Start-up Connexion: a growth promotor

Two ex-experts of Ernst&Young try the adventure and propose their respective skills to start-ups.

Created in January 2000 and settled in Sophia Antipolis, the young firm has for objective to help start-ups to develop. It was founded by Jacques Tassi, 52, former director of Ernst and Young Entrepreneurs. After having dedicated 28 years of his life as an adviser in an important cabinet, he decided to give pieces of advice to himself after he wrote his book entitled: 'Q'attendez-vous pour entreprendre ?' (What are you waiting for to found a firm?), and to try to found a firm. An Ernst &Young responsible for marketing, Christophe Rivé joined him for the adventure.A real coachingStart-ups must be helped for marketing and strategy. In the high-technologies universe, where everything is going very fast, a firm has to reach within 3 or 5 years the size that a SME reached 10 or 15 years after having been created. We have the role of a growth promotor by using a real firm coaching. Our aim is: to help the firm to catch the good opportunities in its market, to favour alliance strategies - sometimes merger allows to position a project better - help firms to take decisions like a hot line.'The firm do not ask money to the start-up it helps but it takes a part of the start-up capital. Its prefers being present over the market of NTICs rather than over Business to Business one.In order to get the best experts skills, Start-Up Connexion has different partners: Ernst & Young for funds rising and lending procedures, an international firm of recruitment, an important firm of investment managers for the research of investors, especially individual people, technopoles for the part dealing with real estate and logistics. 'In Sophia, we are working with Seven Ways for technical evaluation of projects, and with Cicom Organisation, the CICA's manager and European Center of enterprise and innovation.'A proximity strategyStart-Up Connexion is starting at the CICA with six people and an eighteen start-ups pool. Premises are already implanted in Marseille and Montpellier, others are about to be in Paris and Lille, Nantes, Nancy, Bordeaux and Lyon. 'We bet on a proximity strategy. Our goal is to help about one hundred start-ups. We are rising funds to finance our own company and to enter into the capital of start-ups we are supporting. At the end of the year 2001, the team should reach 20 employees. We are recruiting and are looking for a very specific profile: a coach profile. A good coach could be a good entrepreneur, he helps firms to take decisions, he has a lot of ideas, he can react very quickly and knows well the NTICs' sector.In Marseille, firms like Spigao (construction services on the web) and Easy Fusion placed their confidence in Start-Up Connexion.Start-Up Connexion already helps several firms like E-acute (mobile writing and phoning), Metrix or Seven Ways. Partner of Up-e, it is also a part of a particular chain: it is almost the start-up of the start-up of the start-ups! Maybe the third millennium firm in which complementarity is more important than competition.Contact: Jacquestassi@start-upconnexion.com