Customer Experience: Polette puts sex toys in a shop window display
Last week, a shop window display aroused my interest as I walked through the streets of downtown Brussels. I was not the only one to stop in front of the Polette store, rue du Marché aux Herbes. How could it have been otherwise when moving sex toys were displayed in the window? In the series of interactive store windows, this one is at least, quite remarkable. Market research is also about that: observe trends. We have...
The secrets of conducting market research or how to ensure the success of your (future) business: Part 3
How to do market research? You will find the answers in this article, offered to you by the market research agency IntoTheMinds. Find here episode 1 and here episode 2. We completed this series of articles in 2018 with the creation of an online market research guide that you can access free of charge on our website. For any question, request or quote for market research in Belgium, France or elsewhere, do not hesitate to contact...
Correcteo transforms a niche market into a business opportunity
The exercise of preparing a final thesis can be a complex task for a student. It is with a view to supporting them that Quentin Demey created Correcteo, a platform that allows students to receive the support they need to develop their thesis. At the time of Correcteo’s international opening, we interviewed its founder to find out more about the future of this promising organisation. Summary Correcteo in a Nutshell Origin of the Idea and Launch...
CoCasse vegetable tablets: a surprizing food innovation
It was during our active monitoring of the marketing campaign at SIAL 2018 that we discovered CoCasse, one of the candidates for the SIAL Innovation Awards, which presented a product never before seen: a vegetable concentrate in the form of a tablet. The resemblance to a chocolate bar was so striking that visitors fell for it, some thinking that the squares of vegetable concentrate could be eaten. Back in today’s article on a culinary and aesthetic...
Tediber, the success story of a Digital Native Vertical Brand (DNVB)
Tediber, founded by Julien Sylvain, is a company whose particularity is to sell on the Internet an object whose marketing was until now the exclusive preserve of “permanent” shops: the mattress. A native digital actor, Tediber has just opened a brick-and-mortar store in the Marais district of Paris (13 rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie), a turning point in his strategy as an online “pure player” that encourages us to dedicate this article to it. Read also Read our white...
Homestamp, a blockchain-based mobile application by Immoweb
As part of our marketing and technological surveillance, we are now interested in a mobile application launched by Immoweb, Belgium’s leading platform on the real estate market. This application, called Homestamp, has the particularity of using blockchain technology. The purpose (to validate the inventories online thanks in particular to photos and videos with certified timestamps) seemed to us to be particularly relevant to others who use the blockchain without providing any additional added value. Good examples...
WeMaintain : this startup disrupts the market of elevator maintenance
BFM Académie, the first contest for new business creators on radio and television, is now in its 13th edition and this year, it is Jade Francine, creator of WeMaintain, an elevator maintenance company, who is the winner. Its slogan is “using digital technology to enhance the value of technical professions”. We had the pleasure of interviewing her and learning more about this somewhat revolutionary concept within this specific market. The concept of WeMaintain Jade Francine sees...
Le Testeur, a store to conduct market research in real conditions
As part of our marketing and retail monitoring, we have recently interviewed Sabrina Le Bourgeois, Director of communications at SEMAEST, a mixed economy company based in Paris, to learn more about the Le Testeur boutique located at 14 rue du Château d’Eau in the 10th arrondissement, an innovative way to conduct market research in real conditions while minimising the risks involved. Here is what we have learned about this concept. Le Testeur, a way to conduct...
Trocotel : how solving customer dissatisfaction leads to new business
The Trocotel website is an interactive platform created by Etienne Merlo and Jérôme Rouvront, both former employees of the Accor group. We went to interview Etienne Merlo to better understand the motivating factors behind the creation of this website. The idea of Trocotel comes from first-hand experience. These two employees were confronted each day with the dissatisfaction of many customers who had booked at an Accor hotel, but who, because of an unforeseeable event, could not...
What’s the marketing secret behind Frank Woolworth’s fortune?
The Woolworth building is one of New-York’s most iconic buildings. Not only was it the tallest building of the world from 1913 until 1930, but it also conveys the history of a brand that has revolutionized retail before going bankrupt. How did retail look like at the time of Frank Woolworth ? Frank Woolworth was a legendary businessman but also a legendary inept salesman. His inability as a salesman is told to have led him draft...
Sharing economy : revenues to be taxed in France
The good thing with the sharing economy is that it has empowered individuals to make money. The bad thing is that governments haven’t been able to take much advantage of those new business models. In France the sharing economy represents a turnover of €2.5bn and a workforce estimated to 13000. Needless to say, it was more than enough to get the attention of governments in desperate need of money since the financial crisis has begun in...
A new way to finance the growth of startups : bonds ! (Part 2)
In part 1, Jean Carvajal explained the various types of crowdfunding available to companies seeking financing, including issuing stocks, bonds and taking out conventional loans. In his opinion, bond financing is a great method as it provides funding flexibility and customisable repayment options without diluting shares. He then explained what unique factors Investbook’s risk committee considers when selecting projects for its crowdfunding investors. IntoTheMinds: Can you explain how the banks, which use the same controls, could...
