Being an entrepreneur at IMHI: Cocotte, la bière pensée par les femmes

By Marion Neveu, MBA in Hospitality Management, France, 2013-2015 2nd Year

“Winners never quit and quitters never win.”- Vince Lombardi

Camille and Clara are two young women willing to launch their company. They decided to create a new beer, called Cocotte, the first French brand of beer entirely rethought by women. 

Hello Camille and Clara, I would like you to share your entrepreneurship experience with us. I am aware that you presented your concept for the first time in the Business Plan Construction Class in December with Professor Hamid Bouchiki:

First of all, can you please introduce yourself? 

We are lifelong friends and we’ve known each other since we were children. Clara, recently graduated from a Master’s degree in general private law, and finished her internship at Louis Vuitton as a jurist, while Camille is still a studying at ESSEC, finishing her 2nd year at IMHI (MBA in Hospitality Management).  We are both passionate about entrepreneurship and food.


Can you explain how this idea of a new beer came up?

It’s quite simple, we realized that in France today, beer is 'a man’s business'. The massive perception of drinking a beer is incredibly masculine, not only in terms of packaging, or communication but also recipes. 

So our idea was to rethink everything about beers, and create a brand with a unique style and personality: this is how COCOTTE was born.

Can you tell us in details what is your concept?

Our brand relies on three important aspects: Our unique recipes, the valorization of our product that it is 100% French and the personality of our brand, which is everything from our design, to our packaging but also our communication and distribution. But the heart of our concept is the idea of rethinking entirely a generally masculine perceived product such as the beer, and offer a new perception and a new way of consumption for this product. 

However, the fact that our beer is imagined by women does not necessarily mean that it’s reserved for them. We believe that a beer thought by women can be truly appreciated by men, and bring an added value to their consumption. After all, women bring a lot to men … so why not beers? (Laughs)

How is ESSEC providing you with the support you need to get your business up and running?

We’ve just started the incubator of ESSEC Ventures in January, which has provided us with an office on the campus with sessions of coaching and daily support. The second great asset that we have benefited from is the network: we’ve been meeting many entrepreneurs since the beginning of our project, and through that network we’ve also met our mentor: Viviane de Beaufort, pioneer and specialist in “woman entrepreneurship”

Camille, how has the knowledge and experience that you've gained at ESSEC helped you launch this business?    

The idea of this project started in our minds last summer, so when I came back on the campus in September, I decided to take courses which the project and myself could benefit from. For instance: the Business Plan construction course with M. Hamid Bouchikhi, was perfect for us: it gave us a structure, a support and timetable to realize our business plan in three months. 

Thank you for your time.