#40: Hélène Mérillon

My guest today is Hajar Chokairi, associate of ONORIENT, a mixed media website that highlights lesser known artists of all sorts from North Africa and the Middle East. Hajar and her co-founders started the project in 2013, and have since built out the platform to include cultural consultancy services as well. They write detailed articles, host podcasts, build playlists, curate exhibitions, screen their documentary, and much more with ONORIENT, all of which you can find at onorient.com. In this episode, Hajar and I discuss the complexities of running the media while she’s also employed as an innovation consultant, insights about feeling at home while far from home, reasons they started ONORIENT, how she sees it shape-shifting in the future, and more.

My guest today is Ben Costantini, CEO and Founder of Startup Sesame, the global network of Tech events and Connectors. With more than ten years' experience in conference organisation, he has one of the most extensive and trusted networks of event founders in the world. An expert in the creative industries, Ben advises entrepreneurs and investors in early and growth stages of their projects. In this episode, we discuss the importance of attending the right kinds of events, especially as a startup founder, how Startup Sesame adds value for entrepreneurs, just what is so special about tech events, and much more.

A little something different for you this week: I had the privilege of attending La French Touch Conference here in Paris in May of this year-- it’s an event that brings together French and international entrepreneurs to discuss what makes France shine, to define just what exactly that French touch is. They come from all over, having founded and built out companies around the world, to share their experiences on stage, passing on lessons learned and best practices to those gathered in the audience. This year, among other distinguished guests, the Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, Mounir Mahjoubi, addressed the crowd, highlighting some of the positive developments that have taken place in France over the past few years, making the country a much friendlier place for startups. The event, which now holds editions in New York, San Francisco, Paris, and upcoming this October in Toronto, was begun in 2013, by entrepreneur Gael Duval. He and his team put entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators from all sectors together to create a rich microcosm of the French startup ecosystem at each edition. I caught up with a couple of the speakers at the conference to chat with them about their experiences as founders, and what they got out of their participation in the French Touch Conference. I spoke to Julien Callede, Co-Founder of Made.com, the French-founded multi-million dollar e-commerce furniture startup that skyrocketed to success in London, and Mohamed Haouache, Co-Founder and CEO of New York-based Storefront, the world’s leading platform for booking commercial spaces to use as pop-up stores. If you’re interested in hearing more stories like Julien and Mohamed’s, check out La French Touch Conference’s website at lafrenchtouchconference.net, and attend one of their next editions!

My guest today is Joel Halpern, a creative brand strategy consultant, among other things. Joel has worn many hats, including art student in France, marketing director in New York City, founder of a full-service brand development firm in the US, and his current one as consultant and mentor for companies and startup accelerators from all over the world on branding and marketing. In this episode, Joel and I talk about why it’s so important to create a North Star for your brand, lessons he’s learned over the last few years of transatlantic work, common mistakes startups make when preparing to go global, and much more.

My guest today is Helene Merillon, co-founder and CEO of Yooboox, the Spotify of books. It’s a startup that provides a streaming, subscription-based model to read the books and magazines of your choice, anywhere, anytime. Their content is currently mostly in French, but they’ve got plans for global expansion this year-- more on that in the episode. We discuss Helene’s background as a serial entrepreneur, the challenges of competing in the same space alongside Amazon, her passion for innovation, and much more.

My guest today is Sylvain Tillon, co-founder and CEO of Tilkee, a software that allows you to track what recipients do with the documents you send them. Sylvain has founded three companies, co-written three books, and is passionate about entrepreneurship, including normalizing failure and increasing transparency. He incorporates those subjects into his management and expansion of Tilkee, which recently raised another major round of funding. In this episode, we talk about his previous ventures, what he’s working on building at Tilkee, the slowly-changing attitudes around failure in France, and much more.

My guest today is Santiago Lefebvre, co-founder of the ChangeNOW Summit! It’s an event taking place this September 28th and 29th at Station F and around Paris, and includes a huge conference, a film festival, super inspiring guests, and much more. Santiago has a history of planning major events, including TEDX Insead at his alma mater here in Paris. Along with his co-founders, he set out to create an event that would highlight and magnify the positive impact that many innovators and change makers are having around the world, bringing them together for two days in Paris. At their first edition of the event last year, they had 2000 participants from 47 countries! In this episode, we talk about how Santiago and his team have built the ChangeNOW Summit into a major world event in just under three years, some of the truly incredible speakers who’ll be at this year’s edition, and much more.

My guest today is Sharon Sofer, Founder of Startup for Kids. They’re an organization that runs events to introduce young people to the concept and experience of entrepreneurship and facilitate working together on group projects. Startup for Kids is for young children as well as teenagers, and they hold a variety of different kinds of events. In this episode, we discuss Sharon’s background working in tech, how she decided that this was the project she wanted to develop after a pivot away from a previous startup idea, why she thinks it’s so important to introduce kids to entrepreneurship and other ways of learning at a young age, and much more.

Anne Charlotte transitioned away from the corporate world and into entrepreneurship by a very different path than she’d originally planned. In this episode, she shares the incredible and harrowing story that ultimately led her to build Yogist into a method and mindset that has gone global, bringing simple, corporate yoga to employees around the world via her book, e-learning program, and now a chatbot. You don’t want to miss this one!

Weerada launched FilmDoo a few years ago-- it’s a global media company helping people to discover and watch great and often lesser-known or hard to access films from around the world. Originally based in London, FilmDoo was one of the recipients of the French Tech Ticket program in 2017, and they’ve been working for over a year now to build out development in France. In this episode, we discuss her experience with the French Tech Ticket, the market need she wants to fill, how FilmDoo will expand their model, and much more.