Katia Santoro
Member of Réseau Entreprendre
Midi-Pyrénées
Réseau Entreprendre offers comprehensive, free and long-term mentoring to all entrepreneurs and at every stage of business development.
Entrepreneurs say this out loud: You need help when starting up, boosting and developing a business
Working with others breaks you out of your isolation, lets you talk about your project, identify business opportunities, build up contacts, and open up financing opportunities.
Providing support from business heads is in the very DNA of Réseau Entreprendre. It has a network of 7,000 entrepreneurs offering personal, ongoing mentoring to startups and takeovers.
Mentoring is a success factor. For proof, look no further than longstanding businesses such as O2, Michel & Augustin, My Little Paris, and Sushi Daily, just some of the 10,000 “Laureats” who have benefited from Réseau Entreprendre mentoring since its founding.
You need to pass several selection stages to become a “Réseau Entreprendre Laureat” and be mentored by the network:
With full confidentiality, the Réseau Entreprendre association in your region reviews the merits of your project, based on the application submitted by the project owner (explaining his/her personal reasons, along with a CV, a project summary, the concept, the market, and the financial challenges).
A project officer or the director of the Réseau Entreprendre association in your region welcomes you and explains the association’s values and the human and financial support it provides.
Before it is submitted to the Commitments Committee, made of entrepreneurs in your region and members of Réseau Entreprendre, advise you on consolidating and strengthening your proposal.
Depending on how far your proposal has progressed, this takes a further 2 to 6 months work before your proposal can be submitted to the Commitments Committee.
The Commitments Committee consists of 10 entrepreneurs who will review person-to-project suitability, its realistic chances for success, the project goals, and the desire to incorporate Réseau Entreprendre resources.
The project owner delivers a pitch to the Commitments Committee. This is the Committee that will have to unanimously approve the decision to support your project. If successful, you become a “Réseau Entreprendre Laureat” (meaning you meaning you’ll be given a mentor to help your find the right solutions, obtain honour-loans, and have a signed agreement).
