Elaia Mugica became interested in entrepreneurship during her first year at the Arts et Métiers campus Arts et Métiers Cluny, where she took a course on innovation and entrepreneurship taught by Agnès Bourg. Together with a friend, she came up with the idea of developing tourism in rural and provincial areas with her projectPartage Ton Coin(Share YourCorner).
Like any project, it thrives and develops through encounters. First, there was the encounter withÉléonore Lanet, entrepreneurship manager atPEPITE-BFC.
"Partage ton coin" is a web platform that facilitates interactions between tourists and locals in rural France who want to share their perspective on French heritage in a personal and authentic way,explains Elaia Mugica, a sophomore in the Grande Ecole Engineering Programme atArts et Métiers she presents her project.
In 2019, Eléonore was invited to attend the back-to-school week organized by Agnès Bourg, a teacher at the Arts et Métiers campus Arts et Métiers Cluny.
As I left the lecture hall, I called a friend and we spent the whole night discussing a concept. That's when an idea began to take shape, which would later become Partage Ton Coin,"Elaiacontinues.
Support from the PEPITE-BFC network
She obtainedNational Student Entrepreneur Status. This allowed her to benefit from the PEPITE-BFC network and participate in boot camps. Elaia gradually built her project: defining the concept, analyzing market research, and drafting a business model. She teamed up with her friend Pierre Schmutz, also an engineering student atIMT Atlantique, to create thePartage Ton Coin project.
Then come meetings with experts and people who challenge them when Elaia defends its project by participating in competitions such as Entrep Pays de la Loire during the first semester of the 2019-2020 school year, then French IoT and Pépite France at the end of May 2020.
Finally, in the summer of 2020, Elaia met someone who, like her, wanted to develop this concept of rural tourism. He shared his experience and the lessons he had learned from his failure.
Pierre and I took a step back and decided to start by conducting trial visits.
Initial conclusive feedback
Today, they launched a website,partagetoncoin.com, which features an online registration form for those who wish to participate as volunteers, whether they are tourists or locals. The first visits have been conclusive.
