Life story behind TaSuVal

Leaving corporate world last year, colleagues were telling me “You have a big courage after 11 years to leave and found your own company”. But for 10 years I was hearing often from many entrepreneurs and business founders in my network “you need a big courage to stay there and renounce to your dreams”.

When I was pitching my business idea I was often asked “why did you stayed so long in corporate”? and “how comes you have such a big network of entrepreneurs”?

Reasons for staying slightly more than a decade in corporate

Curiosity and passion for science in general and agriculture in particular, passion who grew even more when I met other passionate people at #Syngenta R&D and with whom I was sharing same values. Joining Syngenta in 2012 my strategy was very clear:

- gain experience in R&D and marketing, under an umbrella role allowing me to be in close contact with many cross functional experts and touch on many areas

- play the big card at my 10th year anniversary: “either they will invest in me to stay, either they will invest in me to leave”.

- complete my network with talented and very knowledgeable corporate people

How I developed my entrepreneurs’ network (20 years old journey)

For the 2nd question…. I have so many examples that probably I’ll have to write a book.

Very few know that when I joined #Syngenta I had to renounce to my first business registered abroad (Strasbourg, FR) and active for 2 years focusing on digital and tech innovation. This adventure was only one year after I failed the launch of my first company (Lille, FR) due to some found raising challenges (another article will come on the story on how to gain fast resilience after failing first big found rising as expat woman at only 23 years old).

I was interested to create and develop a network of entrepreneurs since I joined university and I wasn’t afraid of the sacrifices I had to take even when no-one was there to support me financially or morally (neither my parents). ?At 20 years old I decided to pay myself the studies in France and all the living costs. Surviving with 3€/day, not having money to buy flight ticket for Christmas to see my parents and running late night or reading books just to forget that I’m hungry …. was extremely hard. But I promised to myself that at 23 I will finish my engineer degree in agriculture in my home country and one of the most difficult master’s degrees in bank finance and an MBA in France…. And…. I did it!

My student life was very strict: study and work. I participated to many entrepreneurship events, start-up incubators, interviews with SMEs CEOs to sign sponsorship contracts in my role of Vice-President AIESEC Lille (biggest student NGO worldwide) and various part-time jobs or personal entrepreneurship initiatives.

If you think that my entrepreneurship mindset started in my twenties, I will say it was rather at 12 years when I had a problem and I needed money to resolve it (but this story will be shared later).

Even when I had a full-time job in corporate, most of my evenings, weekends and holiday were reserved for entrepreneurship events (either as organiser as volunteer in various start-up associations, either as participant). Some of them are described in this article.

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My 2nd life chance and… how my passion for agriculture came

The first biggest challenge and my 2nd chance for life was at 18 years old. One week after my bachelor exam, my father had a near-fatal car accident. I was supposed to be in the car with him to supply grocery products for our store (small family business). I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't had to replace the employee who stole the money from the store and ran away. It was shortly before my exam at Polytechnic (my dream was to become expert in medical devices and I followed an intense high school mathematic informatic preparation). ?I even didn’t had time for a dilemma “go to university or save my family situation”. As unique child and as I was doing the accountability and inventory for my dad from the age of 16th years old, I knew all the products and their GP. I had 2 big problems: no drive licence and no credibility in front of some suppliers who tried to abuse my lack of experience and overcharging their products. On those moments the “doll with innocent face” had to transform into a “wild animal” ready to survive in the “wild world” and be though to first negotiation (which I won it and even asking rebate).

The bakery didn’t accept to supply directly to my store, and I didn’t had drive licence and a car to charge myself the 300 breads/day. So, on my hands I could carry only 50 breads at 7am before opening the store. My challenge was how to earn with 50 breads same amount as with 300 ; then….? “happy sandwich” idea came and advertised on a A0 paper. Viewing that close by were various shops, banks and an open market but no restaurant or fast food (back on that time we even didn’t had the well-known fast foods as today), the idea worked

The most challenging was to re-invented completely the supply chain and distribution viewing that I didn’t have drive licence, a car, an extra person to sell on my behalf and even not money to buy merchandise. So, I went in the periphery of the city where some farms were installed and proposing them to come deliver fruits and veg to my store and nearby (I created for them a network of stores where they could deliver). Being attentive to details, I took the opportunity that I was localized closed of banks, pharmacies, shops, open market, and no restaurant for employees (back then fast foods channel was not developed). So as logistically with my hands I could buy only 50 breads/day I created “happy sandwich” brand advertised on A0 paper. For very long time even after we closed the business some people remember about my sandwiches and how I brought the first fast food concept in that neighbourhood.

In 4 months, I doubled the profit and pay all the debts. Most probably I couldn’t save my family business without the support of few farmers with big heart who allowed me to pay them later. Going to their farms every Sunday during that summer and viewing how hard is to be a grower I made them the promise that one day “when I’ll grow-up” I will help them.

Few months later when my dad recovered from hospital and took back the business, it was too late to go at Polytechnic because the exam period was over but also as I made a new promise to support those who are feeding the world, I enrolled to agronomic university to become engineer.

