For Mélanie Mambré, founder of Vaovert, business creation is above all a life course.
Mélanie Mambré had well, before her Master in business management, in mind to create a business “At one time or another”. By luck or bad luck, she joined a company that sank a year later, a small SME in the project management of wooden frame houses, a little too ahead of its time. The company closes and Mélanie finds herself in redundancy. Desiring more stability, she applied for a “A more serene company in terms of turnover, a bank”. She finds herself a consultant by referring habitat and can, for a period of 11 years, satisfy her passion for travel.
Initiator trips
Every year from 2006 to 2017, she leaves for a month with “her backpack, to discover a country”. During her travels, true bubbles of oxygen, she is enriched by developing culture and “opens her eyes” as she tells us: “I realized the consequences of our excessive consumption for these countries and little by little I realized that despite climate change or humanitarian problems, indigenous people were always happy and full of hope and were putting in place actions to protect their territories. “
The transition to entrepreneurship
Her clients often come to see her to do more with their travel preparation than their mortgage. “They knew that I was a big traveler and that I could advise them. Above all, I communicated to them this different way of traveling, more responsible tourism. “. As the manager confides: “It ended with a Burn out because I didn’t feel out of place. It is true that I have always had an enterprising spirit, full of initiatives and that I naturally oriented myself towards associations when I was an employee ”. Awareness of her ability to carry out a project grows stronger and she decides to align with her values, “Achieve something close to his heart”. The desire to enter a positive economy seizes her, because she wants to show a beautiful way of consuming, and she decides to leave the bank.
A necessary refinement of the idea
She takes a sabbatical year, from 2017 to 2018, to work on an idea that had crossed her mind during her travels. She thought that it was not normal that there is not a travel site which brings together all the tourist structures which pay attention to their environment and which are in responsible tourism. She is aware that the competition will be serious. She quickly understands that her wish to create a sort of “Green Booking” will have to break through in the face of important players. She is therefore taking advantage of this year to see if the project is viable and to find out about the competition. To refine her project, she decides to do a three-month training course with the BGE on business creation, where she receives tools. During the training, she lays down her project flat and gets support to structure her project. At the end of her training, she went in search of her first advice, in particular the chartered accountant, as well as her financing. It obtains the support of various actors such as the region, Bpifrance and the bank. Once the funding round has been validated, she can finally launch Vaovert in December 2017.
Offices and skills above all
The adventure finally begins and Mélanie Mambré understands that one of the big steps for her will be to find an office to avoid isolation and gather new skills. “I had been working at home for a year and it is true that I needed to have a real professional space, to make my first hire because I had a real need for skills, particularly in digital communication that I do not not in control. “. Once hired, she can finally make herself known because “for a digital initiative, the only way to make herself known is to be very present on the networks and therefore to create a digital reputation”. Florian therefore completes the team, followed six months later by the first accommodation referent, Gaëlle, who takes care of fetching the offer.
A concept that has grown
If at the beginning of the adventure, the entrepreneur focuses on booking a stay, she now realizes that this was only the first brick in the building. “After a year or two, seeing all the support and interest there was around the project, I told myself that the sale of a stay could simply be the basis of a whole universe that the we could develop over the years. We had a development ambition that would allow us in three or four years to diversify our turnover and become the true companion of sustainable tourism for professionals and travelers alike ”. A project that has therefore grown. Today, Vaovert has become a real platform for booking eco-responsible tourist accommodation in France
Innovation as an advantage
“If the principle is simple, it is the innovation” behind the company that is recognized. This is the famous “Vaovert index” which makes it possible to give a score and to qualify the establishment’s commitment to eco-responsibility. “We have invested a lot in time and hours on this subject from the start of the company” and the entrepreneur Mélanie tells us “The first year of Vaovert’s creation, we were really into research and development. It was about fine-tuning the qualification process. Our algorithm is recognized today as our innovation and sets us apart. “.
Challenges still to be taken up
The entrepreneur’s ambition does not stop there since she wishes to develop for professionals to help them move towards sustainable tourism. The challenge for tomorrow remains “To be even more visible. We want to become a real French ethical alternative to existing standard players ”. But for now, it has already had to respond to another challenge like many companies: The Covid. “Today, immediately, we are suffering from the Covid. We had to activate levers for the offer, which suffered a first decline, to gain momentum. This put us to a halt and therefore a leap back because we lost half of our offer. We had 300 establishments in February 2020 and in April of the same year we increased to a hundred “. Successful bet since the company is increasing its number of establishments again today to 150 even if it still has to convince the players to take the plunge to call on a business that is starting up. Note all the same that this is a fairly substantial offer to meet all travelers, despite the modesty of the manager.
Transformation into opportunity
If the Covid could prove to be a difficulty for a good number of companies, the leader wonders: “Today we see that it goes back to the bottom. Is it finally an opportunity? “. For the leader, the pandemic “Increased awareness and, above all, it raised awareness among institutions and politicians that it was necessary to go on this path for the tourism industry in France”. An opportunity that it intends to seize by relying on the public authorities, for whom the idea, before the Covid, was perhaps too precursor while it is generating a lot of interest today. While this is true for public authorities, it is also a general awareness. “I am not sure that if it had not been for the pandemic, purchasing acts would not have evolved as much. There is a certain correlation with today’s envy ”.
Winner of a call for projects
For the entrepreneur who managed to overcome the pandemic, a new stage has just materialized, in particular thanks to the fact that “Winner of the Atout France call for projects. For us, this is a consecration and having been selected as one of the 10 French companies that will relaunch tourism in France, it shows that we can still move forward. The interministerial committee considered that we could help save tourism and revive it. We came in third place, which will be a real boost with the support of institutions ”. A step that could allow the company to raise funds to continue its development and achieve all of the company’s ambitions, in particular that of becoming the true companion in the transition to more responsible travel behavior.
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