The startup Bottle was founded in 2021 by Clément Gavault, recent graduate of EDHEC. His goal? Revolutionize the world of wine and make it more accessible to consumers, particularly young people.
Academic and entrepreneurial journey of Clément Gavault, founder of Flakon
Can you introduce yourself in a few words?
My name is ClementI am 24 years old and I have recently graduated from EDHEC, which I joined after an ECS preparatory class at the Lycée Sainte-Marie in Lyon. By joining a business school, I knew full well that I already wanted to get into entrepreneurship. From my first year, I began to learn about the subject and explore the field of possibilities.
During my gap year, in 2018, my professional and entrepreneurial journey took a new turn. I actually did a six-month internship in New York as a Junior Analyst in the Champagne Louis Roederer group. I had the chance to discover a world with great potential. I then looked in more detail at the concept of “wine in a bottle”, which is the basis of my project. The sommelier with whom I worked passed on to me all his knowledge and his passion for this format, which he considered to be an excellent way to compare and taste the wines and deepen your knowledge on this subject. This is where the idea of launching a project combining fun experiences and wine crossed my mind. The Flakon project was thus born.
By choice, you decided not to join forces, for what reasons?
Embarking on an entrepreneurial adventure alone was an opportunity for me to step out of my comfort zone and prove to myself that I could achieve great things.
In addition, partnering on a project can be very restrictive. It requires getting along well with the person on a personal level, but also on an entrepreneurial level, since you are committing to them for several years. Joining forces is almost like getting married! A risk that I was not ready to take from the start of my project.
Obviously, II’m not saying that joining forces during your entrepreneurial adventure is doomed to failure. But for the moment, I consider that I have surrounded myself very well to carry out this project without having to join forces. Indeed, I am lucky enough to benefit from:
- quality support within the incubator
- from an outside perspective thanks to the various exchanges with other startups and mentors
- daily help thanks to my colleagues
- psychological support from those close to me
And who knows, maybe one day I will find my entrepreneurial soul mate!
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The Station F adventure experienced by Clément
What was your first contact with Station F?
I first did my final internship at Station F as a Startup Program Manager. I had the chance to follow 43 incubated startups and work on the application process for the EDHEC incubator with the director, Justine Soudier, with whom I worked hand in hand throughout the seven months.
Our ambition was to make it one of the first incubators in France. A year later, we can congratulate ourselves on the work accomplished, given that we have gone from a team of two to ten people. EDHEC has made entrepreneurship a priority and has therefore decided to invest massively in the subject.
How does the selection process take place within the EDHEC incubator?
The selection process is done in 2 stages. First an analysis of the application files and then a pitch to a jury made up in particular of people from outside the incubator and investors. There are around fifteen selection criteria taken into account by the incubator, including four main ones. Overall, you need a founder who graduated from EDHEC, work full-time on his startup and present a project that is in line with the support of the EDHEC incubator and Station F: a project with high growth potential, which is fairly mature (first prototypes, first sales, etc.).
What are the benefits of being part of Station F?
Being part of Station F allowed me to be well surrounded and to have answers to almost all my questions. When I was on the EDHEC campus in Lille, I was alone and I didn’t know how to network. However, entrepreneurship requires good support. It was then that the idea of doing an internship within the incubator seemed obvious to me to develop my network and learn more about this world. Today, and thanks to Station F, I am surrounded by 1,000 startups, all of which represent great success stories.
I also have access to endless resources and am surrounded by advisors, specialists in their field, who are a source of inspiration for me on a daily basis. As soon as I have the slightest question, the incubator puts me in contact with an expert.
Even after a year and a half in the incubator, I am still well supported and I know all the incubated startups very well. I set a goal for myself to meet at least two startups per week. The objective? Challenge myself and have an outside perspective on the progress of my project. For those who want to see more, recently, I did a complete video tour of Station F which you can find on youtube here.
Everything you need to know about Flakon
What is Flakon?
