In 2017, EDHEC decided to open its incubator within the renowned Station F, a true temple of entrepreneurship in France. Justine Soudier, a graduate of the management school, today manages EDHEC Entrepreneurs and, therefore, the Station F incubator which has seen the birth of startups like 900.care and Yuka. She takes us behind the scenes.
The journey of Justine, director of EDHEC Entrepreneurs
Hello Justine. What is your background?
I started my higher education at the Catholic University of Lille and joined EDHEC as a student, via the AST competitions. I joined the Master in Management in M1 and started to become interested in entrepreneurship. So I joined the TEE association (Total EDHEC Entreprendre). I also did a first internship at Bpifrance, at the hub. I built relationships between large groups and startups: partnerships, collaborations… I also took a world tour of entrepreneurial ecosystems around the world. I visited 11 countries, selling reports to various media outlets. It allowed me to discover ecosystems like Shanghai or Silicon Valley. I also did an open innovation internship at Disneyland Paris and was able to see all the facets of entrepreneurship in my career.
In my final year, I opted for the MSc Entrepreneurship & Innovation. I worked part-time, to finance my studies, within the incubator, because I am passionate about this world. Once I graduated, I was recruited by the incubator and took care of our spaces at Station F for two years. We have tripled our size in these two years. I was then able to evolve and take charge EDHEC Entrepreneurs which includes our three incubators and our awareness programs around entrepreneurship.
Behind the scenes of the EDHEC incubator at Station F
What does the EDHEC Station F incubator offer the school’s startups?
The EDHEC incubator today has 110 places and continuous support for 35 startups. The criterion for joining our incubator is to have “an EDHEC” in the team of co-founders. Our startups benefit from around forty hours of coaching every month and an à la carte program thanks to our 200 experts who can support them on various subjects: financing, growth, fundraising, etc. They are free to choose the resources they need.
They also benefit from a mentor who supports them on more general subjects. These mentors come from our incredible community: DG France of Le Bon Coin, former CFO of Coca-Cola France, etc. Startups are entitled to human support, there are management programs for entrepreneurs, coaching dedicated to personal development. MSc in Strategy, Organization & Consulting students work on consulting projects for our startups with Capgemini every year. We have also implemented Clinical Entrepreneurship Hourssessions during which EDHEC professors can support startups on very technical subjects.
But that’s not all! Thanks to a partnership with the Gibson law firm, a skills sponsorship of 50 hours per semester has been set up, allowing startups to have access to free legal support. We also work with VC funds, with ENGIE, consulting firms. Startups are also helped with communication. Finally, they benefit from our alumni network to find potential clients or business angels.
Find out about the journey of the founders of iconic startups thanks to our podcast!
What are the different stages of incubation at EDHEC?
We have four components:
Explore. It is open to all our students and alumni to allow them to discover the entrepreneurial world. We offer an event cycle (conferences, testimonials, etc.), a newsletter to discover the basics of entrepreneurship, discovery days, activities, guided tours, etc.
Experiment. This system is aimed at students who have an idea and want to take action. We support them with prototyping. We offer an elective, the startup challenge, the 100-Day Bootcamp. The latter allows you to understand, in 100 days, all the stages of business creation: from idea to prototyping. They meet experts, have access to workshops and a community of entrepreneurs…
Executed. This is aimed at more mature startups who join our incubator. The objective is to find product-market fit. We help them find the product that will meet its market or on questions related to financing.
Expand. Here, we support our entrepreneurs internationally, thanks to a very good partnership established with UC Berkeley. They benefit from a suitable system which allows them to reach the final selection stage before joining the UC Berkeley incubator. Our goal is to offer other types of partnerships in other places. With EDHEC America, we are working on the development of EDHEC in San Francisco. The idea is to be able to help our entrepreneurs develop their business in the USA.
What are the differentiating axes of support made in EDHEC?
