A final year BBA and INSEEC student and future KEDGE BS student, Quitterie Lafont founded her own brand of handmade accessories: MarieTeam. Focus on the journey of the young entrepreneur.
What is your background?
Since I was little, I have always loved creating things by hand to sell, whether it was bracelets to sell on the beach or greeting cards going door to door. Today I am a final year BBA student at INSEEC Bordeaux and I will join the MSc International Business at KEDGE Bordeaux next September.
Can you introduce your brand, MarieTeam?
MarieTeam is a brand of handmade accessories, made in Cap-Ferret. For each item sold I have decided to donate 1 euro to the humanitarian association “Children of Shanti” in India. I went on a humanitarian trip to India with this association three years ago, and I have kept a precious link with them. For the moment, we have made donations to help create a school in the slums. Once it is built we will educate as many children as possible.
Within MarieTeam we convey three values:
- Quality: We take care to create our accessories by hand and in Cap-Ferret with French raw materials.
- Excellence: We give the best of ourselves every day to grow the brand.
- Sharing: We support the “Children of Shanti” in India every day thanks to your orders.
How was your project born? How did you come up with the idea of creating MarieTeam?
Nothing more than confinement alone in 10m² in Madrid, a strong desire to help the most deprived in India, but also to create my own articles.
On May 26, 2020, I created a MarieTeam Instagram account where I published a first photo saying “ We made 100 scrunchies, now they are for sale “. In reality, only three scrunchies were made. I was convinced that it wouldn’t work and that I would end up selling a few on the beach this summer in Cap-Ferret.
Finally, 1 week later, we had sold 100 scrunchies. It’s incredible, but none of them were made. My little sister, who is starting this project with me, did not know how to use the sewing machine and I was not there to be able to help her. My sister sewed by hand day and night so she could send out orders as quickly as possible. There was a month delay in receiving orders. Obviously messages came across Instagram every day, telling us that customers still had not received their order.
My little sister then learned to use the sewing machine. I returned to France to help and created our website so that customers could order directly on the site and no longer by private message on Instagram.
Where is your startup today?
Today we have sold 950 scrunchies and two seamstresses have been helping us since September to make the scrunchies by hand, since we no longer have time to make so many with our studies. We also have twelve ambassadors who highlight MarieTeam on their social networks every week. Finally, we just did a collaboration with Orféo last week to make scrunchies with their fabric scraps. Our favorites will be resold in stores throughout France to match Orféo outfits to our favorites.
What are your plans for the years to come?
Our goal is simple: To become the No. 1 French scrunchie brand in France.
In the coming months we hope to create new collaborations with French ready-to-wear brands that share the same values as us.
We also want to expand our range. We are in the process of looking for factories to make fabric boxer shorts for men as well as pajama and beach shorts for women.
Find us on Instagram @marie_team_ and on internet!
See you soon!
Article written by the MarieTeam team