A new way to finance the growth of startups : bonds ! (Part 1)
The topic of financing startups’ growth is a recurrent one on this blog; simply because it’s a problem that many entrepreneurs are faced with and that they don’t always solve. Today we’re interviewing Jean Carvajal, President and Creator of Investbook. Investbook is the first crowdfunding platform approved by the AMF (French regulatory body) for bonds investments. IntoTheMinds : Banks are cautious. This is not new. Therefore a new source of financing called “crowdfunding” has emerged...
TUZZit : 8 great online tools for your startup
Many would-be entrepreneurs we meet strive to either look for or even make up the visual and creative collaborative tools that will ease their team thinking process. This difficulty further increases when those teams are decentralized. Business model canvas, 5 forces of Porter, Important / Urgent matrix … TUZZit offers a collection of visual models to work with creativity online. Initiated by a Belgian startup, TUZZit (pronounced / ‘tΛzit /) is based on the principle of...
Alain Milliat: interview of a successful entrepreneur
Today we inaugurate a new article format. We wanted to give a voice to people that we hear too little in our opinion: successful entrepreneurs who have managed to master the difficulties of entrepreneurship and have grown their businesses. Besides interviewing experienced entrepreneurs we will also report on individual would-be entrepreneurs who have just started their business. Our guess is that comparing the two viewpoint will prove interesting. We begin our series with a successful and...
1/3 of hospitality firms could die. So what ?
A press conference was recently organized by the union of independents to denounce the expected negative effects of the black boxes in the so-called Horeca (HOtels – REstaurant – Coffee shops) sector (in other words the sector of hospitality). As a short reminder, these black boxes are devices to be implemented in the cash register of stores to eradicate the possibility to make black money. Jean-François DONDELET, the president of the union of independents (SDI), said...
Delta Lloyd : qualitative methods used to reveal business opportunity
After the remarkable marketing campaign “The billable Talk” launched by Delta Lloyd to help independent workers get insured for revenue losses, we come back today with Karlien Kelgtermans, Marketing Communication Project Leader at Delta Lloyd Life, on the development of this project and its first results. IntoTheMinds: There are more than 1m independent workers in Belgium. Yet, only half of them are insured against revenue loss. Which other insights can you share with us on the current situation?...
Gumelo lets you grow your own food
We met the entrepreneurial guys of Gumelo, a Portuguese startup in the food sector, at the SIAL 2014 fair in Paris. We just loved what they do and thought it would be good for them to get some exposure beyond the borders of Portugal. Grow mushrooms in your apartment As we explained in a previous article, the concept behind Gumelo is simple : wherever you live, you should be able to grow your own food. Gumelo’s...
SIAL 2014 : and the winner of the innovation award is …
You don’t need to present a new drink or a new food product to win the first prize of innovation at SIAL. The innovation is also about everything what revolves about consumers and new ways to consumer food. We already dealt with the nomadic market trend in an earlier article and this year’s innovation prize fits perfectly into this trend. This award rewards an individual who has understood what marketers call the “customers’ pains” and that...
Produce your own food : the new trend
There is one weak signal that emerged this year at SIAL that we think may be interesting to follow : “grow your own food”. We detected at least 3 products that fall into this category and we’d like to present them to you. Don’t buy : make it on your own The concept behind the “grown your food” trend is simple. You can produce what your eat and it’s not limited to vegetables or fruits. Any...
Essential business tools for startups : 99€ training in Brussels on 29 November
Would-be entrepreneurs will be delighted : a 1-day training session will be organized on November 29th 2014 in Brussels to teach, refresh, train essential skills to successfully start or develop your venture. If you want to register, just follow this link and fill in the online form. Practical details on the workshops Price : 99€ early bid (if you register before November 15), 199€ otherwise Price includes lunch and coffee Venue : CoStation, 5 Parvis Sainte-Gudule,...
What are the main reasons to create a company?
After the post we published 2 weeks ago on why companies fail, another interesting piece of statistics published by the French National Institute for Statistics (INSEE) regards the motivations of people to start their company and how these motivations have evolved since 2006. You’ll find the complete table below (we did the translations ourselves given that those interesting statistics are unfortunately only available in French). There are a few interesting insights out of this survey. ...
Entrepreneurship in Belgium : is the situation really so worrying ?
Recent articles in newspapers pointed the decrease of firm creation in Belgium, especially in the Southern part of the country when the creation rate was said to have decreased 11.2% We downloaded the figures from BeStat, the official repository of statistical figures for Belgium, and the reality looks slightly different. To evaluate the number of new firms, we used as proxy the application for VAT numbers. Contradicting articles : what is the actual situation ? Several...
Impossible to manage an HORECA profitably in Belgium ? Not true!
In a recent interview Diane Delen, president of the FedCaf (Federation of Coffee Shops and bars), complained about tax rates, monitored cash registers mandatory as from January 2015, too high employer’s contributions. Il all makes it impossible for an entrepreneur to be profitable, she said. She went a step further and explained that it lead to 4000 bankruptcies last year. Cash register at the heart of the debate Monitored cash registers (they will get a “black...
Uber banned, AirBNB in troubles. What’s the future of the sharing economy?
