With his round eyes and his youthful air, Thibault Barthez inspires frank sympathy. The entrepreneur has just descended from the stage of the Tremplin Invest Finals organized during the first edition of Global Sports Week in Paris, and the adrenaline still speaks his words: "Three minutes in English is not an easy exercise , but it went well in front of an audience that included a lot of potential investors. I was there for that. I feel very good after presenting my project to them… ”
Clearance
Originally from the South of France, Thibault Barthez heads a start-up of six people based in Montpellier, followed by the agency Ad'Occ Sport and the BIC, the world's third incubator. The project of this young business owner is simple: to offer a destocking platform to sports stores that have not started their digital transformation.
"I believe in my project deep down," he explains, "because the idea comes from my old job: I was a salesperson in the sports sector. I visited at least seven points of sale each day when I heard the same speech: “We have too many products in reference and we do not know what to do with them. If in five years we are not on the internet, we are dead! "
Thibault Barthez therefore created MySportMarket, which was spotted by Charles Frémont and the members of the Tremplin during the Ad'Occ Summit Occitanie, a Sports Tech event organized in Font-Romeu, every year. Loaded with meaning, MySportMarket sticks right on top of the times.
"Often, the only solution available to stores for destocking is to throw or burn the products"
"Often, the only solution available to stores for destocking is to throw or burn the products" notes Thibault Barthez, who "saw it with his own eyes". Radical solutions that led him to say that this could not continue. The young thirty-something no longer wants this world. He therefore had the idea of creating a tool to save products and sell them online without it being, for traders, a change of profession.
“On our platform, we will find excellent quality products, very often new. Bikes, skis, running shoes ... These are not damaged or poor quality products, but just products that have not found takers in the physical network. »Today, MySportMarket already offers more than 7000 products and has around fifty partners. "At one point," says his creator, "everyone must also question their buying motivations. Is it always necessary to look at only recent products for a question of personal image? Or can we spend less money on an equivalent, less recent product? "
Renewed values
Questions that suggest a new mode of consumption and speak to a generation in search of renewed values. Why is MySportMarket a start-up that will work?
"First because it is focused on stores," says its founder, pragmatic. They have no solution. Our big asset is the anti-waste law that has just been passed. It is now prohibited to throw away, waste or dispose of products. All this will be punished with very large fines. If a small store is convinced of waste, the penalty will be so heavy that it may cause it to close. "
A favorable context, therefore, for the implementation of a clearance sale solution such as that proposed by Thibault Barthez, who is now looking for an investor to develop his platform and make it available to a network he knows by heart.
Business Angels
For 2020, the MySportMarket business plan expects € 500K to take full advantage. Against 20% of the capital. If "business angels" are welcome in order to favor feedback and the network, Thibault Barthez is ready to study venture capital investment fund proposals.
“We need to take strong positions before the end of the year. We must not delude ourselves, it is an arms race. Others will have the same desire in 2020. We want to focus on the French market. We give ourselves a year and a half then to deploy in other countries. "
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