Entreprendre together | How to get away from your negative thoughts – read my one useful tip!

The 5th of December was my business’ first birthday. I wanted to share with you how I learnt to remove negative thoughts in one useful tip. You have to guess what it is while reading my article, I will be waiting for your comments!

I started my company just after my 28th birthday celebration. I had no money, no network, no employees. All I had was my partner and a flat in London – which was expensive.

I hadn’t really thought about starting my own business before. I had just been dismissed from my job after a trip to India. It was the end of November and my previous employer hadn’t paid me my last months wages – for economic reasons, he said. It was approaching Christmas and we were broke.

It wasn’t a great time to start a business. My partner wanted me to find a new job fearing we could not pay our rent and I was suffering post-depression after being dismissed. But is there ever a perfect time to start?

Only a week after my dismissal I had created Internshipmapper. It is still a strong memory, I was at the British Library reading and thinking about my future – what I am going to do? And in a fury it came naturally. 15 minutes later and it was done.

My partner didn’t know yet… I returned home thinking I am crazy! We were already so stressed. And how was my partner going to react? I was scared, my heart was racing. “How is your job hunting going?”. “Love, I have created my own company”. Big surprise!

We sat and had a long conversation, I didn’t know anything, I had no business plan, no office and no phone number. It was a hard moment, but as a couple it was a strong one. We were in such a complicated situation, but you know that you are with the right person when nothing is going well and yet we still choose to walk together in the same direction.

I still needed to find another job for financial support. I needed to prove to myself that this could work. Days later I was focusing on what I needed to do – attracting and finding people who needed my help. Meanwhile, my partner was job hunting for me. Step by step I received more applications, recruited companies and slowly but surely my workload increased and my partner began asking if I needed any extra help. At nights my partner was conducting interviews to give me some time to relax. Don’t forget – I love enjoying my life as you should while creating your company.

It was end of December and we conducted our first placement. This could work we said.

In January, I received responses from some of the jobs my partner had applied for. I went for interviews which I wasn’t excited about, but I still got a job nonetheless. I was so unhappy in my new position that I quit 3 weeks later, I was too obsessed by Internshipmapper. I was scared also – don’t forget that we were living on one salary in a one bedroom flat in Zone 2 in London. This can be expensive and when I quit my new job I knew I was being selfish, but I just couldn’t do it.

We had many depressing moments where we thought we were not going anywhere. We had candidates drop out of Internshipmapper and companies were not replying.

We were working until 1am in the morning and waking up at 6 am. It was tough. My partner was sometimes frustrated that we couldn’t go to restaurants, have a few drinks, or go travelling together.

And then came Ben Rosen, Founder of Inspiring Interns, who came in at the right moment. We had met each other a few months earlier in my previous job and one day I called his office in the middle of the afternoon and he responded straight away (he almost never replies to general phone calls). When I started my company I told him that I was going my own way. He asked me questions, we met a couple of times and he offered to give me a few desks in his office to help – making us business partners. It was a good move, as I was no longer working from home and it was better for when I met partners and clients.

As of April this year I had placed 36 students. It was good but I needed more partners and an updated business model. I had heard about a networking collective and a few French speaking entrepreneurs and I decided to attend.

This is where I meet Jean Viry-Babel who is the director of French Square. He was interested in my business and he was also looking for students to become apart of his membership. Step by step he helped me get more business as well as questioned my decisions and my business model. I didn’t like people telling me I could do better, but it was exactly this that helped me grow. He is now one of the few people I go to when I need advice and I also help him with French Square. He helped me to grow Internshipmapper in a few short months.

June. Brexit. My business is to help French students to get an internship in London and I needed to open my boundaries and to refresh myself. This is why we are launching a new talent platform in January 2017 where European students and graduates can connect with companies from all over the world. A new adventure is coming.

Along the way I have been confused, scared of my decision, lost in my world, fighting my fears. I have had so many sleepless nights – and I still do. But I keep on walking while confronting my fears.