Thibault Roudier joined the Grande Ecole Program on the Arts et Métiers and launched his start-up a year later. Founder of MON FOLIOSCOPE, he looks back on the opportunities he seized to bring his project to fruition.
Determined, he juggled his studies with developing his business.
Inspiring encounters
The launch of his business was greatly influenced by the people he met when he first arrived on campus.
Thibault says that if he wanted to embark on such a journey, " it was partly thanks to the opportunities offered to students by Magali Boulanger, Entrepreneurship Project Manager on campus ."
For example, Thibault was invited to Paris for the 12th "Entrepreneurship atArts et Métiers day Arts et Métiers This allowed him to discover the Arts et Métiers entrepreneurial ecosystem and to meet and talk with alumni and entrepreneurs.
He then took part in the JITCAM, a business game organized by the campus and the Junior Etude d'Aix to raise student awareness of entrepreneurship. It brings together 150 students, mostly first-year students, and enables them to develop entrepreneurial skills that are essential for the engineers of the future.
I met three startup founders, former students of the school, who are now the CEOs of Healphy and Enogia. These experiences were very inspiring for me and motivated me to learn more about the world of entrepreneurship. I had the idea of creating a startup in mind, but I knew that it would be difficult to develop a large tech project in just one year alongside my studies.
MY FOLIOSCOPE, the ideal project to embark on this adventure
" Have you ever thought about printing your favorite videos? The processexplains Thibault , consists of scrolling through images grouped together in a notebook to see if an animation is created. An original and personal gift, perfect for Christmas or Mother's Day.". MY FOLIOSCOPE modernizes the concept. Simply send a film (between 3 and 10 seconds) to receive a book to flip through... and go from pixels to paper.
A proponent of "learning by doing" "
Challenging oneself is an integral part of the entrepreneurial mindset of the Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation Program (PEIT) program that Thibault is following this year.
He wanted to launch MON FOLIOSCOPE in less than two months—to take advantage of the Christmas season.
This allowed him to quickly develop skills in areas such as marketing, finance, law, and organization. Thanks to PEIT, supported by Pépite Provence, he obtained the status of Student Entrepreneur and took specific courses. Above all, he gained autonomy and learned on his own through exchanges with professionals. Two coaches played a decisive role in this support. Quentin Plantec introduced him to intellectual property, and Louis Ickx introduced him to entrepreneurship and project management.
He will then quickly be hosted in Marseille by the business incubator Interfacebusiness incubator in Marseille, which enabled him to take his first steps as a start-up entrepreneur. The incubator provided him with legal and financial status as well as access to services (accounting, insurance, personalized legal advice).
A believer in "learning by doing," Thibault is one of those people who is not put off by failure. Moving forward, trying, making mistakes, and repeating is the approach he believes in to develop his business.
Entrepreneurial mindset, discovery, work
These three words sum up Thibault's state of mind one year after launching his start-up.
He hopes to inspire other students to follow a similar path, even though " balancing academic work, project development, involvement in student associations, and personal life has not always been easy ," he concludes.