If you worked with me and if you judged that I’m too emotional (or why do I care), you do know now one of my life stories and the promise I made when I enrolled the corporate world “the day when I’ll be forced to do more politics than agriculture (e.g. saving others carriers and egos without caring on ?grower needs), then I will have to quit the company”.

Emotions might not be good for business, but without them I couldn’t stand up after each battle or learn resilience and definitively I wouldn’t be where I am today. ?

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The long extra miles who brought me to create TaSuVal

Few years ago, I started to invest in pharma start-ups, and I was investigating opportunities to invest in Ag-business. I asked one of my former mentors (one of the very few brilliants’ people I ever met and luckily for the company he’s still the head of one of the most important departments) if he will have a choice to invest in Ag-business what he will choose between digital-Ag, seeds business and biologicals. My question had behind robust business cases and examples, but he even didn’t want to look at them. His answer was literally just one word: “people”. Like always he was letting me to find myself a more developed answer. And I did it. I remembered one of his advice 10 years ago when he became my first mentor “observe, listen and be happy” and a remark he made “if you deliver so well with excellent results in a role where you’re not happy, I’m curious to see how you deliver when you are happy”. So, few years ago when a leader I want to help told me “stop in carrying too much, I’m a big boy and I can handle it”, I decided whenever was possible to go into invisible mode, observing deeper and analysing each decision and how I would have done it differently. I hand up having my own fish bone deep analysis with root-cause-effect and anticipating next failure or small success of the team or himself as a leader. This type of “game analysis” I was doing on the top of my job which became too boring after I delivered everything planned but much faster and also because was a way for me to stand up in front of bulling. Becoming a better observer and listener than I thought, I hand up in giving a kind of consultancy to colleagues in other teams and understanding the reasons why they are not happy and why the company was losing so many talents or why agreed strategies fail to be implemented or what makes a poor execution. Every time when the company was losing a talent and in most cases I knew the real reason, I told them to our last lunch or coffee “One day I will need people like you; I don’t know yet how, but I promise you that one day we will work again together”. Arriving home I was writing down on my secret VIP agenda their name, their strength and the most important, the value I was seeing in them.

One day, being on a start-up pitch in the role of investor I really had difficulties to make a choice. I forced myself to not look on the numbers, market needs and their solutions. I had the words of my mentor in mind “people”. Meanwhile I was struggling to understand what he wanted to say by that, I had a flashback of a senior colleague with whom I worked many years, and while I was suffering due to a certain context, he told me “I know you can move the mountains for the team if you want; if you go down the entire team will go down”, then an avalanche of flashbacks came and words such “I know who you are, the brand you build and what you can deliver but from now on you’ll need to do politics and …..”. Instantly I remembered some talents who left the company and the entire dynamics or strategy failed. I understood that what keeps a business to be successful, is not only the business case, but rather people who make things happen, who never give up no matter how difficult it is. If you have strong human values behind and you know what you fight for, you can re-born from own ashes.

While I was talking with a friend, head of a big department, that I’m considering leaving one day, I asked him honest feedback on my strengths and weaknesses. He told me what one of my former boss who left at retirement told him about me “she’s the best I have in my big team, but she’s a wild animal which you can’t tame her” and he made me realise why often I was putted in challenges roles or extra missions on the top: they needed someone with strong planning and execution skills, ready to deliver in no matter what difficult the context is.

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The day when you say “that’s it” and add the last bricks of the puzzle

Most probably one day I’ll write a book about it, with learnings on how to create a real intrapreneur environment. Until then I know I will never forget the words of a leader “we don’t need brilliant people on what, we need rather mediocre and perfect on the what and politics….” . I did exactly the opposite, searching for the most brilliant people in the company until arriving to various head levels who accepted “under-covered” to be my investors.

The celebration of my decade in the company was exactly when I organized a launch event for one of the most important digital services in Europe, for which I was in the roe of Business Development and Project Manager. The great results and recognition I received made me feel that I had the big cards in my hands and ready for the next jump. So, I was determined to pitch my business idea to those under-covered investors, thinking “either they will invest in me to stay, either they will invest in me to leave”. In both cases, failure was not in my vocabulary, and as result I left with the support of great investors and mentors for my business.

I was pithing dozen times and every time I received strong feedback such as “you’re a networker at heart…”, “passionate by life science and in general you put passion in everything you touch”, “Creativity / Execution is your 2nd name, make a strength out of it”. So I could finally shape the business to put in front of my trademark already registered.

“Your brand is your identity”

Following the words of a friend, founder of one of the most successful branding company, “your brand is your identity”, TaSuVal represents for me everything I achieved despite a hard past, the human value and the business value I can bring to my clients and business partners. ?To make sure that I can reflect myself in my trademark, not just that I draw the logo but even the first two-in-one letters is part of my real name signature.

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A dream without execution is just a dream….

The current shape of TaSuVal and pack offers, is just the 1st phase of a bigger dream (vision).

If you want to join me and my partners, don’t forget… I’m always in search for talented people with high professional skills and big values behind!

www.tasuval.com