I feel that if Chrystèle’s profile wasn’t built in a day, this experience as an independent was a cornerstone that would lead her towards the creation of a start-up.
4.2.3. FULL’STREET, the launch
During the entire interview, there is a notion about her that I found very structuring. Chrystèle told me about her memory lapses. For a long time, she was complicated by her ability to move on, to unburden her memory, especially when in front of people incapable of questioning themselves. What spontaneously applies to people, bad memories, uninteresting content, applies all the more so in moments of decision-making. By way of illustration, originally the current entrepreneurial project that she and her partner and companion were carrying out was to create a network of distribution boutiques … and this was to become a digital platform that I will describe to you shortly. We can’t even talk about a pivotal point, but about a change of project trajectory. Chrystèle lives fully in the present moment and makes choices in the present. This approach allows her to circumvent obstacles and to deal with the surprises that every professional encounters and is full of.
FULL’STREET is a “WorkTech” that provides professional services to entrepreneurs to simulate and then launch the creation of their company. This solution seems to me to echo Chrystèle’s propensity to offload what weighs heavy. With this platform, entrepreneurs can free up time to work on their strengths; those who are truly involved in creating value in business. There is no business virtue in wrestling with administrative complexities or fumbling around for the right resources.
With FULL’STREET, Chrystèle has moved from the security paradigm to that of risk-taking because “the unknown is tamed and I reveal myself in reality, the spontaneous”. But this is a risk-taker who remains cautious: “To launch FULL’STREET, I did not generate any debt”. She finds it heroic, as well as insane, that the entrepreneurs who are least able to exercise entrepreneurship are proportionately those who generate the most debt before they even earn anything.
Beyond risk-taking, what she likes above all is to wear the same hat for creative, strategic and managerial roles: thus covering the entire timeline of the company’s existence.
Today, more than ever, Chrystèle’s adventure continues. Her network, especially in the media and the entrepreneurial ecosystem was built patiently. Chrystèle seized and activated during her career history all the opportunities of encounters and this constitutes, it must be said, a precious asset for the development of such a company. Human capital is at the heart of her method as well as her objective. So many individuals who have, over time, participated in the empirical construction of her career and led her to where she had dared, alone, to imagine finding herself.
All the best!
Question 4: what does Mrs. Chrystèle Sanon’s journey inspire in you?
Figure 4.1. Mrs. Chrystèle Sanon
5
Mr. Christophe Vattier, the Lucky Rebel!
Christophe is not unknown to me. He is one of those entrepreneurs whose paths I crossed as head of a start-up support structure. At the time, I already found him a colorful character. Far from being an exuberant person, Christophe is a communicator in the very positive sense of the word. He knows how to share his passions and how to train. He is one of those rare people to whom I would gladly give the leader’s pin, a natural leader first, and who has since become a pragmatic one.
You will tell me that such a positive introduction to the subject will no doubt make the tale of his career more objective. Not in the least, I assume my subjectivity towards him, because it is his journey and not mine, and I admit that what I am about to reveal to you about him, I myself discovered during this interview.
Furthermore, Mr. Vattier this time, for the object of the work, revealed a little more to the world, and probably also to himself.
5.1. Context
You will read about Christophe’s background, a life where nothing was predestined for entrepreneurship. I’m not saying anything because when you have a classic childhood, you might think you’ll have a classic life. But that doesn’t take into account what everyone carries inside. Christophe carried himself and carried a passion to move the boundaries of discovery in himself, the Other and life, without concession and with great benevolence.
5.1.1. Origins
“I was born at midnight, pumpkin time”. This little phrase marks his character. He could have told me he was born at midnight, but he references the time. That’s just like Christophe, always giving meaning to what he says. At the time of writing, Christophe Vattier is 47 years old. He was born into a middle-class family in a small village in France, with a sister 13 years his senior.
“My birth, desired by my parents, was experienced as a gift from heaven”. His parents always made him feel it by giving him special attention. It built him up beyond the luck he says he’s always had for a very long time. A sign of destiny? … “I can try anything and I’ll always manage, that’s what I’ve always believed in”. He had an easy, loving childhood, he was loved, and anything was possible for him. We will see later that this had an impact on his choices and probably on the path of life that was his.
For this easy-going boy, his childhood was made of dreams and non-conformism, because he was creative and bored. A technology enthusiast (“I had a computer very early on”), he loved reading, science, and had a wide variety of knowledge (poetry, comics, various authors, the stock exchange) collected in a wide variety of formats (TV, radio, paper, etc.). “When I was six, my favorite show was the 8:00 P.M news and I did my homework in front of the club Dorothée TV series”. He slept little and used his time for all sorts of activities, sports, outings, etc. He was a very active person. “I was the one people wanted to be buddies with because I understood other people’s personalities and I told them what they wanted to hear”.
These are the events that transformed his life in relation to this very easy-going character.
5.1.2. Teenage years of disruption
“At a very young age, I challenged my parents”. Curious about everything, all the time, Christophe was not the last to want to participate in conversations with his adult relatives. And as a result, discussions could turn into arguments. “It was a bit hard for my beloved parents”, admits Christophe, as he has always had this irrepressible urge for a drum-beat exchange. “I found that my parents didn’t understand all the things I understood about things, news, etc.” This invariably created arguments and friction. Were Christophe’s parents the first “guinea pigs” for this child who was always quick to show the limits of a certain conformism? In any case, this has developed his ability to grasp opinions that differ from his own and his dialectics.
The teenager was already largely alone in deciding what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it. It was this initial conviction that meant he was granted everything, making Christophe say, “I sometimes behaved like a little