Elaia Mugica, a third-year student in the Grande Ecole Program at Arts et Métiers, developed the Partage Ton Coin project with Pierre Schmutz, a student at IMT Atlantique. Partage Ton Coin is a web platform that connects tourists and locals in rural areas so that they can organize visits between individuals.
Why did you choose to join the Grande Ecole Program and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship option?
From the start of my first year at Arts et Métiers Cluny, I wanted to discover the world of entrepreneurship, which had always appealed to me. So I joined PEPITE, the national network of student entrepreneurs, while also taking the Innovation and Entrepreneurshipoption offered in the first year at Cluny.
The PEPITE network taught me a great deal in many areas. Discovering the world of entrepreneurship was a completely new experience for me, and it was wonderful to feel welcomed and taken seriously by professionals who guided us through the different stages of our project. Participating in workshops is also an extremely effective way to move forward with your project, as interacting with other young entrepreneurs provides crucial inspiration and perspective. In summary, I would say that PEPITE gave me the knowledge, support, and motivation I needed to launch a project.
Why didn't you follow the PEIT program?
I chose not to follow the PEIT program offered by Arts et Métiers I believe that, after completing several training courses and passing certain milestones, it is not necessarily wise to expand one's professional network. Indeed, even though joining PEIT would certainly have been enriching, it is important to be aware of what a project requires at a given moment. And in this case, at our stage, it was essential for us to free up time to move forward on certain points that we had predefined and organized. I therefore chose to devote my time to completing these tasks rather than joining an additional program.
How does the Arts et Métiers school Arts et Métiers achieve your goals?
As mentioned above, in my first year I studied Innovation and Entrepreneurshipat Arts et Métiers Cluny. This option provided me with a strict framework and a clear path, with successive stages to complete in order to carry out my project. Combining this work with the PEPITE apprenticeship was very fruitful, as the perspectives and angles of study differed on certain points, which allowed me to combine different methods to broaden my field of action.
What is your project and where did it come from?
The idea for Partage Ton Coin came to us after we realized that, in our opinion, tourism in France was far too industrialized and not authentic enough. So we came up with a web platform that would connect tourists with locals in rural areas so that they could organize private tours. Our love of rural life and simple, human interactions led us to focus on rural France as our field of action, with the aim of promoting sharing at the heart of our visits.
Who would you recommend the training to?
If you want to discover what it's like to build your project from scratch, gather valuable knowledge and contacts, and see if you're cut out to run your own business or association, I can only recommend that you take the plunge into entrepreneurship. People are often afraid to take the plunge and doubt themselves, but even if your project doesn't work out, you will have gained valuable experience that will make you a better person.
What are the next steps?
Currently, we are both taking a gap year and have encountered difficulties in pursuing the course we wanted to take in our final year of school. The difficulty in planning ahead has forced us to slow down the progress of the project considerably. Once we have more visibility on our final year of school, we will be able to establish a new provisional program, without which it is difficult to move forward in a qualitative manner. The next steps will be to improve our landing page, partagetoncoin.com, so that we can launch a communication campaign. We also plan to rework our business plan, following meetings and testimonials from other entrepreneurs working in the tourism sector.