The idea of Bottle emerged in my mind when I did my gap year internship in New York, within the Champagne Louis Roederer group. It was thanks to this experience that I was able to discover the wine industry from the inside. I also learned that the best way to improve in wine is to compare several. The project thus gives interested people the opportunity to discover a new format, smaller and less restrictive, while living a phygital experience (thanks to a QR code), combining learning and tasting.
One of Flakon’s main strengths is to have established a partnership with one of the leaders in the wine sector in France, an SME which has more than 30 years of experience in the field. She accompanies us in our activity bottling and provides us with a large number of resources.
How does the Flakon experience work?
We invite you to spend a “Flakon evening”, thanks to a “phygital” tasting experience which is done in two stages. First of all, the discovery of new wines thanks to our tasting boxes made up of 10cl glass bottles, the ideal format for a tasting of 2 to 4 people. Then, immersion in the world of wine thanks to a flashable QR code which transports our customers to an online experience, allowing them to learn more about the winemaker and his history, while challenging themselves with quizzes.
Flakon is a mission-driven company, can you tell us more?
I chose responsible entrepreneurship as the theme for my end-of-year dissertation at EDHEC. It was therefore quite natural that I built my project around these issues, in particular by choosing to become a mission-driven company. At Flakon, our mission is enshrined in our statutes, and it consists of “ ddemocratize learning about wine, through fun and responsible tasting experiences*. We constantly seek to combine profitability and impact through the following three axes:
- Bringing wine into the 21st century by making it more accessible through entertaining drinking experiences
- Generate a positive and significant social, societal and environmental impact in the exercise of our activities
- Put stakeholders at the heart of our project and ensure that employees can flourish in both their professional and personal lives
This last point is particularly important, since I try every day to build a company where it is good to work, with strong and embodied values. We offer very varied missions on a daily basis, immersed in the startup ecosystem. Everyone can express their ideas and have a real impact to help us innovate in this beautiful sector that is wine!
What are the next steps for Flakon?
The idea is to continue in our mission to democratize wine. Currently, we are finalizing our next offer which consists of creating a premium experience, more classy and adapted to gift formats. We also aim to create new strategic partnerships with brands, influencers and even sites and, why not, develop our products internationally. I was contacted by German winemakers and distributors Chinese who expressed their interest in our concept.
Currently, we are self-financing, but eventually, we will need an acceleration of growth which will require us to turn to means of financing such as fundraising.
Difficulties, advice and prejudices about entrepreneurship
What was the biggest difficulty you encountered and what did you learn from it?
The big difficulty remains finding the courage to get started and agree to learn and adapt your basic idea. Entrepreneurship is not an innate knowledge, but represents a long journey that requires a lot of patience. The greatest entrepreneurs didn’t get it right the first time. You have to have humility and a lot of patience to move up the ladder gradually. According to a Harvard study, the average age of a successful entrepreneur is 45 ! It is therefore essential to keep in mind that there are several steps to take before achieving success.
To summarize, you have to give your all as if there is no tomorrow, but keep in mind that you have your whole life ahead of you to learn! Being an entrepreneur is above all about finding the right balance between the different paradoxes that present themselves to us on a daily basis.
What is the worst advice you received during your entrepreneurial adventure?
The worst advice I received was to work hard on my product before launching my project. As entrepreneurs, we must offer tailor-made products and adapt our products to customer needs.
As such, I created an oenology club at Station F with around ten people per sessionto whom we have makes discover our boxes in order to get their feedback on our products prototypes. Through these discussions, I understood that we had to enter the entertainment industry and aim for a target accustomede to “Netflix and chill” evenings.
If there was only one book/podcast that you could recommend to our readers who would like to get started in entrepreneurship, what would it be?
I highly recommend the Génération do it yourself podcast and in particular the episode with Maxime Legardez, founder of Everoad. As for the must-read book for entrepreneurs, I recommend The Lean Startupby Eric Ries, published in 2015. It revolves around the actions to be implemented to launch more efficient products. This involves selling the product before its production and co-constructing a solution adapted to customer needs.
