqué to join the project early on? How did he get Serena Williams on board? And, what are the next steps for Sorare? Tune in to this week’s podcast to hear Nicolas’ answers to all of these questions and more.

This episode is hosted by Roxanne Varza, STATION F’s Director, and Clarisse Hagège, co-founder and CEO of Dfns (Founders Program, Future 40 in 2021). Dfns provides crypto custody as a service, enabling developers to deploy bank-grade custody infrastructure and turn their apps into safe zones for crypto. The company recently announced a 13,5M$ raise.

Topics

00:10 — Introduction with Roxanne Varza (STATION F) and Clarisse Hagège (Dfns)

03:30 — How Nicolas Julia got into NFTs ahead of the hype in 2018

06:44 — How Sorare avoided the scalability problems that NFT platforms encounter on Ethereum

09:07 — What Sorare is and how does it work

12:22 — How Nicolas convinced their very first partner, the Belgian League, to join Sorare (the story includes an intern)

15:28 — Sorare’s fundraising strategy (730M$ in total amount raised)

17:05 — What’s next after soccer for Sorare? Sorare recently announced Serena Williams as a board member

20:06 — How Nicolas convinced so many investors and notable business angels like Antoine Griezmann to join the project

23:19 — The possible evolutions of Sorare within the metaverse

26:58 — Nicolas’ career path

28:06 — Nicolas’ biggest learnings from his entrepreneurial experiences

37:04 — Nicolas on regulations in the crypto space

This episode is supported by TikTok, hosted by Roxanne Varza, produced by Cindy Yang, and edited by Grégoire Duhourcau. Art is by Gaëtan Lefebvre.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FemTech designates all technologies addressing women’s health — including reproductive health, hormonal health, menopause, and a lot more. Last year, STATION F launched a new startup program to support innovation in this space because FemTech entrepreneurs have to overcome additional challenges on top of the usual founder hurdles: they have to deal with censorship, taboo, and difficulty convincing investors.

In this first episode of Entrepreneur Talks, we interview Alexandra Fine, Founder & CEO of Dame Products, a leading SexTech company that has not only faced these barriers but also built a thriving business. Dame has led and won a three-year legal battle to have the possibility of doing ads in the New York City subway. Dame is also part of the first companies to be featured at Sephora in their new Sexual Wellness selection. It has broken new ground for FemTech startups at large and we are super excited to have Alexandra on the show to tell us about her stories and learnings from building Dame — starting with how to fundraise to market a product surrounded by taboo.

This episode is co-hosted by Elin Øyre and Andrea Olsson, the co-founders of Bumpy, a startup in STATION F’s FemTech Program. Elin and Andrea are building a platform to support people going through infertility by connecting them together and helping them to find the right fertility provider.

Find out what it takes to succeed in the FemTech industry. And, if you are building a FemTech startup, applications for STATION F’s FemTech Program are open until April 24! Learn more here.

Topics

00:10 — Introduction

03:24 — How Alexandra Fine came up with the idea of Dame Products

04:42 — The challenge of fundraising for FemTech companies

08:41 — The problem with the term “FemTech” perceived as a niche rather than an essential

11:09 — Alexandra’s tips for FemTech companies on how to address taboo

14:13 — Elin & Andrea’s personal stories, which led to the creation of Bumpy

20:20 — Alexandra’s three-year legal battle to run ads in the NYC subway

26:33 — How Dame Products arrived in Sephora’s shelves and why it is a turning point

28:17 — Tips on how to approach new partnerships and leverage the power of storytelling

30:10 — Alexandra on making mistakes as a boss

33:10 — The moment when Dame Products really took off: their crowdfunding campaign

This episode is supported by TikTok, hosted by Cindy Yang, and edited by Grégoire Duhourcau. Art is by Gaëtan Lefebvre.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.