It seems that lobbies are wining some battles against newcomers in mature industries : UberPOP was banned from several countries or cities in the last months (Belgium, France, Italy, Germany) and we were wondering in a previous post whether AirBNB would be the next victim of the authorities. Unfortunately we predicted it right and AirBnb got in troubles. The Flanders region in Belgium threatened people using AirBnb to rent their house / apartment to fine them...
Greatest 3D printing quality on earth? Interview of TwinKind’s founder
We litteraly fell in love with TwinKind, a 3D printing startup located in Berlin that we visited in April. After the teasers of last week, here comes the time to go more in depth with an interview of Timo Schaedel, Twinkind’s founder IntoTheMinds: Timo, you’re the founder of Twinkind. Who are you and what have you done before Twinkind ? Timo Schaedel: I have been developing and directing international commercials for clients such as Mercedes-Benz, Panasonic, Audi...
Financing SME’s: the advices of Patrick Hannedouche
Today we’ll be talking with Patrick Hannedouche who runs Business Angel France, a website dealing with startup financing and growth. Patrick has a very direct writing style which helped him attract a strong online audience. We interviewed Patrick about his blog and ask him his viewpoint about the current market situation regarding startups’ financing. IntoTheMinds : Patrick , can you tell us about Business Angel France in a few words ? Patrick Hannedouche : Business Angel France was born...
Interview of Dirk Steiger, a CFO who became baker and entrepreneur
One of the cool and well-known shops of Berlin is Zeit Für Brot, an organic bakery located near Alexanderplatz. We went there and loved the place, its atmosphere, its design and of course its products. We are pleased to publish today an interview of Dirk Steiger, the entrepreneur who developed the Berlin store. He has an unusual entrepreneurial path that deserves to be discovered. For the fellow readers among you you may make some parallels with...
3D printing: interview of Le Fabshop’s founder
In a previous post we dealt with the superb initiative of Le Fabshop to install a 3D printing popup sture in the middle of Paris, at the BHV Le Marais. We wanted to know more about the entrepreneur behind Le Fabshop and have interviewed the founder of the company : Bertier Luyt. IntoTheMinds : What were your top three motivations for starting your business? Bertier Luyt : I’ve always been an entrepreneur; I also have another...
This video will show you that you lack observation skills
Usually I’m not a big fan of videos “making the buzz” on YouTube (not to say that I actually hate the mere expression “to make the buzz”). This being said I was recently deeply interested (and touched) by one of them. The video in itself has emotional ingredients to make it viral and is very well done. But what I found actually interesting was the very methodology that was used. Because I the end, what you’ll...
What does it cost to be a franchisee ?
The questions and myths around franchising are very present in the heads of entrepreneurs. Would-be entrepreneurs dream of creating a brand with the potential of launching a franchise, while others are interested in becoming franchisees. The question of the costs attached to the franchising concepts are however difficult to answer. Except if you take the time to do some market research and compare a 13 brands as we did below. 13 brands compared We decided to...
Lessons learned from launching a creative leisure store in Brussels
After we announced in a previous post that Myriam and Nathalie opened their store in Brussels, we interviewed them to give you a more thorough overview of their entrepreneurial venture, what they learned out of it, and which advices they’d give to would-be entrepreneurs. If you’d like to start your own business too, read more about our coaching offer which starts as low as 1750€. IntoTheMinds: What were your three main motivations for becoming an entrepreneur...
Interview : trials and tribulations of an entrepreneur in the food sector
Steve Gravy started Ethnik, a quality food-over-the-counter shop, near the European Commission in Brussels a few month ago. He was accompanied by IntoTheMinds for the realization of his project. We come back with him today on his project, its joys and difficulties, and the lessons he learned from it. A good starting point for any would-be entrepreneur in the HORECA sector. IntoTheMinds: What were the three main motivations for becoming an entrepreneur ? Steve Gravy: First,...
Crowdsourcing: three examples of concrete results
On his blog Yann Gourvennec, with whom we share ideas and exchange posts regularly, has just published an excellent article about the actual goals of crowdsourcing. Yann has rightly focused its effort to synthesize the concrete results reached through crowdsourcing. All too often this technique using a more or less broad community results in relatively poor results. You probably remember the post we published on the MyStarbucksIdea.com experience that ultimately could doubt the strict sense economic...
Successful market research and yet another store opened in Brussels
After last week’s announcement that a new store was opened in Brussels after a successful market research, we are also proud to report (with some delay however) that yet another store (this time in the HORECA sector) was opened by one of our clients near the European Commission in Brussels. Ethnik was opened by Steve Gravy on 5 Avenue d’Auderghem to serve customers’ needs for fresh, tasty and healthy food on the go. We coached Steve...
Franchise Expo Paris : what’s new and what we liked
The professional fair “Franchise Expo” has been organized for 30 years in Paris. The 2014 edition took place from March 23rd until March 26th and more than 500 companies were presenting their franchising concept. Several sectors were represented : services, hotels and restaurants, minimarkets and supermarkets, specialist outlets, fashion, real estate, …. As you can see the list is very long but some categories or sectors were overrepresented : restaurants and food shops accounted for 1/3...
