Michael Schwartz (H.10), 37, is a social entrepreneur who specialized in creating third places. After La Cordée, a successful co-working business in France, he fell in love with Montreal, where he created Les Affûtés, a project to reconnect with manual skills. He just won an HEC Mercure Award for his vision.

 

How did your entrepreneurial journey start?

When I was at HEC, my dream was to travel. After I graduated from the entrepreneur major, I went to Brazil to create a subsidiary for a small French company. There, I discovered that I had a really high ethical threshold. Now impact entrepreneurship is really a big thing but ten years ago, I was one of the few being obsessed with it. What are my values? What impact do we have on the world? Even working for small companies, I did not always feel good with the decision people wanted me to take. I thought: either I stay here and I’m going crazy or I build my own company.

I spoke with Julie Pouliquen (H.11) and we discovered we were a great match to run a project in the co-working business because we saw that isolation and loneliness was a big problem in France and in Europe at the time. I was 24. La Cordée was the first company I created. And I never went back because I loved it.

 

What is your vision of entrepreneurship?

Some people are really good at scaling up a company. I thrive in uncertainty, at the beginnings when you don’t know which way you have to go. This is the moment where I feel alive. When I was at the heading of La Cordée when I created a yoga studio inspired by what I saw in Montreal. I realized I really like having several companies at the same time. I moved to Canada in 2018 and created a first company, a second one, and now I’m about to create a third one. Being able to move all the time between different projects makes me more inspiring to others because I come with a lot better ideas.

An entrepreneur for me is somebody who is here to give energy to other and to inspire, but inspire is to come all the time with great new ideas. And before that, entrepreneurship is really the best way to have an impact on the world. In my view, when you do HEC, you have the right to travel, do interesting things, enrich ourselves, but you also have duties. If we don’t change things around us, no one does. The spirit of entrepreneurship is being able to change the world in the most efficient way possible.

 

Does the idea behind Les Affûtés, your DIY workshops business in Montreal, come from a personal experience?  

Les Affutés means « the sharpened » in English and is about rediscovering manual skills. Being able to make and repair things : woodwork, bicycle, sewing… It’s about fighting against consumerism. In my vision, you get attached to what that you build and you keep it for a lifetime. We are a B -Corp company, we survey the impact we have on people and we see that they change their habits ! That’s incredible to be able to do that. When I was heading La Cordée and creating the yoga studio on the side, I took every Friday morning off to learn woodwork because I wanted to feel like a beginner again. I didn’t like the expert role I had in La Cordée.

I felt so empowered by the experience of building things for myself. I am able to build toys for my young daughter. We are all the time with our smartphone and our laptops and we we feel insecure because if our t-shirt has got a hole in it or if our table breaks, we feel bad, we feel clueless. And it gives you a kind of small despair. If you can do anything with your hands, repairing my bike or growing plants, it gives you such self-confidence. I want to create a space where everybody feels welcome, even beginner who don’t know how to use a drill.

The demand was here right away. It goes far beyond our generation. A lot of older people are really happy because they felt shameful not to be able make things by themselves. 70% of people who come are women. We have specific projects with homeless people or autistic people. We work with schools, libraries,  and just had this partnership with a museum to organize workshops alongside an exposition. It’s really fun.

A workshop at Les Affûtés in Montreal.

 

Now with Conexa you help entrepreneurs like yourself settling down in Canada…

You know this famous Steve Jobs talk about connecting the dots? When you do things and you don’t exactly know why? [laughs]

Many people helped me when I settled here or when I arrived in Brazil and I’m so happy to be able to help others myself. There is a great entrepreneurial program that traditional immigration consultants don’t know. Entrepreneurs come here with a study permit, which is a shame. Also, many individuals are mistreated in Europe, in Africa, in Asia, because of race, or gender and they are so welcomed here.

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