Our support is human-centered. We are developing a lot of tools to work on the issue of entrepreneur well-being. We have also implemented a program around diversity and inclusion. We have 40% incubated women. We are certified French Tech Tremplin. Finally, the real differentiating factor is international support. Very few incubators venture into this area. We are also developing an entire vertical around sustainable development.
Startups from the EDHEC incubator at Station F
After this interview with Justine Soudier, we were able to meet some startups hosted in the EDHEC incubator at Station F.
Les Actives Paris (Shanti and Flore)
What is Actives Paris?
We set up Les Actives Paris a year ago, via a campaign crowdfunding on Ulule. It’s a brand of beautiful, comfortable sportswear that isn’t made on the other side of the world. The fabric is made in France and the production is done in Portugal. Our goal is to provide timeless women’s sportswear. Our products can be found on our website, but also in Pilates and yoga studios throughout France as well as on Decathlon. We have been incubated at Station F since February 2021.
How does EDHEC support you in building your project?
EDHEC allows us to have a very down-to-earth approach and pushes us to look at the market, study the viability of the company and to be realistic. This also helps us with the structuring of the startup: the statutes, the legal, the accounting. Finally, EDHEC helps us find experts who match our needs and it is always very concrete. During this time of COVID, there has also been real support.
What follow-up do you imagine for Les Actives Paris?
There, the idea is to regularly make new collections, to develop the physical commercial part. Make yourself known, gain notoriety. We have a product that we like and that works. We manage to build loyalty. Reach more people and our target. We have a fairly old target who does not go on the RS and gain notoriety.
Hopli (Antoine, Lancelot and Louis)
Can you tell us more about the Hopli startup?
Thanks to our previous startup, we realized that companies really liked communicating about CSR actions to their customers. Hopli is a solution that allows the consumer to get involved, after the purchasing experience, and donate to an association of their choice. We support our clients in the choice of associations, contracts and we give them this turnkey solution. We have started to commercialize our solution.
Did EDHEC help you in the development of Hopli?
EDHEC supported and challenged us a lot, because we wanted to integrate this incubator into Station F. They forced us to reinvent ourselves. We were able to consume all the resources on the pricingTHE Go-to-Market. Having a work space available, with other entrepreneurs, other startups who encounter the same problems, is reassuring and motivating. This prevents us from withdrawing into ourselves.
So you exchange with other incubated startups?
The incubator does everything to put us in contact with other entrepreneurs, through meals or other moments of exchange. It’s super nice to share with them. We benefit from their experience in all areas.
How do you imagine Hopli in the coming months?
We already have a few clients, such as Les Actives Paris or Bliv and we are in process with other companies. We work with many associations, but try to expand our catalog to meet the needs of our customers. The goal is not to put them in competition, but to have an association by theme. In the very short term, we are also developing the communication kit part and the dashboard, to monitor donations. We want to give them a hand so they can personalize their experience.
Cyrius (Paul-Henri, Achille, Louis)
Cyrius, what is it?
Cyrius is a business cybersecurity awareness startup. The objective is to train employees in hacker practices, because the majority of successful attacks are due to human error. We manage to explain to them how they are manipulated and to popularize notions like phishing.
Why the EDHEC incubator at Station F?
We had applied for the Foudners program at Station F, but we realized that the support from EDHEC was more in-depth with courses, coaching… We needed help on subjects like finance , administration, customers and EDHEC were able to help us on these subjects. There are around fifteen startups in our class, we all know each other and we can easily discuss our issues. The school also makes a lot of effort to create synergies.
How do you imagine Cyrius tomorrow?
We measure success in terms of employees covered. Today, we are at 10,000 per week and we want to increase this figure. There are also other extremely important subjects on which employees must be trained: corruption, sexism, good environmental practices, etc. We are convinced that we have a card to play on these subjects.
Our two main objectives today are to continue commercial development and to expand the number of employees covered. The second is the subject of fundraising which should allow us to pass the second and grow the team.
